ahhh, the keyboard!

once again it's been a long time since I've posted. Once it's been awhile then it seems to get even longer, that whole procrastinating thing I guess. I'm so sleepy I'll be doing a lot of back spacing, well I am.. so just a few words to get back in the swing. The pics are the easiest, but the writing is the most therapeutic...and I've found reality just doesn't get real for me until it's on paper, or more accurately for now, on screen. It's been very busy here this last month, lots of new things for everyone to learn, and unfortunately lots of sick days for our family. Kenji and Kai are fighting with change of season induced infections/asthma(Kai's officially diagnosed with his 3 day hospital stay) and all of us have colds, along with the rest of the farm...Sicky times like this are tough on all of us, and my perfectionistic downfalls hit hardest when my family isn't well. You know, the fear that comes when you can't control something?? It's at times like these that I find it hardest to relent to God's hand, feeling somehow that I can't trust Him to take care of those I love most. I know what I'm doing when I'm doing it, but it certainly doesn't make it easier to let go. Grouchy mommy and controlling wife tendencies tend to emerge when I'm feeling lack of control. And it does bear saying that my need for control is not something I'm particularly proud of, it's just something I know I struggle with and I don't doubt pretty much always will. When I recognize it then sometimes I can let go and I'm no longer a compulsive worrier like I used to be, but other times it's alot harder to let go and be patient for God's timing and purpose. Well, anyway, I'm learning new things thru this experience as always- about myself and subsequently humanity,(like I'm still quite thoroughly capable of throwing a temper tantrum when I don't get what I want, along with the best my children can serve up, maybe a little more subtly however) God's faithfulness, as well as purely practical things as well.....
We are harvesting Kabocha little by little(Japanese winter squash, I think marketed as Hokkaido squash maybe in the States), and we still have one more field of rice that has to be handcut also as it is way muddy, weather cooperating, we'll be doing that the beginning of next week. They have been drying the rice in the huge drier and taking the hulls off, bagging and storing it. Next will come spaghetti squash,soybeans, Chinese Cabbage, and Daikon eventually. We're packing potatoes nearly daily to ship, orders are coming in by fax and piling up on the desk....Nai-Nai we await your return:) And the other day we harvested alot of pumpkins in preparation for our Halloween festival in a week. The kids just love those big orange things, and who can blame them!
Sage just sang in a music contest with his school. He was front and center(he's always put there I think because he's the shortest in the school). He sang wonderfully but could hardly keep his arms still and legs still, my child for sure! Kenji thought he should be doing the directing that one of the fifth graders did. He just kind of stood out against the other very still children, the best was when the girl next to him elbowed him in the ribs to be still, he got the message anyhow, it's always nice to get a good laugh! Sage knows all the words to the songs and says he had alot of fun that day as most of the day they were at the contest singing or listening to others sing so it didn't feel like work. He was puzzled when one of the little girls talked about not wanting to go because she was embarrassed, he wanted to know why? But he did admit that if he was by himself he wouldn't want to do it, but with others he had no problem. They have been practicing lots of music lately, for that contest and for something else, maybe the school festival or a concert, not sure. The music we haven't heard yet he plays the triangle and the xylophone, (well that's not really what it is, but I don't know the name for real:), something like that. I was impressed at their singing, with a sixth grader playing piano(and not just a simple song, but accompanying), and a fifth grader keeping time, with simple directing. His Japanese has blossomed in the last few months, and he uses both languages at home. Kai and Lucas are picking up from this too, it is fun to see. One of the songs Sage is singing at school is It's a Small World after All and we were talking about how our living here and becoming comfortable in this culture makes it easy to understand what they are talking about in the song.
Kai is getting used to the fact that his daily playmate Ken-Ken is gone for awhile and he and Lucas are getting along famously, for the most part. The last several days our house has been scattered with K'nex, rediscovered during chilly days he couldn't go outside with his cough. He is excellent at putting the models together that the pictures show, he's always been really good at puzzles. And of course the complimentary self-designed guns, swords and arrows that always result! My love of gadzillions of small painful pieces is quite driven by the thrill of creativity I observe! The other day we were driving at night and he saw a star and suddenly said I'm going to draw a star tomorrow...the next day he tried and was frustrated, and tonight his attempt turned into a monster:). He is very into space, and we've read the awesome books he got for his birthday alot, we hear alot about space shuttles and rockets in our house and he frequently sees space shuttles(in the form of airplanes I try to convince him!) in the sky. His most recent interest is volcanoes- boys are very fascinated with power and mystery, anybody noticed this?? While he was in the hospital we had some deep conversations about Jesus and God, it's that awareness age Michelle:) He typically acts like he doesn't want to pray,or me to pray, he's kind of a shy kid in some ways though. He is working himself out of his overdependence on me after his episode in the hospital...today I was thrilled to hear him say that he wanted daddy to push him in the shopping cart instead of me because he liked daddy just a little bit more than me!
Lucas is quite the talker, he can get across pretty much anything you need to know, and plenty more....his favorite word right now is the Japanese word Dame, which means no...he says it very strongly to anyone within his hearing when they are doing pretty much anything that he doesn't feel like them doing at the moment, whether it matters in his life or not! Hmmm, wonder if he's heard it a few times himself.....? He loves to play with any kind of vehicles, loves to line them up in a row and "park" them as he says and make roads anywhere, in anything. He also loves to play with stuffed animals, making them talk and pretending they walk and eat and things. He got a cute stuffed turtle for his birthday from Jiji and Baba, just in time as he lost his favorite stuffed duck sometime around then. Some of his other favorite words...Dessert, please!, ( accent on "sert", very clearly, and many times repeated, preferably while running around the table after not eating more than a few bites of real food!) He is just beginning to be afraid of things, likes the light off when he's laying down so there aren't shadows and doesn't want to go in the dark alone. When we were walking outside at sunset the other night, "I see Jesus!" he said pointing into the sunset...when I said, really, you see Jesus, he says Yeah!, in this just so cute way he has of saying it like amazed or something, and then today when we walked outside for the first time he looked up and pointed at the blue sky with interesting wave-like clouds, and said, "mommy, ocean is coming!" with one of his loud dramatic whispers and facial expressions he is famous for...He is horrified if one of us carries him in the house with his shoes on and sometimes ends up in tears before we can get them off of him and get him laughing...He gives us all many laughs and at two, many an exasperating control struggle just to balance everything out!
well, as usual it's been more than a few words and more backspacing than actual words typed! but it's good to be typing again, hope you are all doing well, and thanks to all here who've been a big help and bore extra burdens while we've been working on healing and thanks to everyone who has been praying for our health....and sanity:).