The clock is ticking......

The official orders came in last week. Mac's next (and final) duty station is Annapolis, Maryland!! We've known for a while, but without the official orders anything can happen. Now it's almost a done deal.

By almost, I of course mean, not anywhere near done deal. Before we leave Okinawa behind and return to the states we have a lot to do. There's shit to get rid of (clothes, baby items, toys, books and other general items of nonsense that we have but will not be taking with us), there's the cats shots to get updated, items to document before packing (expensive things that we'll need to itemize on our pack out sheet) and because I'm incredibly anal about certain things, a lot of photos and personal items to pack MY way!

That doesn't even look like fun, does it? It's not. Let's face it: moving anywhere sucks ass! Moving across the world sucks sweaty bamboo ass!

I refuse to let my final few months here in Okinawa be totally consumed by leaving this island. There's so much to still be done. There's the cherry blossoms coming into bloom, which I fully intend to take advantage of and get some amazing photos in the process! Next month? Sunflower fields! There's a Dam nearby I haven't visited but it's on my list, along with seaglass hunting, visiting a couple more castle ruins, a bird sanctuary I've driven past and said "I'm going to go there some day" because I'm running out of some days and I'm going to ride the Ferris Wheel in American Village before I leave Okinawa, just once!

Before moving here.....

I'm going to say good-bye to Okinawa from Here (the ferris wheel)

I was "lestered"

Lester: (n) Lester Naval Hospital, located on Okinawa Japan providing health care to military service members and their dependents while stationed throughout bases around Okinawa.

Lestered: the act of getting treated at Lester Naval Hospital and getting no real answers and vague details as to the issue which should be addressed in the opinion of the doctor.

Confused? You've been lestered!

So talk about your cryptic answers....Nixon had his 3 year check up today with the doctor (no shots YAY!), he's 40 inches tall, 33 lbs and like his mommy has a lower than normal body temp.
Doctor mentions his speech "normally I can understand about 75% what of most 3-year old say"
I say "So should we look into speech therapy? Because he has good days and bad days, but he does also speak random gibberish for no reason"
Doctor's reply? "Well....if he has good days and bad days, and you are leaving in just a few months, it might not be worth the effort to set everything up for the evaluation."

What.The.Fudge just happened?!?!?
Oh yeah.....I was just Lestered!

(my facebook status the afternoon after our doctor's appointment......)

Tuesday morning (disgustingly early by the way....) was Nixon's 3-year old well child visit. At first all was well: he happily stood on the scale to get his weight, he even stood against the wall for his height with no fight and then he had to sit down to get his blood pressure taken. This was the first time its ever happened and Nixon FREAKED out! It got worse when his temp was taken, by the end of that "fun" Nixon was a crying, snot-dripping, shivering mess of a kid. 

And the doctor hadn't even seen him yet.....

Mac and I get Nixon calmed down while in the waiting room and within moments are called to the exam room, to wait for the doctor. Nixon gets into the new room and does his usual sweep of the room, which is actually him running around it as fast as he can and bumping/banging a wall or two. Yay...

Mac focused on keeping Nixon occupied while I spoke to the doctor and answered her questions about Nixon and tried to get Nixon to answer her questions. 

(example of how this went...

Dr: "can you tell me your name? (to Nixon)

Nixon: "My name mommy (because he plays this game at home a lot)

Mac: "No, what's your real name?

Nixon: "My name...Daddy?"

Dr: "he might need to work on that"

Nevermind the fact that Nixon walks around the house and whenever he does something even remotely "naughty" he says "Nixon Mathieu" in the same tone I do.....)

So, then the doctor has to check Nixon's ears....the worst part of every visit for Nixon! He of course get back to the snotty, blubbery, shivering mess he was when his vitals were being taken. 

She tells me, his growth is fine, weight is good but she can barely understand what he says and normally she should be able to understand 75% of what a 3-year old is saying. I ask if we should look into speech therapy and mention we will be leaving Okinawa (tentatively) in May. I also say "he is really upset because of the blood pressure cuff and getting his ears checked. He does speak gibberish sometimes but other times he's very articulate." (I'm not against speech therapy but I want to make sure Nixon's being judged fairly, a 10 minute appointment by a doctor we've never seen before isn't fairly in my opinion.) 

She tells me "Speech therapy is done through the school system here. You'd need a letter from the doctor to even get him evaluated, then get him evaluated and they'll give you a plan of action from there. But it's a long wait and if you're just leaving soon it might not even be worth the effort, you might want to wait till you get to the next station and start there. Is he in daycare or home with you?" 

So we left with no answer of exactly how much she COULD understand of what Nixon said, I was told ALL parents understand more of what their kids say than strangers do (especially parents who are home with them all the time) and I felt like I'm severally failing Nixon somehow.

I was Lestered!

