My First Blog

Hello everyone! This is my first blog. Sorry I've been slacking, but I'm making up for it now. My name is Alexander, but everyone calls me Alex (except Mom; she calls me Bug). I just wanted to introduce myself. I am a super fun baby and so far pretty agreeable. I'm still working on sleeping through the night without waking up to eat. I just can't help it. Sometimes, it's 2am and I wake up and think, "Dang! I need some milk... NOW! I just cannot wait until 6am. No way!" So then I start wailing and Mom feeds me. But once I'm done I can go right back to sleep.

In general, I'm a very agreeable baby. I don't really like to be in a room by myself, but as long as I can see Mom or Jackson, I don't get too lonely. Today I've been playing a fun game with Mommy. It's called, "How many diapers can I use in one day?" This is how it works. I poop in my diaper, then immediately start crying. See, unlike my older brother who could care less, I HATE for my diaper to be dirty for even a second. So, Mom changes my diaper. Then I wait about 5 minutes and poop again. Mommy is a pretty smart cookie, so she doesn't change me right away. Instead she distracts me and waits 10 minutes to make sure I'm ALL the way done pooping. THEN she changes my diaper. Little does she know, I was tricking her! Yep, wait 2 minutes and poop again. See how fun?

Mommy is telling me that we're going to go on an airplane soon. But she's been saying that for weeks, so I don't know what HER definition of soon is. I can't wait to meet all of the family I keep hearing about. Jackson assures me that everyone is nice and I'll have a fun time. And Mommy says, "Please sleep on the plane!" We'll see what kind of mood I'm in when the time comes.

I've started a new habit of sucking on my fist. I can't quite figure out how to stick my thumb out, but I just suck on the side of my fist instead. I don't really like those green rubber things Mom keeps trying to give me very much. But every now and then I tolerate one.

Well, that about sums up my introduction. Look for my next blog some time in the future!

Life as a "single" Mom

Mike is deployed. He volunteered to go since we knew he'd go in May if he didn't go now. I'd rather him be gone while Alex is still LITTLE little, instead of being 4 months older. So while we decided this would be better, I'm still missing him. He's been gone a month, and it definitely doesn't feel like that long, so maybe the next few months will go by quickly, too.

I'm planning a trip home while he's gone. We're having a little bit of a tough time getting on a flight, but that's how it goes when you're flying "Space A". I'll gladly deal with the hassle to save thousands of dollars on a commercial ticket. Hopefully we'll get on a flight soon.

The boys. Oh my, how they are growing. Alex is smiling and laughing (and I can't get enough of that!) Jackson is making strides in language and is using complete sentences most of the time, now. He's also learned how to open doors, which is a joy. Last night he woke up at 2 and wanted to come in my bed. I told him no and put him back in his. He cried a few times and I went back in and calmed him down. I fell asleep at 3 (after nursing Alex) thinking Alex was fed, happy and back asleep and Jackson was asleep in his bed. I woke up at 5 and Jackson was in my bed with me. I'm not sure if I agreed to that or not. I definitely didn't do it consciously.

My life is full of little stories like that. It is definitely difficult being the only parent. We stay busy, so that helps, but there are some times where I just really could use a little break. An hour to go to the commissary by myself. I do have great friends and support here, but it's not the same as having Mike. Part of me really REALLY misses him. And part of me just ignores that and focuses on our routine. One day at a time. But I knew what I signed up for when I married him. This is part of being a military spouse, and even with the deployments, I absolutely love that "job"!

I'll be glad when we're back in the states and I can stop worrying about how we're going to get there. Until then, keep your fingers crossed for us!

Tokyo Disneyland

Mike decided on Tuesday that if he could get off work on Thursday we should go to Disney. He found out on Wednesday that he would indeed be off work, so we planned to leave early-ish on Thursday for Tokyo.

The weather
The forecast online said overcast in the morning, 20% chance of rain in the afternoon. But the high was supposed to be 56. We decided to just chance it. We figured Jackson wouldn't make it much past 2 or 3 without a nap and he refuses to nap in his stroller, so there was very minimal chance of a nap. So even if it did rain in the afternoon, we wouldn't be out much. We got out of the car when we got there and it was SO windy and pretty chilly. We all had on sweatshirts but everyone around us had on winter coats. I was concerned. But we weren't that cold, and I managed to make a blockade out of my wrap around Alex's canopies, so he wasn't getting any wind. It rained around 1, and we ate lunch. By the time we were done eating, it was done raining. Score!

