So, I drove out of the Tri Cities today for the first time. It’s the first time I drove longer than half an hour, just me and my babies. Ball & Cross Books in Moscow is closing its store so I went there to use a couple hundred dollars of store credit a friend (who owed me money) left for me.

It took me about 3 hours to get there. The last hour, Rinah was screaming so hard I could hear her throwing up and choking on it but there was nowhere to pull over so I just had to listen and pray. She was crying like she was scared. When I finally pulled over, her lips were purply-blue and she was shaking all over. I held her and tried to comfort her a bit before getting back on the road.

While I was in Moscow, I got to meet some friends I hadn’t seen in way too long, Rinah’s lovely godmother, and the wonderful family I boarded with. It was great but I only got to spend a few minutes with each of them. Not enough time at all. I wanted to stay longer because there were so many more people I wanted to see, but I left so I could get home before dark.

My sweet little girl, who is usually so calm, cried for over 2 hours on the way home. Not just cried. Screamed. It didn’t help that she’s teething. All her molars, top and bottom, right and left, are cutting through her gums. So I was speeding and I got pulled over and got a HUGE ticket. It cost as much as my “free” books. At least the policeman was really nice. His last name was Smith. Ben just told me our car insurance is going up because of this.

Now I hate cars (and myself) more than ever. If we were in a train in Tokyo, I could have been holding her, playing with her, reading to her, nursing, walking around, pretty much whatever I wanted. I think this means I am not meant to get out of the the Tri Cities … especially with another one coming so soon. AUGH. One baby screaming is bad enough. I can’t imagine how horrible it is to listen to 2 babies screaming in the back seat.

Except for meeting some friends, today was just a really, really bad day … 6.5 hours of driving and almost 3.5 hours of screaming. I miss everyday life in Mitaka and Kichijoji so much. Here are some pictures of a really good day we had last summer in Mitaka, 40 pounds ago. She has her daddy’s wrinkly forehead and my nose-wrinkly smile.

We’re back home and she’s back to her happy self, running around, giggling, singing, babbling, dancing, and playing with daddy. She is going to be a really talkative little girl. Actually, she already is, I just have no idea what she’s saying most of the time.

You can tell I’m back home now from the dearth of blog posts. This is because I am too busy reading blogs or chasing down my busy tot. What is going to happen with two? Or more? I need to live closer to my mother so I can blog more often.

Every time we take a bath, for the last few months, we play with the foam alphabet and numbers, saying all the names and sounds, wetting them in the water, and sticking them on the bathroom wall. She loves it and tries to repeat everything. Her favourite letters are A, E, I and X. She really likes X. LOL.

A couple days ago, Rinah started singing the ABC song, except she says, “Ah, beh, sah, deh” instead of “A, B, C, D.” My heart stops overcome by sheer cuteness. She loves playing with the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set I picked up at Walmart a couple months ago.

There is a red button that sings the alphabet song and when you push a magnetic letter into the thing, it sings a little song about the sounds it makes … “B says buh, B says buh, every letter makes a sound, B says buh.” For letters with more than one sound it goes, “C says kh, and C says sssss, every letter makes a sound, C says kh, and sssss.” When she plays with it too long and it gets obnoxiously repetitive, then I turn the sound down. There are two levels, loud and soft. She’s also learning about shapes because the letters only fit right side up. It’s one of the best toys I’ve bought her so far, twenty bucks well spent.

While we were in Tokyo, I started showing her one of the Japanese alphabets (called hiragana) and got some flash cards, board books and posters for her. My mother and I were amazed that she seems to recognize the difference between English and Japanese writing. She says “A, B, C, D” when she sees a book in English and “A, I, U, E, O” when she sees something in Japanese.

She also started playing with some baby crayons I found while I was in Tokyo and really loves them. She sits and stacks them in various colour configurations, takes them apart, and starts all over again. I’ve showed her how to write with them, but she hasn’t caught on yet and that’s fine. She looks at me like I’m weird and then reaches for a pen or a pencil. I have no idea what the product name is in English, but I see Sarah has her kids playing with them, too.

These crayons are designed to be easy for chubby hands to hold, fun to play with as blocks, withstand lots of abuse without breaking, safe to suck on, and washable if they get on clothing. All in all, an amazing baby product.

AAAAAAAAAAARGH. I just stepped on the dark green one with my shoes on and it crumbled. Rinah has thrown them, dropped them, chewed on them, and they were fine but of course nothing can hold up my freakanormous weight. I’m so sad. *sob sob sob* I know if Ben stepped on it and broke it I would have been so mad.

I remember when I was little and I broke a dish or a cup, my mother would get back angry. Then one week, I remember I couldn’t understand why she didn’t get angry when she broke cups a couple days in a row. She was very quiet and just cleaned up. What am I supposed to do? I finished the cleaning up the pieces quietly part. I think I’m going to go beat myself up. *whack thwack, more sobs*

And now I really need to know where Sarah got hers. Her set has more colours than mine does. Yippee! She just let me know I can get the same thing at Amazon.

Except for crabbiness and crying when she’s sleepy or teething and pooping massive amounts daily, half in diaper, half in potty, Rinah is a sweet little girl and living up to her name: Joy and Song of the Covenant. She likes to walk around singing, talking, and coming up to me to give me a smile and a hug … sometimes, even a kiss or two or twenty.

She also pats herself on a job well-done after peeing in the potty and walks around nodding to herself, “Good girl, good girl.” This also happened once after peeing in her panties onto the floor. ROTFLOL.

Miwaza took the picture of us walking. I took the other one and Miwaza prettified it.

A couple days after we got to Tokyo, my parents took me to a baby store nearby where I found this. It was an experimental purchase that turned out to be so amazingly good I’m going back to get another one this weekend so I can keep one in my bedside table and one in the diaper bag. This is available at various drug stores and baby stores in Japan and also at Amazon.jp (but not Amazon.com). It’s available from me, too. Just lemme know if you want one.

Traditionally, Japanese people would suck their babies’ snot out with their mouths. One night a few months ago when Rinah was having trouble sleeping because of a stuffed nose and I couldn’t clear out anything with the snot sucker we had, I remembered what some of my Japanese church friends did with their babies and I considered it, but was too grossed out to actually try. This product is the alternative for people too squeamish to suck and spit. The several bulbous snot suckers we have collected do not work and after I’m done using one, she’s screaming and her nose is still stuffed.

She hates this new one, too, but at the end of the ordeal, the little container has gobs and gobs of gooey yuckiness. The best part of all is that she can sleep through the night instead of waking up and crying because her nose is too stuffed to breathe. During the day, after a snot-sucking session, I don’t need to wipe her nose for at least an hour or two which means I don’t have a baby running around with snot running out of her nose or smeared all over her face and a rough red patch under her nose from too much wiping. Also, no more latching on, nursing for just a little bit, then coming up for air, and latching back on again, over and over and over.

Here’s a closeup of the thingy (click to see full size) and a pic of how to use it. You’re gonna have to settle for the manufacturer’s picture ’cause I have my hands full when I’m using it. I know if looks gross but it works really well and the snot all goes in the bottle part, not your mouth.

Apparently, there is something similar made in Sweden called the Nosefrida that comes recommended by lots of magazines and Dr. Sears, but I haven’t tried it so I don’t know how well it works in comparison.

(HT: Chris Witmer)

Rapists in the ranks
Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.
By Jane Harman

The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.

These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported — 73% more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.

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