Montessori?

I have 3 very mobile and active toddlers. They are all extremely busy and life can be very chaotic. Most of our meals involved them asking for 8000 things and me running around trying to meet their needs. I would feed Logan a bite or two, give Mika more milk, get Kai some more cheerios, give Logan another bit to eat, get frustrated when an inevitable spill happened, clean it up, and then get something for someone else. Once breakfast was over, I would throw clothes on them and our day would begin. I would often run to the bathroom and hastily throw on some makeup worrying about what they were getting into during my absence.  I would swallow my coffee and a protein bar once we were all in the car. Just the beginning of my day had me frazzled. 

All day I would be putting out fires and taking care of their every need. I would get a break when all 3 went down for their afternoon nap and to be honest, I sometimes took a nap as well. 

I was walking through the mall last week and saw a book on display on having a Montessori-like home for toddlers. This books grabbed my attention immediately in the first chapter. Montessori encourages having a calm and simple home. Those are things my home desperately needed. Instead of trying to work around my kids and serve them, I would work with my kids. The goal is to teach them to be responsible and independent so they can take part in daily life. I was fascinated and decided to buy the book, and within a day I was shocked.

Montessori style meals alone made me a believer. This is life changing for me. Kai and Mika set the table and help me bring over the food to the table. I haven't mastered them preparing meals with me yet, which would be the Montessori way and I know they would love to. The thought of that still overwhelms me, but I will get there. Once we all sit down, they pour themselves milk from a pitcher and serve themselves with minimal help from me. I help Mika more than I help Kai and, of course, I still do a lot for Logan. They each have a wet rag at their seat for cleaning up little messes that occur with every meal.  It amazes me how willing they are to do this and how stress free meal time is for me now. After we are all done eating, they ask permission and then scrape any food scraps into the garbage and drop their dishes in the sink. 

WHAT! Are these my kids????? I'm literally blown away by this. I never ever would have thought that my kids could do that much during a meal. And happily. 

I am utterly amazed at what a 2 and a 3 year old are happy to do. I now have the bottom shelf of the refrigerator set up with water cups so they can go grab a sip whenever they want, and then put the cup back in the refrigerator. This might seem obvious and simple, but for the last few years I have had around 900000 cups spread around my house every day because they would ask me for water, couldn't find the cup they had been using, so I would grab them another one instead of taking the time to find their last cup. 

Before we started this, I would usually turn the TV on every evening to get the kids out of my hair just so I could clean the house. Now every evening we all do chores together. Mika and Kai take turns vacuuming. I have a lovely lightweight cordless vacuum and the kids LOVE to vacuum with it. They also enjoy washing the windows and wiping the table down. I usually still have to follow behind and finish up but as crazy as it sounds, it doesn’t feel like I'm just their mom slave cleaning up after them anymore. And since we are all participating in taking care of our home, everyone tries a little harder to keep it nice.

I have put away most of their toys and set out just a few activities and toys for them to play with at once. The rule is that they cannot start playing with a new toy until they have put away the current one. We are struggling a little bit with that, but I'm sure with consistency they will very much improve. I am still learning about what activities best encourage learning and fun. My goal is to rotate activities weekly so they never get boring, and the kids get excited seeing toys they haven't played with in a couple weeks. If they ask for a particular toy, I do bring it, but we have to put the other toys away. I'm sure my activities and play room will evolve a ton as I learn more about having a Montessori home. 

Less is more in the Montessori approach. I have always loved the idea of a minimalist type home where we don't own a huge amount of belongings. I truly believe that the more stuff you have, the more stress is built into your life. No matter how hard we try, we always accumulate more than we need. I'm excited at the prospect of paring down again.

I have gone kind of crazy trying to learn everything. I'm taking an online course, I've joined every facebook group I can find on the subject and I am pinteresting like a mad woman. The Montessori homes on pinterest are seriously goal homes. They are so beautiful and simple. I am intending to slowly go through my house and turn each room into a beautiful, simple space that my kids can participate in and help take care of.

Our Adoption Story....

