Fear Of Flying

Well, I have avoided flying for nearly 2 years now. I knew I would have to face my fear again sooner or later (I mean since we live in Japan and all, and I really didn't plan to be here forever).

I love to travel. LOVE it! But I am definitely more terrified of taking a plane than the average person. My dad had his pilot's license when I was growing up and he took my sisters and I up all the time. I would always ask him to do loop de loops and barrel rolls. He would let me hold the second wheel so I could feel like I was flying the plane too. I would watch the tiny little cars, and I'd imagine a girl my age looking up at the plane from her seat the way I did when we would see a plane while driving.  I would look out over the the water and roads and be fearless.

These days I have anxiety weeks, months even, before the trip. In fact, even when a trip isn't upon us just the thought of a flight is enough to keep me awake at night. I've come to the conclusion that it must be a control issue. I freak out the same way whenever I'm a passenger in a car too. I sit on my hands, clench my jaw, and pray silently until we reach our destination. Then I thank God the rest of the day for keeping me safe. In the air I feel like my fears are the only thing keeping us up there. I'm not a very superstitious person, but every flight I get a ginger ale. That was the first drink I ordered on my first commercial flight, and I got to my destination in one piece. I'm convinced that if I ever do die in a plane crash, it will be the day I ask for a diet coke.

Having kids helps me keep somewhat calm. Flying with young children is a grand distraction. While we are in the air, I am normally too consumed with taking control in the areas I can. I'm busy preparing bottles, reading stories, and paying attention to their general well-being to really freak out- except for when we take a Japanese airline and they give us all these little tidbits of information in Japanese before saying it in English. The Japanese are so reserved, I imagine that even if the stewardess was saying "ladies and gentleman, we are crashing into the Pacific Ocean right now and we will all be dead soon" they would just sit there quietly. I usually sneak a look around to see if any facial expressions turn to panic so I will know what to expect when they finally translate for us.

I have been blessed with the easiest little passengers ever. Since having children, I have never left an airplane without at least 2 people complimenting how well-behaved they are. I'm hoping that the older kids are just as easy to fly with at 4 and 2 as they were at 2 and 1 month, and that the baby does well on his first flight. I don't know that I could deal with anxiety from both flying and annoying everyone around us!

My blog will be a bit quiet until we get back. We won't have reliable internet access, and we will be preparing for a wedding/visiting family/pretty darn busy. But I'll have much to talk about when we return (assuming we do return and my fears of flying aren't fulfilled....aaah negativity, leave my head).

Philippines, here we come!

How To Survive An Earthquake

We had a 6.8 magnitude earthquake while I was out with the kids yesterday afternoon. Talk about a fright!

Although I was born and raised in California, where earthquake drills in elementary school were about as frequent as a fire drill, I managed to go the first 18 years of my life without actually experiencing a real earthquake. It wasn't until the move to Hawaii, our second duty station, that I felt anything at all resembling an earthquake. And even then it was such a small tremor that we just assumed it was a plane flying overhead.

Shortly after moving to Japan, where 20% of the worlds strongest earthquakes occur, we experienced our very first no doubt about it earthquake. It woke us from our sleep. Brian, possibly still half asleep, ran down the wobbling stairs. His first concern was a 2 year old Bella, who could frequently be found on the couch with a bag of grapes watching Saved by the Bell marathons in the middle of the night. Our kids were both in their beds this time. Bella was certainly shaken up, but we calmed her down and she went back to sleep almost immediately.

A while after that earthquake, "mainland" Japan was hit with 2 more that were rather large and caused a considerable amount of damage. We live on the island of Okinawa, so we were only dealing with tsunami warnings (and calming down family riddled with concern for us after media sensationalism).

Things have been somewhat calm here. There was a huge typhoon that flooded my living room, put holes in my ceiling, and shut down my air conditioner during one of Brian's last TDYs. Other than that, calm. I was sort of expecting to sleep through another earthquake soon. But I was awake and out in public.

I recently switched Bella from her Monday ballet class to a ballet/tap class on Tuesdays, so yesterday was her first day in the new class.

I have such cute kids!!

