Weekly Update 9/25/09

This one will be short. It’s hard for me to remember everything that far back, and I’m creating a separate entry for all of my medical shenanigans.

Monday—Speech therapy at 0830 with Holly. The fishing game made a repeat appearance and Jackson was THRILLED about that! Nothing new to report on the speech front. He is enjoying his sessions and making progress as expected.

Tuesday I went to the housing office and reserved a rec room for the party on October 25th. I also rented a bouncy castle that fits inside the rec room for all the kids to jump in. We had considered having the party at Sand Park, but I talked Mike out of it since it's not fenced and everyone would have to be constantly chasing their kiddos around.

Wednesday was the day we went to the playground. There's one on the West Side that we hadn't been to yet so I thought we'd check it out. Jackson had a blast. It was just a small one on black rubbery ground cover, but he had so much fun. He likes to run in the grass, so he got to do that some. And it's more age-appropriate for him than the one at Sand Park. When we go to Sand Park, I have to kind of stay right near him all the time to make sure he doesn't try to do something that's too big for him (like go down the pole). But at this park, I could just sit on the bench and let him go. I think it was fun for him to explore and stuff without me having to hover over him the whole time. They also had a flower-like thing that came out of the ground in two spots. You could put your ear to one end and someone talks in the other end ad it magnifies the sound. He wasn't quite tall enough to reach it very well, but he got the concept pretty quickly and we counted back and forth to each other until I couldn't stay bent down to talk into my end any longer. Eventually he was ready for a nap and we headed home, but not because I made him. He requested to go home and then lay happily in his stroller with puppy the whole way there. Such a big boy

On Friday, Jackson and I dropped Daddy's car off at the BX Garage so they could do the safety inspection. Every 2 years, cars in Japan have to be inspected by the government and once they pass the inspection, they get a certification thing called a JCI (Japanese Compulsory Insurance). The one on Mike's car expires in November so we went ahead and got the inspection done so we'd know what needed fixed on it. Then once everything is fixed we'll take it to our insurance company and they’ll arrange to get it certified. But we left the car at the garage and walked home =e (it's really close to our apartment). Friday afternoon we went to the Farmers' Market with some friends. It's in Mizuho which is the next town over. I got directions from the person who told me about it, and was actually brave enough to take two other friends with me. Somehow we made it there and back without getting totally lost. I did miss the entrance on the way there but I knew pretty quickly I'd missed it and turned around. We found it without any problems on the second pass. Once again, I got a ton of produce for cheap, cheap, cheap. I was mostly buying veggies to cut up for the veggie tray for the baby shower the next day. This was a major success for me since I was able to drive off base with written directions but no map, and actually manage to not get lost at all. After Jackson was in bed Friday night I made sure I had pretty much everything ready for the shower the next day. I printed out the game sheets for the games we were playing, and made sure the apartment was pretty picked up. I planned on vacuuming and making the deviled eggs the next morning before Trysta came over at 9 to decorate. The last thing I did was wash and cut the veggies from the farmers' market that I'd gotten earlier that day. I noticed while I was chopping that my back was kind of hurting and I wondered vaguely what I had done earlier that day to it. Like maybe I'd twisted it funny or something. I finished up in the kitchen, took 2 Tylenol and headed to bed. Then things got really interesting..... to be continued in next blog.