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I really want to post about adoption. Obviously, adoption is very near and dear to my heart. For Rob and I, it was never a matter of 'if' we would adopt but rather 'when' we could adopt. It has been on our hearts to adopt one day since we became engaged. Nothing breaks my heart more than hearing about abandoned and hopeless kids. We knew that one day we would find a child and be able to provide a loving home that he or she wouldn't have otherwise had.

When we first moved to Japan, we didn't intend to start a family here. One of those "if it happens, then it happens" things.

We both fell in love with the Japanese culture as soon as we moved here. We love exploring and learning about this beautiful place. We have been 'attempting' to learn the language as well. Okinawans are some of the most gracious and kind people I have ever met. They are an impeccably polite and traditional people. One of the things that amazed me the most is how content people are. I remember tutoring a group of middle-aged businessmen in English. I asked them "if you could do any job, what would it be?" They were puzzled by my question. They said that they would work the job they were currently working (they were salesmen). I responded, "no, no, any job in the world. You could just pick up any job and be good at it, what would you do?" They looked at me like I was crazy. I finally asked "what did you want to be when you a child?" They responded again that they would be salesmen, because it was what their father did. I found this very different from the American ideal of trying to be better than your parents. Americans love an underdog that beats the odds and becomes so much more.  These gentlemen were very content with their lives and their jobs because that is what was expected of them.

The Japanese also value tradition, nature, and beauty so much. I love how they preserve beautiful waterfalls and how much they love to hike and walk. They honor their family for generations. They treat their elders very kindly and take care of them so differently than Americans tend to. They are so careful to preserve tradition. I think they have a wonderful way of living life.

However, Japanese have a very different view of orphans. I volunteered a few times at an orphanage and I started to do research on these adorable orphans and what I learned broke my heart. I wrote a post on this back in July, but I'll summarize because this influenced our decision to adopt.

There are about 40,000 orphans in Japan but only 9% ever get adopted. Japan does have some foster homes, but only 12% of those 40,000 orphans are in foster homes. Children in orphanages are destined to have a very challenging life; most orphans only get a junior high level education.
More importantly, the Japanese keep elaborate family records called a Koseki. In the Koseki, someone like an employer or potential spouse will look up a person's family history. Employers will not hire someone without a good family background. A child whose parent was a criminal is viewed as likely to be a criminal someday. A child who is an orphan is viewed as having irresponsible parents, and will likewise grow up to be irresponsible. For orphans, with their weak education and a bad family record, its almost impossible for them to succeed in life and will be mistreated, and may turn to crime or end up homeless.

Because family and bloodlines are such an important part of this society, adopting a child also has a stigma. It is viewed as strange and shameful. If a Japanese family adopts, the family will often move to a new city and tell their new neighbors that the adopted child is their own so that no one knows of the adoption.

Orphanages do their best to provide a caring environment for these kids. However, you can image how hard it is for these kids. They simply cannot get the care and love that every chid should have. They will be bullied and ignored.  Infants risk development delays and other stumbling blocks because of the nature of the homes. There just aren't enough workers to provide for all of their needs.

Knowing all of this, we started to do research on how to adopt from Japan. It is extremely difficult. There are very few agencies in the States that even attempt it. We talked to anyone that knew anything about Japanese adoption. I reached out to adoption social workers and kept probing. I'm not sure what drove us to search so hard and so far but we were driven to explore every option possible. We found at least one agency in Japan that did toddler adoptions, but we really wanted an infant for our first child so we kept digging. On a random facebook page, I found a post about a Japanese agency that might work with Americans. I hunted down their facebook page and website. It was all in Japanese, but I was encouraged when I found Bible verses on the very first page of their site. I sent them an email anyways hoping that maybe they spoke a little English.

They did speak English. About two weeks later, I received an email back and learned that there was a slight chance. We could do the homestudy and get the paperwork knowing that there was a good chance we wouldn't receive a child. We knew that it might not happen, but the 'maybe' was enough, so we chose to try. About a month after we finished our homestudy, I had a conversation with one of the ladies at the agency and was very discouraged with our chances of adoption. It would have to be a true orphan (no father in the picture), most likely a disability of some kind, and the mother must choose an international family, which is very rare in this culture.