I'm working on Nixon's annunciation and asking him to use words if he knows them. The problem is: he's full-on Mr. Do-Everything-Myself these days and if he doesn't get his way he's not exactly in a work-through-it state of mind. I'm doing the best I can!!! 

So, thank you Lester Doctor who saw my son for about 15 minutes and determined he doesn't speak clearly enough....by the way: did you happen to hear him thank the lady taking his vitals for the Diego stickers??? In Japanese???? Sniffling back tears and all he still said "arigato", my precious baby boy! Thank you for making me feel like a failure as a mom just by reading answers off a paper that I had less than 10 minutes to answer. 

But most of all...thank you for making sure I didn't leave this island without the full "lestered" experience.

  

Some depth with your bacon?

Okay, while this post will have very little to do with bacon (Mac doesn't like crispy bacon....WHO doesn't like crispy bacon????) so apologies for the misdirection in advance.


Mac is out with friends, Nixon is asleep for the night and I'm thinking while listening to Fiona Apple. I'm thinking thoughts of randomness and realizing how I've changed and continue to change and likely will change again and I grow older and become mother to a school aged child then a teenager and later still mother to an adult. But wow, I just got way ahead of myself. Plus, this actually has very little to do with Nixon.

Instead, this is about marriage. More specifically, my marriage and how living in Okinawa has contributed to it being stronger. Its a foolish thing to suggest moving to a place where I knew no one but my husband and my infant son was best for my marriage. Because the reality is, those first 6 months could very well have ended it. I felt abandoned, emotionally raw from dealing with a teething infant practically alone while Mac was working midnights, I felt betrayed by all of womankind for not preparing me better for motherhood, I was unappreciated by Mac for all the meals I made/laundry I did/cleaning/organizing and my best attempts to make this home. Most of all, I was cutoff from the people I'd run to if I'd been home. I had made a couple friends, but the closest I had to a best friend turned on me and left a bad taste in my mouth for trying to cultivate another close friendship with my remaining time here.
I didn't marry my best friend. I married the man I loved and whose company I enjoyed. He knows me and my secrets and loves me all the same, but he's not my best friend. I'm not the white horse, knight in shining armour, damsel in distress kind of girl. I gave up the fairy tale long before I met Mac. I never fell for the "happily ever after" or the "love conquers all" bullshit that is forced fed to little girls in the womb. It's probably why it took me so long to find the right man for me. I was writing my own happy ending and Mac kind fell into the middle of the story.

So finally, after being so angry and so bitter and having nowhere really to go, I was forced to talk to Mac about things that bothered me. I think one day I finally explored and just had an epic fit: tears, cussing, screaming everything. Big, angry and ugly but enough to finally get Mac to pay attention. I finally had to admit if things didn't change I didn't see Nixon and I staying here. I was not bluffing either. I needed to be a priority in his life or I'd be gone.
I've had to remind him a couple times since then, but he's a lot better now. Life is better now, because with nowhere to go I'm forced to talk things over with him. I can't ignore it because when I do, I'm a volcano brewing and the eruptions are never planned and rarely end without some causalities. Plus, let's be honest here, what man really understands the words coming from a blubbering, crying mess of a woman?? NO, its much better if I come to him with something bugging me before I get to the point of blubbering. Although, tears make him realize how hurt I really am. Best not exploit that or the effect might be forever lost and there will come a time when tears will be needed and I'd hate to have only the "little boy who cried wolf" be my reality.

But, living far from friends and family is not easy. Mac and I have learned of several friends divorces in our time here. Some have been longtime coming, others shocked us and still others were statistically doomed from the beginning and therefore we lacked a real emotional response to the news, though we'd never admit that to the faces of those friends. That's something we discuss between ourselves in the comfort of our own home and within the sanctity of our marriage. Every couple has things like that, so I'm sure we're not the only couple that does that. Our technique and conversation is, no doubt, unique to us though. Our marriage is one filled with silliness, laughter, concern, mild conflicts over parenting styles mostly and love. I still love being held in his arms. I still get a silly smile on my lips thinking of our wedding (almost three years ago already!). I have moments when I can't see myself without him in my life, but I also have moments I can't picture him without me. We don't NEED each other, we WANT each other. Things get stale in marriage, its inevitable. Thankfully, we both have interests of our own we don't share and we have Nixon, not that we had him to save a marriage. He was conceived purely from our conscious decision to become parents together and out of love and planning.

Mac is blunt when it comes to marriage. Don't do it young. Live life, enjoy life and wait for the right person to come along. I share that feeling. We avoided, rather unsuccessfully, anything serious in the beginning. Until it became painfully obvious to everyone around us, that we were perfect for each other. We're not the ying yang type couple, or soulmate material, but realistically we are happy together. Mac keeps me from taking things too serious and I make him homecooked meals. The balance we discovered while living in Okinawa, may not have been possible if the option of going home for a weekend or so when things got tough had been our reality. I'm a runner. I run away and try to avoid issues. So if I'd been able to take a trip and get some distance between us when things got tough we'd never have found our solid ground. I'm also irrational when I get emotional.

