Happy Halloween!

This year, Sydney has been sooo excited for Halloween. She's been asking about trick-or-treating for weeks, so it was fun to show her the calendar today so she could see Halloween was finally here! Once she got up from her afternoon nap, she was ready to go. Unfortunately we still had to wait a few hours before it was time to get dressed up and head out the door.

Sneaking in a very messy pre-dinner treat, courtesy of our neighbor, Miss Krimp.

I found Sydney's costume on eBay for like $10. When she tried it on at first, it was WAY too short, so I thought I'd just have her wear the pinafore with a different dress. Then I saw that the little blue dress actually had a 3 inch hem on it, so once I ripped that out it was perfect!

Everyone thought she was Alice in Wonderland... and rightfully so. She would make an adorable Alice. But with all of us together, we were Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Granted, someone did still think we were Alice in Wonderland and three mice. Oh well, we tried.

The first two doors we went to were the Coat's and the Terpstra's... neighbors that we see on a pretty regular basis. So I was kind of surprised when Syd was afraid to say "Trick-or-treat!" Thankfully, she said it for all of the other doors we went to. And sometimes after she got the candy and we would prompt her with, "What do you say?" she would be like, "I already said 'Thank you.'" Shawn fell asleep in Spencer's arms, and after a while Syd was saying her shoes were starting to hurt her feet. We lasted about an hour, and then we told her it was our turn to go back home to pass out candy. Even though I could tell that candy bag was heavy, she refused to let us hold it for her.

We sat outside for a bit, and she ate a few pieces of candy while we waited for trick-or-treaters to come. About 4 kids came by before I took her in to take a tub. After that, Spencer said there was hardly anyone in the last hour and a half. Next year I think we'll just leave the bowl out with a sign when we're gone so we aren't stuck with tons of candy.

Now only 4 days until Sydney's birthday! I think this will be her best week ever... until the binky fairy comes. Still nervous about how that's going to go down :)

Sunabe Baba Park

Although Sydney can be quite the independent little girl, she can also be kind of a weenie. Take for example a typical experience at a park. She would generally want me to push her on the swings for like 5 hours, then maybe go down one of the smallest slides there, and she'd be good to go. Well, my neighbor Jess invited us to join a playgroup at Sunabe Baba Park on Wednesday, and feeling a pull to get out and do more fun stuff during the week, I took her up on it.

The park was really cute, but unfortunately we got there just after a day care/preschool group arrived. There were tons of kids! Sydney enjoyed taking a little ride on this horse thing:

All the pedals were broken so it had to be pushed in a circle.

So I took pictures while that little boy did all the work.

Thank goodness Jess was there for the jungle gym. I was holding Shawn in the Bjorn and couldn't really get in there to help Syd, who didn't dare crossing those precarious ropes on her own. Nor did she want to go down the roller slide by herself, but she was willing to go down it once on Jess's lap.

And even then it looked like she was holding on for dear life.

Jess's 2 year old daughter Claire, on the other hand, was quite the brave little girl- running around, climbing ropes, and going down big slides all by herself.

I couldn't help but be proud of my timid girl when she at least attempted to climb up some ropes.

Hooray!!

She climbed up about halfway, then came back down when the handles widened and she couldn't hold onto both of them anymore. Trying to build her confidence, I gave her a high five and complimented her on how high she'd climbed. A few minutes later she tried again, with the same result. On attempt #3, I told her to just hold onto one handle with both hands and keep climbing. With just enough support to ensure her I wouldn't let her fall, she climbed all the way to the platform. Victory! She was so excited that she did it "by herself." I love seeing her face when she is proud of herself. Makes me proud to be her Mom.

Not that I'm the most brave person now, but I remember being a pretty big weenie when I was a kid too. I was always scared of roller coasters, so my Mom would go on some lame amusement park ride with me while the rest of my family partied on the high thrill rides. Then she got tired of that and forced me to ride the Corkscrew with her at Geauga Lake when I was around 8 years old. I remember crying in line and keeping my eyes closed during the whole ride... but I totally loved it. That marked the beginning of many crazy roller coaster rides, courtesy of Geauga Lake and Cedar Point. Hopefully my Sydney will have a change of heart too and realize how much fun a playground can be!

PJs by Daddy

There have been a few nights in the past few weeks that I've been gone and Spencer's put Sydney to bed himself. If none of her usual pj's were in her drawer- because they were either dirty or still sitting in a basket full of folded clean clothes at the end of our bed- he improvised on what she wore to sleep. That made for some laughs for me in the morning :)

Wait for it, wait for it....

Surprise!

