When I found out we were moving to Japan, there were many question I asked myself. Where would we live? Would I have a job? Would we take out dog, Paul? Will I ever be able to find pants that go past my knees?

As we started working on the details of our impending move over the fall, the answers to those questions became much clearer (on base in a townhouse, yes–I would begin telecommuting part-time, we had the option to bring Paul–but  because of our small yard we elected to send Paul to live with family in North Carolina, no–but  thank goodness Gap and Banana Republic mail to foreign bases). But one question that I was never able to find the answer to was “Would I be able to feed my addiction to spray painting?”

If you’re a longtime blog reader–you know that many of my home improvement projects involve spray paint. Don’t believe me? Check out the guest room, the nursery, and the man cave for just a few of the many items in our house reinvigorated with the elixir of life…ahem, I mean spray paint. Would I be able to continue repurposing? Friends…I now have that answer.

Ta Da!

Yes…only five minutes away from me right here on base at the Navy Exchange Depot (kind of like a mini office max/home depot) is a great little selection of Krylon Spray paints. Boy am I relieved! So you can look forward to many more spray paint projects over the next few years. It’s the little things…

Thankfully, it wasn’t much more than a bad sore throat/a slight fever/ and chills. And the first symptoms came on Sunday morning, and now, Monday night, I’m already feeling MUCH better. But boy, does being a mom sure change the way I feel about illness! Before kids, part of me sort of kind of liked being sick for a day or two every now and then. Yes, you feel like poop…BUT you do get to eat saltines/ice cream/jell0 (or whatever you illness calls for ) and you get to catch up on trash tv.

But mom sickness…especially nursing mom sickness…just stinks! I felt awful, but still had to make sure my little guys didn’t fall down the stairs; make sure they had something in them other than cheerios; and make sure when I nursed them 4-5 times a day I wasn’t breathing my germs on them. Thankfully, I have a pretty awesome husband who took care of the boys (and me) most of yesterday and today…THANK GOD he isn’t deployed right now! And in a few more weeks I’ll have daycare set up and hopefully be more established in our community here and be more comfortable reaching out to friends/neighbors (I still feel a little awkward doing that since I’m so new…). But these last few days, well, lets just say I’m glad they’re almost over!

Yes, I’ve skipped right over the Hubby coming back from deployment, a cross-country trip to visit three families in two weeks, the boys’ first Christmas, our first Navy move, my throwing a party at work for 170 people four days before we moved (yes, I’m totally crazy)…but…at this point I think we’re just going to skip those stories and move right ahead to today. And I’m going to kick off my rededication to This American Wife with the top five things I’ve learned since moving to Japan.

5. Babies are remarkably adaptable. The boys adjusted to our new time zone much easier than the Hubby or I did! As long as they have an area to play and a few toys…they seem to be pretty happy!

4. Living on a Naval Air Station is LOUD. As long as we’ve been married, the Hubby and I have always lived out in town rather than on base. With the whole space issue here in Japan, we would have been crammed into a teeny tiny house if we lived out in town, so we elected to live on base. Thus far it’s been great, but the thing I didn’t even think about was how LOUD the planes are constantly flying overhead. Luckily, the boys are sound sleepers!

3. It’s kind of fun being in the dark. The first full day we were here we went to the Japanese grocery store. Yes, we do have a commissary on base (thank goodness) where we got all our staples. And it looks pretty much like any American grocery store, but to get quality veggies, we ventured out into town. What fun! The produce was fairly straight forward…although there were a number of fruits and veggies we had never seen before, there were also your standard apples, bananas, broccoli, etc. Once we ventured out of the produce aisle, things got a little more interesting. Most food is packaged, unidentifiable, and the names/descriptions are all written in Japanese. The Hubby and I ended up grabbing a few things just for fun…and to be honest, even when we opened them, and tasted them, I still couldn’t tell you what I was eating! Side note: Did you ever read The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read as a kid? Our experience TOTALLY reminded me of this book!

