Welbi ‘Round the World

Japanese Marketing (unfortunate)

I’m pretty sure the guy up on the corner is as freaked out by that kid as I am.

2009 – What a year you have been?

I spent a couple hours late last night (or early this morning) thinking about this past year.  Yea, jet lag still sucks.

What will I remember about 2009 for years to come?

It got me thinking of past years and what I remembered about them.

• 2008 – The Year of Autism.  I have thought about this year, and I couldn’t come up with anything.  Then it struck me.  This is the year that I was convinced that Tess was autistic, and we would have to move back to the States to get services for her.  She didn’t talk to us or understand us until after she was two.  She turned on after her second birthday, and, luckily, all is well now, but that was a long, bleak year that I would prefer to forget.
  

• 2007 – The Year of Japan.  We spent the first part preparing for our move, and Todd rapidly learned Japanese.  Then we spent the last couple months of the year getting used to Japan.

• 2006 – The Year of Tess.  I spent most of this year pregnant with or focusing on a newborn Tess.

• 2005 – The Year of Depression.  I spent the first several months suffering from severe postpartum depression and the last several months getting therapy.  Finally, finishing the year accepting the fact that I could be good enough at something and not perfect!

• 2004 – The Year of Riley.  I spent most of this year pregnant with Riley.
  

• 2003 – The Year of Trying To Conceive (TTC).  Yea, that was fun.  Then it wasn’t, and then I started charting.  Then we stopped trying, and then I was a wreck! Damn you Depo Provera and your lasting power.

• 2002 – The Year of Going Overseas.  Culture shock and travel.  The worst and best parts of living overseas.  In Peru, there were also in-house massages and maids, too.  Ahhhhhh, how I miss you.
  

• 2001 – The Year of Being a Teacher.  This was my second year of being a teacher, and I didn’t feel like such a fraud.

• 2000 – The Year of OMG, I Am A Teacher and A US Citizen.  In the same week in August, I started teaching and got my citizenship.  Yea, that was crazy!

• 1999 – The Year of Getting Married. We got married.  It was beautiful.

• 1998 – The Year I Graduated College.  I had a horrible kidney infection, but no insurance because I just graduated, and my first job didn’t cover me.  I was a teaching assistant at a Nature Center.   I ended up drugging myself with Dayquil to get through the ceremony.  That night there were so many people sleeping in my apartment, and I was running a huge fever.  When we woke up the next morning, Andrew Leeper, bless his heart, said it was like the Titanic.  I keep saying in my sleep, “I am soooo cold.”

• 1997 – The Year I Turned 21. Love you Nicole, that was a crazy night on Northgate.

• 1996 – The Year of Todd. Todd and I first started dating on December 28, 1995, so during 1996 very little existed in the world that I cared about besides him.  Even $600 phone bills (between the two of us) seemed insignificant to me – not so much to my parents.

That’s pretty much as far as I got.  Before that there are some important years, but nothing hugely significant.

So what would I say about 2009?  I am thinking it was The Year Of No More Babies.  There are no more diapers (during the day), there are no more bottles, there are no more cribs.  They are both in school.   Yay!  I am pleased to say there will be no more babies in the Welbi household.  We are already slightly outmatched.

A Thanksgiving Message from Tess

In Tess’s pre-school class, the teachers often ask questions and transcribe the kids’ answers. On their recent day devoted to American Thanksgiving, Tess reminded us all not to forget the little things:

4th of July Observed

Today we (Todd, Riley, Tess, I, and our friend Debbie) celebrated the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence at the Kobe Club.  It is a nice expat club at the base of the mountains.  We had all you can eat BBQ, and they had a kiddie pool.

The first thing we did was put the kids in the pool.  Wow, was that a mistake!  Before I had a chance to run down to the locker rooms and put on my suit, Tess had slipped and fallen in over her head.  I raced in with shoes still on.  She was freaked out a little, but she was back in the game within seconds.  I was soaked, and I put Todd on Tess duty and went to change, but before I could leave, she slipped and fell in again.  Again, she was up and back in the pool almost immediately.