Two weeks later, we received the call that we had been picked. A woman who had an extremely difficult life wanted her child to go to an American family. We were shocked and over the moon excited, but so surprised as well. It was a Christmas miracle for us. This baby had been conceived before I had even started to research Japanese adoption. God had handpicked this baby and directed us straight towards this child.

Kai was born three days after we learned about him. Because we knew the possibility of receiving a baby was so low, we had only told close family and friends. We hadn't purchased any furniture or read many books. I hadn't mentioned to any of my piano students that we were trying to adopt. It seemed like such a far away, impossible thing that I wasn't prepared.

After Kai was born, we had five days to prepare. We had crazy, awesome, fun shopping trips. People I barely knew showered us with gifts and helped us prepare. We were completely overwhelmed and blessed with the support we received from the military community. My friends dropped everything to celebrate and shop with me.

We flew to mainland Japan four days after Kai was born. We held our breath the entire next day waiting to hear if Kai's birth mom had signed the paperwork. We tried to go sightseeing, but I was so nervous we ended up sitting in a coffee shop for hours talking and praying. It was the longest day of our lives. Hearing that she signed and our baby was ours was the most exhilarating feeling of my life.

The next morning we went to the hospital to meet our son. I had never seen anything so beautiful and precious. My heart broke for his mother in that moment. I was so excited for Rob and I and so in love with Kai, but I wanted to cry for her. I can't imagine how impossibly hard it was to give up this perfect child. I can't imagine how brave and selfless and loving this woman is. She carried this adorable angel for nine months and then gave him to me. It would have been so easy for her to try to keep him, even though she wasn't able to care for him. The moment I met him, I loved him more than life. I can only imaging how she felt about him. I am so thankful for her sacrifice and I pray that she is at peace with it.

Kai. He was perfect. The moment when I first got to hold him was the best moment of my life. He became mine in that moment. He became my life. He became my baby. He became the one that I would do anything for. I had been so afraid that I wouldn't feel like a mom, that it would feel strange because I hadn't carried him.  From the first moment, Kai was my son and nothing could ever change that. I am Kai's mom. I fiercely fell in love with him.

We spent the next few days at a midwife's home learning how to care for our new baby. We learned about feeding, changing diapers, and giving baths. We played cards and talked about our new life. It was the best weekend we ever had. We enjoyed watching Kai and learning about him.

We flew back to Okinawa when Kai was eight days old. It was four days before Christmas and all we wanted to do was love on our perfect Christmas miracle. We spent Christmas playing games with our friends Amanda and Drew. It was simple and perfect. We relaxed and Kai was cuddled by all.

Since then, we have started the frustrating and long adoption process. We are getting paperwork translated. We are spending days writing legal forms in kanji. We are waiting for social workers and Japanese nurses to visit. We are trying to understand a legal system that is so different than our own. We are waiting on the agency in Tokyo to send us documents that we can't read. We are having moments of miscommunication with our agency. It can be so difficult and trying and frustrating. I cannot wait for the process to be over. However, I would do anything for Kai. I would go through all of this over and over for him. It doesn't matter what we have to do, we will do it for him.

Kai is now almost two months old. Being his momma is the best gift God has ever given me. I am so honored that we were chosen to raise this baby.

Japanese Orphans

Its been about 6 months since I've updated this blog. Since then I've fallen more and more in love with Japan and its culture. Rob and I have been taking Japanese language classes. It's such a hard language! We are determined to learn as much as we can while living here though. =)