The drive
We didn't get to the Yujo for a map the night before in time before they closed. But no big deal, they're supposed to open at 8 according to the website and we were planning on leaving at 8. I printed a smaller version off of the website just in case. We got to the Yujo to find out they don't actually open until 10. Bummer. Mike was skeptical but I thought we could do it with the small map. There was one minor hiccup in my navigating at the very beginning, but I managed to convince him to just try it. We didn't get lost AT ALL after that. We had a little trouble finding our way OUT of the park, but after about 10 minutes I figured it out and we were on our way. It took about an hour and a half to get there, and about an hour 10 to get home. That is AWESOME time since it is supposed to take around 2 hours.

The characters
When we got into the park, there were some characters right at the entrance. Jackson was pretty unsure at first, but eventually went up to them (with some coaxing from Mike). Later in the day we saw the three little pigs. He was pretty interested in them, but still a little timid. Then as we were walking away, the big bad wolf came up to us. Mike was holding Jackson and Jackson was pretty scared. He acted like he was eating Mike and Jackson (which we do ALL the time at home and Jackson thinks is hilarious). Not so much a fan of that. Then he "licked" me, and Jackson was not impressed by that at all either. Pretty much a failure since he was so scary. But the other ones were pretty cool.

The rides
Some rides were closed, some Jackson was too little for, and some had too long of a wait. The ones we missed out on:
Alice's Tea Party (Mike just didn't want to do it)
Beaver Brothers Explorer Canoes
Big Thunder Mountain
Chip 'N Dale's Treehouse
Donald's Boat
Gadget's Go Coaster
Goofy's Bounce House
Grand Circuit Raceway
Haunted Mansion
Mark Twain Riverboat
MicroAdventure
Omnibus
Pirates of the Caribbean
Space Mountain
Splash Mountain
StarJets
Star Tours
Swiss Family Treehouse
Tom Sawyer Island Rafts
Westerland Shootin' Gallery
Western River Railroad

Wow, I didn't realize how much we missed. We'll definitely have to go back!

We got to do something called Alternate Ride. Basically since there were a lot of things Alex couldn't ride, Mike and Jackson would ride first, then Jackson and I would go to the front of the line and ride again. He got kind of spoiled getting to ride everything twice, but whatever. Of course explaining to the ride attendants at the beginning what we were trying to do was pretty difficult. After a few rides we figured out there were tickets they were supposed to fill out at the beginning of the line. That made it easier so Alex and I didn't have to stand in line with them. Then when they came out the exit, Jackson and I would just go back in through the exit and give them the ticket. It worked out pretty well. Every ride was a new ordeal with having to explain to them what we wanted, but by the second or third ride we had a good system down by pointing to Mike and Jackson, then making a circling motion for "ride", then pointing to me and Jackson, and repeating the circling motion. Then saying, "Change." They all figured it out eventually!