I have to admit – it was not her.  The floor of the pool was very slippery.  Todd slipped and almost fell in.  I slipped and fell while carrying Tess and banged my elbow good.  We’ve iced it all day, and I can still move it. But if anything touches it, I scream bloody murder.

But besides all of the falling and slipping, the BBQ was great.  The company was outstanding.  Tess had a blast, slept for an hour, and woke up in a great mood ready for more.  She really wanted to go into the big pool!  She is fearless.  Riley was excellent.  She swam, had her first Shirley Temple, ate BBQ, ate chocolate cake, played with other kids, and shared her toys.  Stellar afternoon!

Tomorrow Todd starts his language lessons.  He studied the first nine lessons by himself, so he could place out of the basic stuff.  He took his placement test on Friday and scored an 82%, which means that he will be in Level 2, which makes Todd very happy.  He actually took the test in hiragana, and most people take in romaji, so he is pretty much a bad ass.  For those of you who don’t know, Japanese has three different alphabets.  Kanji are 2000 characters from China.  Each character has its own sound and meaning.  Katakana are the symbols that are used to write (or draw) foreign words.  Each symbol represents a sound.  The hiragana are symbols that represents sounds that are Japanese words.  Romaji is using roman letters to spell out Japanese words.  So learning Japanese using romaji is the easy way out.

We did take a camera, but that just did not happen today.  Maybe next time.

More Pictures

Todd and I were recently interviewed for a video that our school is putting together.  The person making that video also wanted some footage (video and photos) of a staff apartment.  School had already let out, so most people had left the city, if not the country.  We offered our place.  It was incredibly stupid of us as we had just given up full time nanny/cleaning help.  So we madly cleaned, and here are the photos of our place.  It is shocking small, but at the same time, we love its coziness and love how much freedom the girls have in the house.

Also, here are some photos of the girls playing around the house and around the island.  They especially love their new couch, which was a generous gift from Lucas who happened to be moving to Spain and could not take it with him.  Thanks, Laura.

You can tell from the photos that Tess really needs a haircut, but Riley still hasn’t had one, but she still barely has any hair.  I think they will definitely both get a haircut sometime this summer, but I am going to give it a little more time to really get shaggy (Tess) and to cover her scalp (Riley).

Ok, photos are back online.

Wow!  I cannot tell you how close I came to shutting down the welbes.net website.  When Todd was trying to move our photos over to our new site, he encountered many problems.   At one point it looked like we would have to reupload all of our photos, which I was not willing to do. Today, after many attempts, our gallery works, and I didn’t have to reupload any photos.  So please go see these cute photos of the girls when we went to visit Kachoen, a bird and plant sanctuary, on a nearby island.

I am going to upload more photos of the girls around the house soon.

**Note: Most photos have captions, but they don’t show in the thumbnail view (for now).  So you have to click on the thumbnail to see the bigger image and the caption.

It has been so long since we last…talked?

After talking with Todd, I have begun to realize that our new site is really only half constructed.  He still has a lot of tweaking to do, and our gallery photo albums are not yet linked to our website.  There are there in the background waiting to be linked to, or so Todd promises.  As soon as they are up and going, I have photos from a botanical garden we visited and lots of pictures of girls playing around the house.

Todd and I finished the year with an explosion of activity on Friday, June 13, and then we both started teaching summer school on Monday, June 16.

Really, life as we have known it for the last 3.5 years ended for us on the 13th of June.  That was our last day in nannydom.  It was sad, but not too sad.  We are having them come in and clean for a couple of hours a week, but for the most part, Todd and I are doing a fantastic job of keeping the place in order.

As far as the kiddos are concerned, Todd and I are in heaven.  Todd teaches the morning summer school session from 9am to 11:30am while I watch the girls.  Then we have lunch together as a family, which is always a blast.  From 12:30 to 3pm Todd takes over with the girls while I teach my afternoon summer school session of middle school math.  We both get to spend time with the girls, and we both get to work a little at relatively stress free jobs.  We are both trying to figure out how we can swing this into a full time job with benefits.

On top of this, the girls go to preschool twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays.  So twice a week, Todd and I both have 1.5 hours off to do what we want.  Todd has been trying to finish distributing yearbooks while I went and had a 30 minute back massage today.