I have had the honor of volunteering at a Japanese infant orphanage. The orphanage is a wonderful place. The workers take the best care they can for the babies and try to provide the best life for them. As a volunteer, my job is just to hold babies. Because they don't have parents in the traditional sense, these babies need all the snuggles and love they can get.
I was surprised one day to discover that some of these babies actually have parents that visit. I've done a little bit of research into these Japanese orphans.
My understanding is that there are about 40,000 children in Japanese orphanages. What struck me as even more surprising is that only about 9% ever get adopted. It turns out that most of the children in Japanese orphanages still have parents.
There is a stigma to adoption in Japan because of Koseki. Koseki is an elaborate record of every Japanese person's family history. If a child of a family is listed as having been given up for adoption, it potentially brings shame upon the family. Employers and potential spouses can look up these public records and would view this as a scandal within the family. Because of this, when a family gives up a child to an orphanage -  due to abuse, neglect, or a host of other reasons - they often don't put the child as available for adoption. If they don't sign the child away, there won't be a blight on their family's Koseki. Some families visit their children and try to help. Others, however, leave their child to be raised by the orphanage. Even if there is a documented history of abuse, families don't have to give up their rights to the child.
Because family and bloodlines are such an important part of this society, adopting a child also has a stigma. It is viewed as strange and shameful. If a Japanese family adopts, the family will often move to a new city and tell their new neighbors that the adopted child is their own so that no one knows of the adoption.
I think extremely high of the orphanage that I have volunteered at and I think the workers are amazing and are the doing the very best they can. Unfortunately, the nature of such an institution is flawed. Orphans are offered very little help throughout their lives. As they grow up, education becomes more difficult to attain. Without an education it is extremely difficult to succeed in Japan. When the orphan is a child of a criminal, potential employers look them up on the Koseki and will probably not hire them because of their family history.

I can't stress enough how wonderful my experience with the orphanage has been. I am, however, surprised at this kind of thinking in a culture I consider so progressive.

メリークリスマス

Merry Christmas!! メリークリスマス!! Actually, there is no Japanese word for Merry Christmas so that is the English expression written out in katakana. Katakana is one of the 3 written scripts of the Japanese language.  

This past week leading up to Christmas has been something of whirlwind. I've had an awesome time reconnecting with my friends that made it to the island before me. On Saturday, our friends, Tim and Megan, introduced us to a house cafe. I didn't take any pics because I'm not sure what the etiquette is concerning that. A house cafe is at someone's home. They make the food right in their kitchen and we ate in their dining room basically. My understanding is that some are more set up than others. At the one we went to, there were about 3 tables set up in the living room/dining area next to the kitchen. We had some options printed out on a menu and the Japanese lady pointed out the food on the menu that they were not offering that night. 

Omg. The food. So incredible. We get several different appetizers to split and each was amazing. We even ate whole shrimp (head, eyes, and body), and it was amazing. I have no idea how but even with the shell it was perfectly soft and delicious. Our meals were awesome wasabi pork and beef. It was probably some of the best food I have had in my life.

It turned out that Christmas was upon us this week. Crazy.We found a 7.5 foot fake Christmas tree on sale and it has has made the house feel so much more Christmasy.

I'm probably going to keep this tree up till mid January, just so it can feel like Christmas just a little longer.

Since I just got here 2 weeks ago, I haven't completely adjusted to the time of the year. Its been a nice week and it feels more like fall/summer than winter. In fact, we are enjoying our little convertible and the warm allows us to keep the top down.

Kit loves riding around with the top down! 

Christmas Eve was awesome. My friend, Megan and I (mostly Megan) made all these incredible foods. I went shopping at the Japanese grocery store to try to find all our ingredients. It was quite and adventure and took about forever to try to figure out what items were. I probably would have never been able to complete task if I didn't have Rob with me who was a huge help with his limited Japanese. I love shopping there. I feel like the vegetables, meat and fish are far more fresh than the commissary on base that is probably importing all our foods from the US. The fish selection is, of course, amazing here. There are so many varieties of fish and all look so good and fresh! I have no clue what 75% of it is, but i'm sure it is all delicious. One of my favorite parts of the store is that they have sushi and food fried with tempura that you can buy to take home and eat for dinner. Its like in the States how we have those counters where you can get chicken, potato salad, and whatnot for a quick dinner to take home. Its soooo good and fairly inexpensive too! It took about 2 hours, but I was able to dig up most of the ingredients we needed for our Christmas Eve party.

                        My favorite dish was kimbap, which is Korean dish very similar to sushi. 

Christmas day was fun but also little strange for me. It didn't really feel like Christmas without family. My gift for Rob is still traveling the oceans coming here so the gift part of the day was a little short. I got to Skype with my family back home (it was Christmas Eve for them) and it was so fun to chat for a little while. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with a bunch of other Marines and their families that night. It was so great to celebrate with our new Okinawa friends. We ended the night falling asleep watching Elf. Pretty great Christmas overall!

