Japan.

Having traveled Melbourne to Los Angeles with Benji early on which took about 15 hours, suddenly nine hours on then plane felt like a real breeze. Benji was for the most part pretty mellow and some lovely flight attendants helped to babysit him for a few minutes. We also got a proper bassinet this time and were able to get some relief for a few hours when he was asleep. Go Air Canada!
We are in Tokyo now. It’s my first time in this city and yes it is pretty darn cool.
Tokyo is about 16 hrs ahead of
Vancouver which means we are very jet lagged. And Benji’s a little confused about his sleeping time. Hopefully we will all be on track soon.

Blog Awards

Thank you to Discoveranddevour and Hnmom for once again separately bestowing upon me blog awards…! I feel honored. I truly enjoy I know I meant to be in on this whole blog award thing but somehow there is just not enough time in the day to even blog anymore let alone try to pass it on to other bloggers. Since both Benji and Bry are napping and I can’t really do much packing without waking them up, I’ll spend a few more minutes poking around the internet and actually answer some questions that were part of the one of the blog award’s “rules of acceptance.”

1. Describe yourself in seven words. 

I try to put others before me. (I think that’s 7 words?)

2. What keeps you up at night?

Like Oster’s mom, I pretty much pass out the minute my head touches the pillow.

3. Whom would you like to be?

Can’t think of someone in particular right now but I would like to have the qualities of probably 10 people I have read about or met.

4. What are you wearing now?

My PJ’s (it’s only 9am!!)

5. What scares you?

Reading the book of Revelations. And horror/thriller movies.

6. What are the best and worst things about blogging?

The best – meeting other parents and learning about how they handle situations/reading about their recommended books/toys/parenting styles…

the worst – privacy issues, not having enough time to keep up with blogging, and not spending enough time to edit my writing resulting in a page full of grammatical errors.

7. What was the last website you looked at?

Facebook.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?

To have more faith when gnarly situations come up that things will be okay.

9. Slankets, yes or no?

Yes, por favor!

10. Tell us something about the person who nominated you.

Both Discoveranddevour and Hnmom blog about interesting topics and have inspiring reads. I especially love Discoveranddevour’s book recs and Hnmom’s reflections on bringing up her kiddo. I could write a whole lot more about their posts but my baby is up and screaming for attention so I gotta go but do check out their blogs for great reads!!

Hanging out

Besides packing up n getting ready to leave town, we were busy hosting a bunch of visitors this past week. One of the visiting families stayed with us and while it was pretty chaotic n hectic, it was also super fun. Thanks for the visit, guys. Missing all the action and cuteness already! But yes I’m now ready to crash and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Challenges and treats

This was where we spent last Saturday: at the Kits Beach. The Kits pool also opened for the summer session that day and my gosh is that pool huge.

We have been extremely busy wrapping up our stay here. On the weekend we also had friends over for dinner, and this week is full of hosting friends from the US. We have about 10 days left in this town. Have I already mentioned how sad I am to leave??

Anyway…so the topic at last week’s mother’s group was about taking care of ourselves. And the questions posed to us to share were: what is one big challenge you’ve faced since becoming a mom and what is one thing you do to take care of you. I was floored by how many women found breastfeeding challenging. Sure they were of varying degrees of challenges some has full on thrush and mastitis and some cracked nipples…some shared their disappointment with being unable to breastfeed. I feel like we have become so obsessed with this issue and more and more so in recent years.

I also shared other challenges I think for me aside from breastfeeding, my biggest one was watching benji go through the weepy stage of eczema and feeling helpless when I couldn’t do anything to alleviate his itch.

Other challenges will also be rebuilding my relationship with Bry (and yes sex included. I won’t lie but shan’ elaborate further too but it’s been challenging. Am I the only one?) finding time to read and be intellectually stimulated, spending time to read my Bible and pray for friends and family, phoning up and catching up with friends, plus the usual sleep deprivation.

Speaking of which, right at this moment my biggest challenge is dealing with HIS GROWTH SPURT. It has got to be the biggest one to date. He is feeding like he has never before. Even during the early days he didn’t feed like that: once ever 2.5 hours in the night. On the one and I’m glad because we are working on his weight gain having dropped to the 10th percentile…on the other hand I miss the months where he treated us by sleeping through the night!

It will pass soon. I hope. Especially since we are gonna have a full house for the next 6 days with two extra adults and two toddlers in a tiny house.

And how do I look after myself?? Go out to meet other moms or friends…and shop. Whether it’s shopping for others or me, I find it cathartic. Oh that and indulging in some dark chocolate coconut ice cream I just discovered to be amazing (brand: Luna and Larry’s Coconut Bliss) from Whole Foods.

To moms reading: what has Ben your greatest or one of the bigger challenges since becoming a mom? And what do you do to look after yourselves?

PS my Internet connection is still iffy so the next post might not be for awhile!

The sun shines again…

Let me start by wishing a very HAPPY (belated) MOTHER’S DAY to all reading this post who are moms. It has been an incredible journey for me these last few months and I’m sure all of you can say the same, at whichever point you are.

An update on Benji’s ‘clicky’ hip: The X-ray showed no hip/pelvic dislocation. Praise God!!! What a relief! We found it out yesterday, a day after the testing and, yes, that meant so much to us especially since we are now really nearing the end of our stay here in Vancouver. We can now concentrate on preparing for our move back to Melbourne, Australia AND focus on enjoying the last couple weeks here.

My folks have also left after over two weeks of vacation here. Having lived far away from home for so many years, I have missed almost every mother’s day celebrations with her, so it was special to get to spend my first Mother’s Day celebrating her, as the family also did for me. Not forgetting my aunt who visited; she is also my godmother, who spoiled me when I was growing up…and continues to do so now.  We spent the beautiful sunny day at Stanley Park, and I got to bake my latest favorite dessert: chocolate quinoa cake.

I truly love my family, and look forward to seeing them soon when we travel to Singapore en route back to Melbourne in June.

PS: My internet has NOT been working right the last few days hence the reduction in blog posts and lack of photos in them. Grr.

PPS: Was supposed to end this post on a sunny note so here it is: with Benji’s hip checking out fine, we are also able to now go on to tackle his weight gain and eczema full-time!