2. Thank goodness for kind strangers. Lucky for us, a house on base was available right when we moved here. Some families have to wait days, weeks, or even months cooped up in the Navy Lodge (an on-base hotel) before a house is available for them. That said, our move shipment won’t be here for another month or so, so we were loaned “stick furniture” or temporary base-owned furniture. It’s just the basics…couch, end table, beds, cribs, 1 dresser per room, and kitchen table/chairs. We were also loaned from base a “kitchen pack” with a few old dishes, pots and pans, and silverware. What I REALLY appreciated though was the members of the Officer Spouses’ Club  who set up all the furniture for us, put away the dishes, and then loaned us towels, sheets, pillows, blankets (and put them all on beds/in bathrooms). Furthermore, they stocked our fridge and pantry. It was great to just walk into our house and be able to fall right into bed on the night that we moved here!

1. We can do with a lot less. Living the last week with only the small amount of things the Navy loaned us and the items we brought in bags on the plane, really makes me realize that we can live with so much less than we do. Yes, it will be nice to have OUR couch, OUR bedding, and put OUR decorations up on the walls…but as far as our day to day life goes, we can live pretty comfortably with the items we carried with us. Now….I use the term “carry” pretty loosely here. We had 8 checked bags, 4 carry ons, 2 car seats, and 1 stroller (see the Hubby supervising our mound of luggage below)…but still…it makes me think “What is in all those boxes we left behind?!?”

And that, friends, is just a few musings from Japan thus far. I can’t wait to share with you more about life in Japan, adjusting to life in base housing, decorating a whole new home, and much more! Sayonara!

It was bound to happen. I wanted to leave California to go to Missouri to see my family. With my babies. Have a mentioned that my husband is gone right now?

Thank goodness, we flew on a direct flight there and back, and actually, everything went VERY smoothly. I was prepared for four hours of H-E-double hockey sticks. But thankfully, the boys were GREAT. For all you fellow moms of twins traveling with kiddos alone (or moms of one baby traveling alone…or dads of triplets traveling alone…or an aunt traveling with a niece…or a nephew…well you get the picture), I’ve assembled a few things I learned on my trip.

1. If at all possible book a direct flight. This was our lifesaver. One flight there. One flight back. Enough said.

2. The easiest part. Initially the thing I was most worried about was how I was going to get all my cr*p from my car to the airport. Honestly…this was probably the easiest part! I took the following:

-1 rolling bag for me
-1 small duffle bag for the boys
-1 messenger-style diaper bag
-1 double stroller
-1 car seat inside a carseat bag with backpack straps (we borrowed a second car seat from my best friend in Missouri)

We parked at a garage with an airport shuttle. The shuttle picked us up at my car. And the doors of the shuttle bus were wide enough so that the shuttle driver and I could just lift the stroller right onto the shuttle without taking the boys out or collapsing the stroller (SCORE!). Once we were dropped off at the airport I used one hand to push the stroller with the diaper bag on the handles, one hand to pull my bag with the duffle on top of it, and carried the carseat on my back. Once we checked in, I got rid of my bags and the boys duffle, so the stroller/diaper bag/carseat were all very manageable. I’m pretty sure we did look pretty funny though walking though the airport–I got some strange looks! (If we hadn’t had access to a second carseat in MO we would have obviously had to take that, too, and we just would have checked that with our luggage).

3. The hardest part. The hardest part was not getting through security (luckily I had a friend on the way to MO and my dad on the way back to CA who could go through security with me…but even without them, it wouldn’t have been too bad…the TSA folks are surprisingly helpful!). The hardest part was getting from the end of the jetway onto the airplane. I purposely flew Southwest so that that the person sitting next to me would choose that spot and not be stuck there because of a seat assignment (if you haven’t figured it out already I bought two seats…so one baby sat in the carseat and I held the other). Southwest’s family boarding policy says that Group A boards first (I couldn’t check in online because the boys’ DOB’s weren’t in the Southwest database) and THEN families. Of course all the people in Group A take the empty seats in the first 3/4 of the plane, so we had to go all the way to the back to find empty rows. Ick. Sooooo…the trip from the end of the jetway to sitting down in our seats went something like this:

-Push stroller down jetway.
-Arrive at end of jetway and move out of the way of other families boarding (families which all seemed to be made up of two parents and one baby…I’ve never been so envious of that ratio!).
-Take diaper bag off handlebars, get out baby bjorn.
-Take carseat out of carseat bag.
-Put on baby bjorn and load baby (whichever is fussing/antsy).
-At this point there are many people staring at me as they file on the plane and thankfully on each flight someone offered to help. I ask them to hold the other baby.
-I ask a flight attendant to take the carseat on the plane and find an empty row.
-The gate check guy asks what he can do at this point. I fold up the stroller (really easy with our Baby Jogger), hand him some bungie cords, and show him how to secure it.
-With the stranger holding a baby following me, I file on the plane carrying a baby, the carseat bag and the diaper bag trying not to hit those Group A people sitting in the front of the plane (I may be scowling at them a little at this point, too).
-I find the carseat, throw the carseat bag in the overhead bin, strap the carseat in, take the baby from the stranger and strap him (the baby not the stranger) into the carseat.
-Take a deep breath!
-Get nursing cover, bottle for baby in carseat, toys, pacifiers, etc. ready to go.
-Pray someone nice sits next to us (which happened both times).

4. Bribe the people around you. Before traveling I made little gift bags for all the people sitting around me, which consisted of chocolate, ear plugs, and a little note from Ollie and Miles saying “Thank you for traveling with us on our first flight! We are planning on napping a lot, but in case we don’t, here’s some ear plugs for you!” We passed these out to all the people sitting around us–they went over VERY well and we had lots of people offering to help us during the flight. For the person sitting in the third seat in our row and all those random nice strangers who went out of their way to help us out, I also packed starbucks gift cards. I figured if people saw me traveling with twins, learned my hubby was deployed, AND I gave them a gift and they still shot me nasty looks if the babies cried, they were mean people. Luckily, everyone was very nice, AND the babies didn’t cry! Woo hoo! Little aviators like their dad!

5. Remember: it’s only a few hours. Keep in mind that even if the kids scream bloody murder the whole flight, you get barfed on, and everyone on your flight hates you….it’s only for a few hours. Chances are, you’ll never see these people ever again. And hey, at least you’ll have a great story to tell!

A week after Halloween and those wigs still crack me up! Well, actually they were just blue boas hot glued onto baby caps. It worked out great, they were really light, and because they were baby caps, they weren’t itchy at all. The boys actually liked wearing them!

Now I need your help! A local photographer is running a cutest Halloween costume contest. The prize is a photo shoot. To vote for the boys head over to her facebook page and:

1. Like the Miranda Corbell Photography page.

2. Comment on (not just like) the photo of the boys.

You must do both in order for your vote to count!

Thank you so much for your support!!!

I’m not usually one to hand out cash to people asking for money (and we have a lot of those here in SoCal). I remember listening to a former homeless man who spoke to a high school group many years ago, who talked about how you should’t give money to people standing out in the street, but instead to the programs equipped to help these people. So I generally give to organizations supporting low income or homeless people when asked, and I don’t typically give to people down on their luck. But the other day I was getting gas and I guy asked me if he could wash my windows, which I politely declined. And then I watched as he trotted back to a little shady grass area by the gas station where he had his bucket and squeegee, a bicycle, and…his family, slightly hidden behind the corner. He was a pretty young guy, and sitting on the grass was his young wife/girlfriend and two young kids. A 3 or 4 year old and a baby, who didn’t look much older than my twins, who were cooing away in the back seat.

Now I hate it when people sit on the street corner with their kids, hoping for a sympathy donation, but that’s not what was happening here. The mom was off to the side in the shade, entertaining the kids, while Dad was over at the pumps asking people if they’d like their windows washed. And I thought to myself, “Wow, we sometimes have times where things seem a little tight, but never, ever have we been in a situation where we felt like the Hubby needed to work it at the gas station to make ends meet.” So I looked in my purse, and when I was done pumping gas, I drove over and gave the man the $6 I had in my wallet. Whatever the circumstances (and who knows what they were), I was pretty sure that this young family needed my $6 more than I did.

The man thanked me and asked if I’d like my windows cleaned. I declined, but he asked me one more time, saying that he really, really hated to ask for money, and if he could wash my windows he felt like at least he was helping me out, too. So I let him.

And as he washed my windows we chatted. His kids were 3 and 7 months. He had just recently lost his job and he talked about how hard it was trying to make ends meet without a job, but he couldn’t bring himself to just stand on the corner. So at least this way he could “work” for cash. And then he thanked me again and off I went.

So as I stress about preparing for a move to the other side of the world or grumble about the price of plane tickets as we plan our holiday trip to the East coast to see our family, that little interaction, however brief, really helped me put it all in perspective.