After class I always take the kids to the BX food court so we can chow down on Subway for lunch. After lunch, we usually walk around the BX for a bit to burn off more energy before quiet time. I grabbed a few things to prepare for our trip to the Philippines (we leave soon....eeek! Expect a post in the very near future on travel with 3 kids under 5). I had to go to the baby aisle to buy diapers, but on the way we got distracted by the board games. I thought it was about time I bought a new game to play with Bella. I was in the process of deciding between "Cootie" or "Pretty Pretty Princess" when all of a sudden there was a loud rumble and all the shelves started shaking. I stopped what I was doing and stared around, kind of not sure of what to do at that point. It didn't last long, and everyone started looking at each other and smiling with nervous-laughter. Then again, another rumble and more shaking. A Japanese lady who was restocking toys looked at me and yelled "No! It's too big!" When the locals are concerned, you get even more concerned. At that point I walked the kids out to the middle of the store where there were no shelves or giant boxes of legos to crash on top of us.

I decided to keep walking around the BX for a while because if we were going to be hit by anymore earthquakes that day, I figured the stability of the BX was probably more reliable than our base housing. Once I was fairly certain the roads weren't going to split open, I went ahead and checked out and drove home. Once there I made sure the pets were fine, the picture frames were all still hanging on the wall, and that the TV was secure (our tv stand is thiiiiiis close to falling apart, and I keep saying one more earthquake will do it). The kids took their naps, and all was well with our little part of the world.

So I figure now is a great time to review earthquake safety tips! The change of duty stations also brings about a change in natural disasters you are likely to experience, so if you ever find yourself stationed in Japan (or California) here are some ways you can keep safe during an earthquake:

• If you are indoors, stay there. Quickly move to a safe location in the room such as under a strong desk, a strong table, or along an interior wall. The goal is to protect yourself from falling objects and be located near the structural strong points of the room. Avoid taking cover near windows, large mirrors, hanging objects, heavy furniture, heavy appliances or fireplaces.
• If you are cooking, turn off the stove and take cover.
• If you are outdoors, move to an open area where falling objects are unlikely to strike you. Move away from buildings, powerlines and trees.
• If you are driving, slow down smoothly and stop on the side of the road. Avoid stopping on or under bridges and overpasses, or under power lines, trees and large signs. Stay in your car.

Geology.com has more tips on what to do before and after an earthquake as well.

Make sure to always keep your emergency kits stocked with supplies, have a stash of non-perishable food and water, and review safety precautions for natural disasters in your area!

Take a Break

"Quiet time" is my favorite time of day. Around 1pm every afternoon all three of my kids go to their beds and either nap or do a silent activity. Gabriel finishes his bottle and knocks out soon after the older two are upstairs. King loves his sleep. He is always the last to wake up in the morning, and the first down at nap and bed time. Rarely is there ever a fight over it. He takes his blankey and his bear, says "ni-ni mo-mmy," and he is out. It's a bit more trying to get Bella to her room, but she eventually saunters up the stairs with a reluctant sigh and stays in her room for just under an hour before hurrying back down asking: "is quiet time over mommy?!" And at that point it is.

Usually I send Bella up for quiet time on her own, hoping that I can squeeze in just a few extra moments of solitude on my end. However, today she asked me if I wanted to go to her room for a bit to rub her back and talk to God with her. How could I excuse myself from that? Up the stairs I went following close behind my 4 year old who all at once seemed so young, yet suddenly grown up. Time is fleeting indeed.

I rubbed her back and listened to her as she spoke with God: "Hey, God. Where did you come from? Oh yea, the sky? Hey, God did you move the water so people could get through? Oh, you did? Did you make the ants? Yea, you did!" On and on she went asking God such precious questions, and then: "Thank you for making mommy and daddy's wedding, and thank you for my brothers." How sweet she can be! I told her how blessed I was that God gave her to me. I asked her what her favorite part of having me as a mommy was, hoping to get some insight on how I could be sure I was a blessing to her as well. She answered, "uh...cleaning!" Really, kid? She hasn't been offered much else from me I suppose. It seems as if all I'm doing is cleaning.