PS. Sorry boys, no dragon in this post. You guys need to find me a dragon that I can write about

The Land of the Kitties

I've been in Japan for almost a week and I am so in love with this place! I am never going to want to leave.
First of all, this is the land of cats. There are cat things everywhere. Cat faces on dishes, cat faces on shop windows, cat backpacks, bumper stickers, trinkets, clothes, shoes, toys, purses, bags, statues. Cats everywhere. And it is awesome. The Japanese love cats. They even have several legends about cats. One legend that I see evidence of everywhere is the Maneki Neko, which is a good luck cat. Supposedly, some cat waved a paw at a Japanese man and he walked towards it. Seconds later, a lighting bolt struck where the man had been. The legend stuck and since then, cats have been a good luck charm. Businesses have it in their shops to draw in money. The hand of the cat is beckoning customers to come inside.

Oh hi there!

Another amazing, wonderful thing about this place: cat cafes!!!! My friend, Alicia, introduced me to one. Basically, you pay for however long you want to spend with the cats and then you go sit on the floor with all the cats. This particular place probably had about 20 cats. They were so sweet and playful. They sat on our laps and we pet them and just hung out with them. 

These two kissing kitties were overlooking a view of the city and ocean. 

I was super obsessed with this cat. He had teeny short legs and tail, probably about half the size they should normally be. I could be wrong, but I think his breed was the elegant exotic shorthair or the mini munchkin. I've never seen one before and he was simply heart meltingly adorable. 

The cafe was perfectly set up for their little friends. They had cat runs and shelves above the customers so that if a cat wanted to be left alone and go above everyone he could. There was even a section in the back of the shop where the cats could go if they wanted to be left alone. There were boxes and scratch posts and spots all over for the kitties to hang out. There was even a heated section of the floor for the cats to sit on. So fun!

Jojo was not amused by my afternoon with her Japanese cousins. 

Reunited with my person!!!

I've arrived in Japan!!!!! Jojo (the kitty), Kit (the pup pup), and myself traveled a 5 day road trip to Seattle then hopped on a plane for about 20 hours and arrived in Okinawa. I had a mini heart attack when I was trying to check in for the plane because there was an issue with Jojo's carrier. After I started to panic (I'm pretty sure my heart just stopped) for about 30 seconds, the airline decided to let me bring her. After that, the flight was as easy as it could be! Jojo was the perfect companion in the cabin with me.  Kit showed up all the panicked, whining and barking dogs and was the perfect calm and quiet angel (extremely rare for him).

Today is my first full day in Japan.  Rob and I drove around in our little red sports car and explored a little bit.

Back together again!!!!!!!!!!

I got a new cell phone (a gold iphone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) It's the most beautiful phone ever. Just saying.

The base we are living on is basically right next door to an area off base called the American Village and we spent a few hours exploring it. We got some "American sushi" for lunch and, omg, do they know how to make sushi. Absolutely the best sushi I've ever had.

My view of the the American Village from the sushi restaurant. It is basically a tourist trap for Japanese and American tourists. Its full of department stores and stores similar to those in America but they all clearly have a Japanese influence. It was super fun to shop and explore. 

Christmas decorations inside the stores. The dragon has antlers in case you missed where the Christmas part is. There were some odd decorations. I think the freakiest one was some guy dressed in a panda santa claus suit. He followed us around for awhile and I was to scared to take a pic. He looked like some evil Japanese spirit more than a panda. 

We found the scariest pet in the pet store - a scarab beetle. Don't you want one in your house?

Habashu!!!!! This alcohol has a poisonous pit viper inside called habu. The alcohol dissolves the poison to make it nonpoisonous. Fun fact: supposedly this stuff is medicinal and it can give you immense energy and helps sexual dysfunction in men (go figure).

I'm too jetlagged to do anything else today. Ooo, we have the cutest Christmas decoration EVER. Rob had it out on our lawn to surprise me when I got in last night. 

It's Kit!!!!