The ones we got to do:
Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. My favorite ride by far. There were guns in your car that you used to shoot these Z things throughout the ride and you got a score. You also had a joystick to rotate your car around. This was one Alex could ride, so I got to shoot one handed, but didn't have another hand to turn my car with. I got 5,500 points. Mike got 35,000. Jackson got 4,500 I think.
Castle Carousel. Jackson said, "Ride horses. Horses go up and down." I think he rode it 4 times total.
Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Oh geez. The elephants. It was the first thing we rode. And he ended up riding it 4 or 5 times by the end of the day. Even at 2 when we'd been there for 6 hours, he'd get off a ride and say, "Go ride more elephants?" We had to go back to that corner of the park so we could ride them again in the afternoon.
The Enchanted Tiki Room. Bo-ring. All the shows were in Japanese. Alex started screaming in this one so I had to feed him. But my nursing cover was in the diaper bag, in the stroller, outside the theater. Oh well, I improvised.
It's A Small World. Actually a pretty good ride. Long-ish, but still okay. And one Alex could ride.
Jungle Cruise. So-so. One thing that is the same worldwide (apparently) is that the cruises like that involve lots of corny jokes and silliness. And it was again, in Japanese. There was one part that was kind of interesting though. There were hyenas, zebras, monkeys, lions, etc. all throughout the ride. The lion display was three females and one male. But they were standing over a dead zebra. A bit intense for little kids if you ask me.
Mickey's House and Meet Mickey. Of course Mickey can't just walk around the park like the other characters or he'd be getting accosted everywhere he went. So they have a specific place where you go through Mickey's house and at the end is the line to wait to meet Mickey. We skipped it earlier in the day but decided to suck it up and wait the 20 minutes later because Jackson had been pretty excited about seeing him. At the end of the line you're in a theater where they show old Mickey cartoons (in Japanese of course). Then they let you in the room with Mickey 6 or 7 at a time. One thing that surprised us was the pictures. They sell pictures of you with Mickey in a little cardboard frame. Since they sell them we figured no way were they going to let us take pictures with our camera. But not only did they let us, they did it for us. We got a pretty good one of the four of us with Mickey.
Minnie's House. Ah. Whatever. You just walked through Minnie's house. Would've been interesting to a 5+ girl, but not a 2 year old boy.
Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! Pretty good. You got flashlights in your car that shown different characters. Jackson really liked the lights.
Peter Pan's Flight. Kinda scary. Lots of darkness, but a pretty cool ride overall.
Pinocchio's Daring Journey. Again, a little intense. But still interesting. Jackson was freaked out by the whale and scooted closer and held my hand for pretty much the last half of the ride.
Pooh's Hunny Hunt. AWESOME. There weren't tracks. I guess magnets? Your car spun and moved on the floor to show you different parts of the ride. There were black lights, and mirrors, and a spot where they showed you film of tigger and your car bounced. We got fastpass for this one, so we didn't wait very long at all.
Roger Rabit's Car Toon Spin. Another one where you had some control over your car. Just a wheel in the middle that you could use to turn your car to face different directions. Or spin around and around and around like the tea cups. It was very cartoon-y and not scary for once.
Snow White's Adventures. Holy crap. TOO SCARY. It was the first indoor ride we did (right after the elephants and the horses). After Mike rode it, he was going to tell me that once was enough, but Jackson said he wanted to go again. After I got done riding it with him, Mike and I talked about how it was probably going to give him nightmares. I had nightmares after seeing the movie, and this was way scarier than that for sure.
"Super Duper Jumpin' Time". It was a show, the first one we watched. It was alright. It probably was awesome for the people who could understand what they were saying. They had an area for the kids to sit on the ground up front, then benches for the parents around the edges. Jackson was back and forth 10 times between sitting with the kids and sitting with us. And when he was up with the kids, they'd all stand up and he'd stand up with them. But when they sat down, he still stood and jumped around. Of course he couldn't understand any of the instructions, but it was kinda cute.

Other stuff
We figured we'd get to the park at 10 when they opened. Despite leaving later than we thought and taking the wrong route once, we still got there at 9:45. We got our tickets and were in line before the park opened. We also thought we'd leave no later than 3. We thought that would be about when Jackson hit the wall. We left at 7 when they closed. He just kept going and going and going. He's usually in bed at 6. So not only was he up WAY later than usual, he did it without a nap. And a great attitude. No tantrums, no meltdowns. One minor incident of not listening that required a time out at dinner. But at that point, I would've expected a lot worse! I was so proud of how well he behaved. And I told him so frequently throughout the day.

We decided he could have one souvenir for the day. So the very last thing we did before we left the park was to go into the Toy store and let him pick one out. Which was a process. Do you like Pooh better, or Mickey? Pooh or Tigger? Tigger or Minnie? etc. etc. etc. He ended up with Eeyore. Seriously? What weird kid picks EEYORE? Not Pooh, Tigger, Mickey.... Eeyore. Whatever. He held it the whole way home and slept with it last night.

Overall it was one of the best times I've had. Amusement parks are so much more fun with kids. It was so fun to see how Jackson would react to everything. And how excited he got over seeing characters and the fun he had on the rides.