Well who knew that with my husband deployed, a full time job, and twins I wouldn’t have time to blog? I knew it had been a bit, but considering the last blog post was when the boys turned five months and now they are SIX MONTHS, it really has been a while (that’s a month to be exact, in case you’re counting).

The boys are doing great. Miles is in the 75th percentile for length and Ollie is in the 50th percentile for length and they are both in the 10th percentile for weight (tall and thin like their dad!). They are eating solids like little champs, well except for Miles and peas and carrots tonight. I’m making all their own baby food and I just love cooking for them (don’t freak out, it’s actually REALLY easy… just steam some fruits or veggies and throw them in the food processor). They are interacting with each other a lot now, and it’s so darn cute. They love listening to books, taking their nightly baths, and and they love spending time in their exersaucer/jumperoo. And they’re going to bed around 6:30-7pm, each in their own cribs, and getting up only once to nurse until they wake up around 6:30am. Ahhhh…getting them on a sleep schedule has been wonderful. I’m hoping in the next few weeks we can drop that feeding as well.

They boys LOVE daycare. I’m still breastfeeding, and having daycare at work is about the best thing I could ask for. Working at a job I really enjoy has been key to my sanity during this deployment with two small babies, but being able to run down and breastfeed them twice a day means I have been able to nurse until 6 months (my goal…everything from now on out is gravy in my book!) and I get to spend a little bonding time with them throughout my day. And those ladies that take care of them just love them. Honestly, leaving the daycare/work situation is going to be the hardest thing about moving to Japan for me!

So, speaking of the move, I am starting to get a little nervous! Are we totally insane? Moving across the world with two infants? Well, I keep telling myself that I need to stick to my motto: Many people much stupider than I have done this and lived to tell the tale. . And with that, I’m off to go get a little shut eye while I can.

Today the boys are FIVE MONTHS OLD! I really can’t believe it…it seems like just yesterday my mom was driving me to the hospital! Sorry I don’t have many stats, because they don’t have another check-up until 6 months, but they are growing like weeds! They’re still long and lanky without much pudge, but look at their tall, skinny dad! They’re still breastfeeding like champs, still in cloth diapers, and are growing and changing each and every day!

A few weeks ago they started eating cereal in addition to breastfeeding and are great little eaters. They’ve also started to play with toys. I can hand them a toy and they’ll sit there for ten minutes playing with it, chewing on it, moving it around in their hands. It’s so neat to watch them figure out how to use their appendages.

Their little personalities are really starting to emerge. Miles is the feistier of the two boys…he’s pretty content to play by himself a lot of the time, but man can he scream when he’s mad! And he’s a talker. He babbles A LOT! He always sounds like he’s saying something very important.

Ollie is such a happy little baby. He  is constantly smiling and he is such a flirt. I love waking him up in the morning–he’s all smiles. I used to hate mornings, but when I wake up to that smiling face it’s hard not to be happy!

They are sleeping pretty well right now. They went through a growth spurt a few weeks ago and were eating every 2 hours at night. Ick (this, of course, corresponded to the Hubby leaving). Luckily, that seems to be over, but until last week they still were getting up a lot, but then they’d fall asleep after eating for two minutes. So last week I started to try to get them back to sleeping in their crib and staying down. Ollie is doing great. He goes to sleep at 7:00-7:30, I wake him to feed him before I go to bed around 10, and then he sleeps until 3 or so. I feed him and then he’s down until I wake him up to go to daycare around 6:45. Miles is on the same schedule, but after the 10pm and the 3am feedings he usually wakes up again after an hour. Right now I hold him, and give him his pacifier, so he’s getting the snuggle time, but used to not eating. In a few days, I’m going to work on getting him to stay in his crib with the pacifier, and then hopefully he’ll be on the same schedule as Ollie.

But the most exciting thing that’s happening in their lives right now? They’ve started to recognize one another! It is the coolest thing, and each time it happens I almost tear up. Here’s a little clip from this weekend:

After the Hubby gets back from his deployment early next year, This American Wife (and family) is moving to Japan (I’m still a little giddy every time I say that). It was actually a pretty unexpected assignment, so it came as a bit of a shock, but I’m getting used to the idea now, and I’m pretty darn excited about it.

This will be my first Navy move, so I’m not really quite sure what to expect, but I know it will be an exciting next few months as we prepare! And an even more exciting next year as we adjust to life with two one year olds in a new country. So hang on for the ride, folks, This American Wife is going global!