We finish with summer school on the 27th of June, and then we have about 10 days where we are both off with the girls.  Then on the 7th of July Todd starts Japanese classes Monday through Friday from 9-12 until August 1st.  Then we have until the 18th of August before we have to return to work.  We have been trying to rent a lake house in Northern Japan, but so far no luck!

The weather here has been amazing.  The temperatures top out between 75 and 80 during the day, and they drop down into the 60s at night.

Last week we swam in the river 4 times, in the morning, after preschool, and once in the evening.  Todd and I even managed to drink a beer and relax a little as well.   Tess is quite a runner, so one of us is usually chasing her.  During all of this chaos, Riley manages to make friends with every Japanese person who passes by.

So far it has been a great summer, but I am sure it will only get better as the school year drifts away into a distant memory, and we get used to napping during the day.  My mom and Maurizio come to visit at the end of July, so we are in the middle of our spending spree, which will then be sent and/or packed and brought to us.  There are goodies for all of us, and the obigatory drugstore.com shipment.  (Have I mentioned that you cannot by medicine over the counter here easily, especially not children’s ibuprofen?  So we have a quite a store of meds on hand if anyone requires a painkiller.)

We bought a Wii, some games – including the Wii Fit and Mario Kart!  That was supposed by my birthday present, and Todd was supposed to get the iphone, which is coming to Japan on July 11th, but now he has decided to NOT get the iphone, and so the Wii is both of our birthday presents now.  I also splurged at Hanna Andersson for the girls and Harold Powell for me.  I bought matching backpack, lunchboxes, and water bottle holders for the girls for when they start school in August.  We also got Riley a new board game, and both of girls will enjoy the Curious George DVDs.  I love having Christmas in July.

Which reminds me… Riley said the most hilarious thing this morning.  For her birthday in December I put up heart balloons for decorations.  Most of them came down that afternoon and soon lost their air and went into the trash.  However, there was one balloon that was tied to our A/C unit above the TV.  It was in such an awkward place that I never bothered to take it down after the air left the balloon, and it has been hanging there since December.  This past weekend Todd finally put it out of its misery and cut it down.  Now the funny part.  Riley is talking to me about something this morning, and then she looks over at the TV, and gasps – loudly.  She asks, “Where is party?  My party is all done until I am 4.”  First of all, she noticed that we cut down the balloon, and secondly, she remembered it was from her birthday.  And finally, she thought that her party had just then ended after six months because we cut down the last balloon.  Todd had already left for work, so I had to call him and tell him.  We both agreed – Riley is crazy.

So we had Tess’s hearing tested in early June, and we will meet with the doctor on the 30th to discuss the results.  She is saying many more words, which means that she might have 10.  You can ask if she wants things, and she will clearly say “NO!”, or if she does want it, she signs the word “please”.  She also signs “more”, but usually uses it to ask for us to read her a story over and over again.  She uses it for more tickles and hugs now that I think of it.  She still isn’t pointing to body parts or pictures in stories, but Todd and I have noticed that she is much more aware of the language that is around her.  Our fingers are crossed that she JUST has a language delay, and that it is just a matter of time before she catches up with her age group.  We will know more after our doctor’s appointment.

I think that is all of the major news for now.  I would love to hear from everybody and see how their summer is going.  Also, we are ready to plan next school year’s trips.  So book now.  Vicky and Dan are thinking about coming for our spring break, but fall break is open (and it is a GORGEOUS time to be in Japan).  We are headed back to the States for 3 weeks at Christmas, but let us know if you have a hankering to see Japan.

ELAC and Tex-Mex

Although Riley hasn’t been officially accepted yet, I wanted to share photos of her new school.  It is actually Tess’s new school as well because there will be a 2 year old program in the building, too.  The building is officially known as the ELAC.  Unfortunately, I did not take these photos. A professional photographer took them, and the school shared them on their website.

Todd and I ventured into Osaka to eat Tex-Mex food for our anniversary last night.  We found it with almost no help, and it was fantastic!  The salsa, the guacamole, the chips, the burritos, and the chimicangas were delicious.  It has been 9 months since we had restaurant cooked Tex-Mex, and we both spent the evening constantly giving each other high fives for making the 3 hour round trip to eat at the restaurant.  It was worth every second.  And I bought a pair of sunglasses that I have been desperate for.  Happy Anniversary to me!