On a separate note, she got those window clings in an awesome Halloween bucket from a mystery neighbor who "Boo-ed" us, and they provided hours of entertainment. Who knew repeatedly sticking something to the window, then taking it off again could be so much fun?

Getting Big

Shawn's two month check-up was a success. In true chatterbox form, Sydney asked me about a billion questions (most of which she already knew the answer to) and talked to everyone who came in the room as if they were there to talk to her.

I was excited to see just how big Shawn has gotten. His official stats were:

Weight: 13 lbs. 5 oz. (67th percentile)

Height: 25 in. (95th percentile!)

Head circumference: 41 cm (60th percentile)

I was kind of surprised that he was only in the 67th percentile for weight... there must be some awfully chunky babies out there. He's so tall that I already need to adjust the shoulder straps in his car seat to the top opening.

He did great while the Dr. did her exam, but unfortunately he I felt asleep in my arms while we were waiting for the corpsman to come in to do the shots. Poor thing was so tired, only to be awakened by me laying him on the crunchy exam table paper, then getting 3 shots in his chunky thighs. That delayed cry after getting poked always makes me so sad. Thankfully he calmed down pretty quickly after I picked him up and snuggled him a bit.

He was also pacified by sucking on his hands... he's been doing that quite a bit lately. At one point he was just sucking his thumb.

Really?!?

As of yesterday, Shawn is 2 months old! Where does the time go? He is starting to sleep really well at night, usually going down around 8pm and sleeping until 3 or 4 am! That being said, his naps during the day aren't nearly as good or predictable as they were before. He is the king of falling asleep while I'm nursing, then I'll try to lay him down and he'll wake up. Shawn is also getting better at holding up his head, for which he gets frequent praise from Sydney ("Great job holding up your head baby Shawn!"). He's finding his hands and likes to eat them, which also means lots of drool.

I won't know his official stats until his 2 month check-up on the 19th, but he is loooonng. He is already fitting into 3 month onesies, as some of the 0-3 month ones are stretched so far they show a little too much chest.

Check out that belly!

He is quite a happy boy, giving us lots of smiles and coos. I had forgotten how fulfilling it is when a baby starts to smile at you, a little thank you for taking care of all of those blown out diapers and night time feedings. I love our little "conversations." My favorite is when he does a mixture between a laugh and a cough- it cracks me up.

Bios On The Hill

After I had researched tide times and planned our trip to see tide pools at Maeda Flats, Spencer shot down my plans. I showed him pictures of it on a friend's blog, and he thought it wouldn't be very baby friendly. It just so happened that I had just gotten a mass email from a friend from church saying they were going to Bios on the Hill if anyone wanted to join them, so we decided to do that instead. It was described online to be a forest and nature park, but in true Japanese fashion, it was kind of a random smorgasbord of things.

The entry bridge leading to the elevator was lined with cool flowers.

Then when we got off the elevator there were tons more lining the walking path.

They also had lots of white, pink, and purple orchids that smelled soooo good.

I didn't take a picture of the main open play area, but they had lots of wood things to climb on, bench swings, teeter totters, and swings with crazy long ropes. And, if that wasn't enough for you, you could also take a goat for a walk (random).

We made the mistake of paying extra money for a boat ride, not realizing it was a sort of nature tour. We stopped at different places in a huge pond, and the driver would talk. It was a nice ride and all, but everything the driver said was in Japanese so we didn't really get anything out of it.

But we did get to see a water buffalo!

Spencer, who was probably thinking, "This was kind of a waste of money."

I spent a decent amount of the ride trying to keep Sydney from feeding one of her Goldfish crackers to the fish in the pond... a suggestion she got from her Dad.

After we got off the boat, there were some chickens and roosters eating their feed by this little shop. Again, kind of random.

Syd thought they were cool, but didn't want to join me for a picture.

It had been overcast the whole time we were there, and after a few hours of playing it started to rain hard enough that we needed to find shelter. We hung out in this covered area with a few other families from church.

Luckily there were some toys in there, like these pipes.

Unfortunately, when the real downpour came, that roof was very leaky!!

The rain stuck around for a while, so after being trapped for about an hour, we decided to just head out. We were the only family who'd brought umbrellas, so I used one for me and Shawn, and we let our friend use the other one to keep their baby dry too. Spencer and Sydney got soaked!

The kids and I hung out in the main entry while Spencer went and got the van. My flirty little Sydney asked 9 year old Robely, who was also waiting for his parents, to hold her hand.

I thought it was so cute that he did, and then also walked her to our van after Spencer pulled up.

It was dinnertime when we left, and Sydney asked for something to eat soon after we started driving home. I had a baggie of Life cereal, which she was pretty excited about it. About 10 minutes later I looked back to see how she was doing...

and she was totally asleep.