And, in the same respect, parenting would've been more difficult with family around. Being here has meant we HAVE to be the parents. We have to set the rules, enforce them, punish and guide Nixon on our own. We don't always agree, but Mac is fine with following my lead for the most part. I've learned to trust my gut way more than ever before when it comes to Nixon and all things related to him. I'm desperate to not repeat my shit'tacular childhood mistakes with him. Seems like it'd be an easy task, just don't do what was done to me, right? Well, mostly but punishment and boundaries are where the biggest damages done to me happened. SO I'm stuck attempting to find balance when emotionally I'm still raw. I'm not doing horribly, but I fear I could be doing better. Nixon is such an easy going kiddo 95% of the time, that its easy to just live and let live with him. But I realize more and more everyday that I have flaws and I need to correct them before my flaws become his downfalls.

As I said, this had very little to do with bacon, but since I wrote it when most of my friends back home were starting their day, bacon seemed a fitting title.

It was a good day

Parenting is hard work. Anyone who tells you differently, isn't doing it right.

Terrible two's is an illusion and a reflection of parenting errors/accomplishments and a few random rays of sunshine found in your toddler's crooked smile.

There are bad days. A good parent knows they happen and learns from them. A poor or failing parent repeats them from sunrise to sunset like that movie "Groundhog Day".

Today was a good day.

Nixon and I went to the Okinawa Zoo with some friends. The other mom and myself started the day with a coffee treat before heading to the zoo. The zoo itself is far from stellar. But don't tell the kids that. To them this place where you can stand only feet away from giraffes, hippos and be nearly sprayed by an elephant is wonderful. To adults its a sad place where animals live in small barren cages. To a child you can say hello to a tiger or a lion or a monkey and the animal hears you. To a parent, the photo warning of big cats peeing in a person's face is something to giggle about and wonder..who was the person the actually got pee in the eye before the sign was up.
Nixon's growing up and our time here is winding down. So trips to the zoo are a great way for him to get some energy out while enjoying an experience that only Okinawa can offer him. I purchased another year long membership, the last I'll purchase while here. When this one expires it'll be a pay-per-visit kind of trip. Nixon will be free for the rest of our time here, since he's still under 4 years old.

Today, Nixon said "monkey", "bat", "duck", "bird", "hippo" and even "elephant" talk about a vocabulary explosion! He laughed while watching the elephant kick a ball, and squealed with glee when the elephant sprayed water at bystanders. He said "hi chica" to every monkey and bird we saw. And even called the Bengal tiger "arwee". It was amazing to be with him and be able to really interact and see him so into his surroundings. He's far from behind his peers, but since we spend a lot of time at home, I worry that he's not comprehending things like his peers do.
Not today. Today my baby boy was shining!
I got brave (or stupid depending on your point of view) and let Nixon out of the stroller so he could walk and explore on his own at his own pace, for the most part. At first he was tentative, walking a few steps then turning to make sure I was still behind him. Once he got comfortable, he was never out of my sight but out of my reach. We wandered towards the petting zoo part only to get there just as the animals were going on break. Not to be deterred, Nixon started following another little boy with a yellow construction vehicle of some kind in his hand saying "preez" over and over again, which is Nixonese for "please". Several times I had to tell him its not his and no matter how nicely he asks for it, the little boy will not be giving it to him. The boy's mom looked back at me and gave a small smile, while her son kept running from Nixon clinging to his toy saying "mine" over and over again. I watched anxiously as Nixon and his little friend took on a steep sloping hill and nearly had a heart attack when they both started doing a toddler run down the hill. Both made it down safely, even if Nixon did do a fake fall at the end.
We made it to the pond area. I bought fish food and let Nixon feed the fish, duck, geese and pigeons. Yes, pigeons. Rats of the sky, poop dropping all over the fresh-from-the-carwash-car pigeons. These are the creatures Nixon spent the most time feeding. And they loved him. One in particular followed Nixon from the beginning of the pond walkway to the very end. Nixon had so much fun feeding the birds. We spent close to 45 minutes in that area and the kids were loving life. Except little missy, my friend's daughter, who teased a goose with fish pellets and got bit in the hand. Even then she still wanted to feed the fish and ducks but yelled at every goose that got close to her. The girl's got gumption!

When all is said and done, I throughly enjoyed my day with Nixon. These are the days I'll remember and smile when he's a teenager yelling how I've ruined his life and I'm so mean or the gem every teenager tells his/her parents at least once "I hate you". Hearing those words will, no doubt, break my heart but I'll have today's trip to the zoo to remind myself, we've had some good times kid. Some good times, indeed.