Interviewed and Entertained

Wednesday after school Wilma, one of our nannies, brought the girls to school to the aquarium in the new ELAC building (Early Learning and Activity Center).  Tess and Wilma went to play in the orange playground (as Riley calls it), and Riley and I went in for her interview.  Well, first, we went to the bathroom because I am no idiot, and the worst thing that can happen during a preschool interview is for the interviewee (Riley – not me) to pee on the floor.  Then we went and checked out a book from the ELAC library, which Riley feel instantly in love with.

When we entered the classrroom, Riley was attached to my hip, but she let Mrs. Labreque read her a book, and the real play began.  The elementary school prinicpal, Matt, and I chatted about Riley while she played.  He asked things like: what does she like to do, is she potty trained, does she take naps, what should the school know about her.  The hour flew by.  At one point Jon had a little break and asked Riley if she wanted to play, and she declined, which I thought was hilarious.  So then we cleaned up and went home.

Riley now asks to play with Mrs. Labreque all of the time, and on Thursday I was riding my bike past the school, and she was in the kiddie seat behind me, and she screamed “Look mommy.  It’s my new school!”  My heart almost broke from the cuteness of it all.

This past Friday we went to see a comedian perform at the Kobe Club, an old style social club, situated at the foot of the mountains.  The comedian was the brother of a parent of Canadian Academy and was here to visit his sister.  She convinced him to perform for a small group of about 50-100 people.  The set was just about an hour, but it was a fantastic hour.  He was hilarious.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.  Everyone left saying that they wished there were more events like this.

Speaking of funny, Todd just finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and he just passed it along to me.  It is about 8 years old, but everyone should read this book.  The middle kind of drags, but throughout the book there are funniest scenes.  I wanted to quote part of the book on this blog entry, but Todd, with his position of editor, vetoed it.  When or if you read this book, the part about Christmas is the funniest thing you will have ever read.  I cannot even think about it without giggling hysterically.

It’s midnight, and I am off to bed.  There is a great rain storm tonight, and I love falling asleep to the sound of rain.

Gion

So we went with about 16 other people to tour the Gion District at night in Kyoto.  Wow!  What a cool trip! We ended up going with several people we knew from our trip to see Sumo Wrestling.

We started the trip by finding out that our good camera’s battery was dead, so we had to take the not-so-good camera.  The shots are blurry, and Todd will complain, but I will post them anyway, and you can imagine what they would have looked like with our better camera.

The actual tour began in front of an old Kabuki theater.  Then we walked for an hour and a half through the Gion district.  The district is filled with boardinghouses, which is where the maiko (newly geisha) and geisha live.  Also there are tons of tea houses where people drink tea and are entertained by geisha.  Most of the establishments are private, which means that you cannot walk in off of the street.  You must know someone who is a member, and then you will be invited in.

We saw several geisha and maiko who were dressed up coming back from and going to jobs.   They start their career at 15, and then they train for one year.  Then they become maikos and are bound for 5 years to their boardinghouse, which provides them meals, kimono, and jobs.  Then they become geisha, and they have more independence.

Towards the end of the walking tour we made our way through a Zen temple complex that is open 24 hours a day.  It was beautiful, spooky, and enchanting all at the same time.  The moon was almost full, which I think added to the overall feeling.

We ended the night at a traditional Japanese restaurant.  Two maikos joined us and talked to each of us with their halting English.  I didn’t really know what to say, so the night Swiss woman to my right helped me out quite a bit.  Then both girls performed a dance.  Todd caught a snipet of it here.

Then we were offered a ride home by the French/Swiss couple who both work at Nestle.  It was great to be in a car again, but I gave wrong directions on how to get to our house!  Luckily, I caught my mistake quickly.  Things look very different from inside a car than they do when you are walking!

All in all, it was spectacular evening.

Let us not forget the children. Here are a couple of photos, and a video of Todd and Riley cooking breakfast with a little of Tess, too.