This American Wife

I’ve been waiting for this. I knew it was coming. I had evaded it all fall…but this weekend…it found me. Illness.

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!

Well, dear readers, I have officially entered a new chapter of my life. I am in Japan!

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!