Poor kid was tuckered out. This was the third time in four days that we skipped her afternoon nap so we could do something fun.

Okinawa World

We woke up bright and early this morning to start our adventure in Okinawa World, a tourist spot in the southern part of the island. After a quick trip on the expressway and some stellar navigating by yours truly (I suppose it helped that I had both printed directions and a map), we arrived at our destination. We decided to do all three experiences offered- the Habu museum, Cave, & Kingdom Village.

We happened to arrive right when the live habu show was starting. It's always interesting to go to shows here as they are in Japanese and we can't understand anything they're saying. Nonetheless, we got to see a mongoose out swim a water snake, a habu pop a balloon by biting it, and the lady smack a cobra on the back of the head. Still not sure what that was about, but she did it like 3 times and it's face smacked the floor pretty hard each time. Weird. The photo op was saved for last, where they bust out the boa and let you hold it for pictures.

Spencer was gung-ho about doing this, but couldn't get Syd to join him. My excuse was for bowing out was that I was holding Shawn. Then when his turn was over, he took the baby and talked me into it. The ladies that worked there just pick it up and wrap it around your shoulders like it's no big deal, but it was HEAVY!

This is a fake smile- I hate snakes and was actually kind of terrified. Good thing the whole photo shoot only took like 30 seconds.

After the show we walked through a little museum with a bunch of snake skeletons and pictures.

Daddy & Shawn checking out the snake pictures.

Shawn was a champion in the BabyBjorn.

Outside there were more live reptiles. There was an area with tons of snakes on rocks and in the trees.

Spencer said it reminded him of Indiana Jones.

I thought this sign on the wall by the snakes was pretty funny, partially because of the stellar translation, and partially because I didn't know snakes could cry.

These giant tortoises were pretty cool.

The next leg of our adventure was walking through the limestone cave. We walked down lots of stairs, and it gradually got cooler and wetter.

There was a continual sound of dripping and running water as we walked through the cave. Sydney would occasionally laugh and say, "Hey, I got a drip in my hair!" Then other times it would be a much whinier voice saying, "Uh! It keeps dripping me! I don't like that."

Then she would ask me to hold her.

By the time we got out of the cave, Shawn was ready to eat. We hurried through a botanical garden and the Kingdom Village in search of a restaurant so we could have lunch too. Afterward we strolled back through Kingdom Village, which ended up mostly being a bunch of shops. Not sure I would pay to do it again if we were to go back. However, we found a small pond full of fish, and there was a basket of small baggies of fish food you could buy for 100 yen. Sydney was highly entertained by throwing in the pellets and watching the fish race to see who could get it first.

I thought this shisa outside of a small Okinawa museum was pretty impressive.

We ended the day by going to an Eisa dance show, which involved lots of drumming, jumping, yelling, singing, and sanshin playing. At the beginning of the show, they asked for volunteers to come up to play some drums. I asked if Sydney wanted to go up and she said yes. I was holding Shawn, so Spencer took her up.

About 2 minutes later, it was clear that she was not interested. We were seated about 4 rows back, so she just walked back to our bench.

Spencer, on the other hand, was stuck up front playing the drums with a bunch of kids until they were done. He was totally embarrassed. Ha!

Sydney was originally sitting on the end of our row, which I thought would be a good place for her so she could see the performance. She plugged her ears for most of it as the drums were too loud for her taste. However, when a dragon came out as part of the performance, she totally freaked out. She ran to sit on Spencer's lap and was doing ok... until the dragon started walking through the audience and pretended to eat people. Just so happened that since she had moved I was now on the end, holding a sleeping baby Shawn. And the dragon came over and pretended to eat him. Poor Sydney was plugging her ears and screaming, her little body was stiff with terror. Thankfully, it was so loud in there that it wasn't super noticeable, and she wasn't the only kid that screamed from the dragon coming near! We weren't allowed to take pictures during the formal performance, but they did allow let us do some staged pictures with some of the performers afterward.

We had to walk through a touristy shop to get to the exit, and Sydney wanted to sit in this thing while we waited for Spencer to go to the bathroom. When he was done I passed over the babe and went for my turn. I came out to find 3 Japanese ladies crowded around them, 2 of them touching Sydney's hair. I tried to snap a picture of them, but they had dispersed before I could get a good picture.

I remember thinking that stuff like that would scare her, but it turns out she kind of loves the attention. As she is quite the chatty Kathy, she is happy to talk to anyone who is willing to give her an audience. Spencer told me she had been showing them her painted fingernails and telling them, "I'm two!"