I've been feeling pretty inadequate in the mommy department lately. It's a difficult balance here. As I mentioned before, I am a perfectionist to the nth degree. A few months back I suppressed the clean freak in me long enough to have a food fight with the kids. I took all the leftovers from the fridge, put them in a big bowl, and mixed in some canned vegetables that I knew no one in the house would eat anyway. We put on old t-shirts and aprons and took the bowl outside. We set it in the middle of our yard, grabbed handfuls of food, and just started throwing.

It was disgusting and messy and tremendously FUN! Just as childhood should be. I had never heard Bella laugh so hard in her life.

I thoroughly enjoy my quiet time, but what a waste of all the rest of my time if at the end of the day all I have to show for it is a tidy home. I want my kids to giggle so much it wears them out, and I want to be the cause of it every day! So here is to more food fights, less not right now's, and a whole lot of laughter. Every. Single. Day.

"PCS Clean"

I am a total perfectionist. Now, this is not to say everything in my house is perfect. Quite the opposite in fact. Although it's true I do have a place for everything, hardly ever is everything in its place. One flaw that plagues us perfectionists is low productivity when we can't get everything, well, perfect. If the desk is cluttered, I can't bring myself to wash the dishes. If the floor isn't vacuumed, I can't bring myself to do the laundry (well, honestly even if everything is done it's hard to bring myself to do the laundry). My inner self knows that no matter how clean I get this place, it won't ever really be clean. So my strong will rebels against my body. Instead of getting down to work, I just sulk and sulk over the fact that I can't reach the dust bunnies behind the refrigerator.

I know, I know.

One crazy way that I've helped put my perfectionist self at ease is by doing a "PCS clean" once a month (for my readers not familiar with military lingo, PCS stands for "permanent change of station." Or in other words, when we get the heck out of here and move elsewhere). You know all that scrubbing marks off walls, washing floors and windows, cleaning light fixtures, large appliances, and trying to get whatever that stain is out of the carpet so your house can pass inspection...yes, I do THAT once a month.

I'm a huge fan of FlyLady. I know she emphasizes baby steps, but during these once a month deep cleans I throw that out the streak-free shiny window and take giant leaps instead. It generally takes me about 4 days to completely clean my home. I'm very big on lists and organization. FlyLady has a handy detailed cleaning list for each "zone" of the house. I generally start out my cleaning following that list, tweaking a bit to fit our home (check out her website if you have no clue of where to start with your cleaning! It's pretty helpful).

I like to break down my cleaning schedule like this:

Day 1: Declutter- I go through all closets, cabinets, and drawers and toss, sell, or donate anything just taking up space. These monthly purges are probably the most important and beneficial step. We accumulate a lot, and trying to go through everything during an actual PCS is overwhelming.

Day 2: Downstairs- I deep clean EVERYTHING downstairs. From the cobwebs on the ceiling to the dirt on the floorboards, everything gets scrubbed, wiped, and bleached. I dust all surfaces, clean off windows, computer monitors, and picture frames, wash all of the walls, clean the light fixtures, wash curtains and couch pillow cushions. The floors are all vacuumed, swept, mopped, and shampooed. The bathroom is cleaned from the top of the ceiling to the bottom of the toilet, the kitchen appliances are thoroughly washed, the litter box is bleached...you get the idea. Everything.

Day 3: Upstairs- I do a thorough deep cleaning upstairs just like downstairs. I'll spare the details, but our upstairs consists of 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a linen closet.

Day 4: Laundry- I hate laundry. I usually put it off so long that it takes a day or two to complete, so during my "PCS clean" I dedicate a whole day to just washing and folding. To be completely honest, sometimes I put off doing the laundry so long that this once a month laundry marathon is the only time it gets done.

While I'm cleaning, I corral my kiddos in the playroom so that any mess they make will be confined to that one area. The playroom is usually the last room in the house that I clean, and they "help" at that point (help being they do what I tell them to do, and then I redo it when they aren't looking).

Overwhelming, slightly. But these monthly deep cleans calm my perfectionist soul. There is nothing quite like the feeling of Day 5.