Strangers in a Strange Land

Tim told me that I needed to blog tonight and that he did not care for the little tidbit posts. Humph. So here I sit, trying to manufacture some coherence out of a brain that is still hovering somewhere around Alaska.

We are here. Boggling, my mind is. Yoda, channeling I am. Because the name Yoda sounds like it could be Japanese.That's funny to me right now, which gives you a clue to my enfeebled mental state. God, jet lag sucks. More about THAT later.

First, Japan. Introductions are in order.

According to Wikipedia, Japan is an island nation and a nation of islands, composed of over 6,852 islands in total, though I think the actual number is subject to debate and climate change.

We are on the largest island of them all, called Honshu, seen in that fetching shade of mauve below.

And on Honshu, we are located in Tokyo prefecture, in a small town called Fussa, highlighted here. We are about 1.5 hours from central Tokyo, heading generally northwest, but we are still considered to be in Tokyo, because it's huge. That's a bit confusing to me, and it feels as though North Carolina suddenly decided that the entire middle portion of the state was just "Raleigh". But hey, this is the world's largest city, so I guess they can make their own rules.



About a third of Fussa is taken up by Yokota Air Base, which is where we are living.

 As you can see, everything centers around the airfield. I have already gotten used to feeling the hum of jet engines deep in my bones and to seeing large aircraft flying around at low altitudes. This is basically THE hub for all Pacific operations, as I understand it. There is apparently a typhoon heading into the area this week, so aircraft from Okinawa have been coming in to ride out the storm in the safety of the enormous hangars here.

We picked out our house this week and we will be living in the East Housing area, which is the area closest to the hospital. There are parks everywhere, two elementary schools, swimming pools, a library, and even a Chili's, among other American restaurants.Right now we are living in the TLF*, or temporary living facilities, which is basically a three bedroom apartment.

*So far I have gathered that if the military can create an acronym for something, it's going to do it, even if it would be easier to just say the words. Example: We live in the TLF and shop in the BX at the YCC which is located beside the AFRC where people might ask you "Did you just PCS? What's your MOS?" among other things. 

We haven't set foot off the base yet, mostly because there has been so much in-processing to do and it seems like everything has to be done in triplicate. The strange land I'm referring to in my title is not Japan at all. Technically, I haven't even touched Japanese soil yet. That's fine because we have the minor culture shock of military life to adjust to first.

Things are different here. Uniforms are more common than civilian clothes. Everyone needs military I.D. to do anything, even buy groceries. Tire shredders, vehicle barriers, and heavy machinery are much in evidence. It's all quite intimidating and vaguely menacing to my civilian eyes.

This is to say nothing of the many rituals and customs of the military that we barely comprehend. I don't know a sergeant from a colonel or what to do when music comes over the loudspeakers. Every day has us furiously Googling something to figure it all out. And poor Tim is of course coming in as a Captain and is nominally "commanding" people that have served their entire lives. In reality, of course, they are showing him the ropes, at least until they scrub in the OR, which won't happen for another week or so.

Fortunately, the people are enormously kind. Tim's fellow orthopedic staff met us at the airport here at Yokota by waving a model of a hand in the air, which was a great foreshadowing of the role they've played in our lives. They have lent us their hands, and vehicles, and time to help us settle in. They've cheerfully ferried us around to buy groceries, look at cars, and attend classes.

We've tried not to drive them TOO crazy and we do try to catch the free shuttle that runs around base. We're not always successful at that, as I noted in an earlier post. Sadly, that wasn't the only time we missed the shuttle, but it led to us meeting a great woman named Marla  who took us home from the grocery store in her van. All five of us, and our bags. And then she babysat my kids during my driver's education class, for five hours, and refused to let us pay her. These are the kind of neighbors we've inherited and I'm already incredibly grateful. We know from our time in Rochester than having a family-away-from-family changes everything for the better.

There is SO much to write about, but my brain feels like goo right about now. It's only been a week since we got here, which makes my mind/goo slosh around alarmingly. I think this has been one of the longest weeks of my life, despite actually being the shortest, due to losing a day to time travel  the odd effect of traveling westward.

As you have probably gathered, jet lag is real and it is not kind. Tim is perfectly fine and thinks his years of torture training as a resident have enabled him to fall asleep on command, anywhere, and at any time. He is only slightly smug about this, the lucky bass...et hound.

Adelaide is approaching fine, waking up at 6 or 630 AM. Graydon wakes up at 530 AM, and Emilia is waking at 430. Poor Emilia is like a baby in a cruel science experiment right now. "Hey, I know, let's see what happens when we take a baby and move her every few days for the entirety of here life!" Well, after much testing, I can confirm that what happens is that Baby gets her security from being with Mom, preferably with a breast in her mouth at all times, the better to ensure that Mom doesn't slip away in the night. I can't blame that little punkin a bit, although I am very much looking forward to some stability, for her sake.

For now, we are here, we are adjusting, and we are happy if slightly confused at all times. Kind of like puppies tumbling out of their kennel for the first time, but with better control of our bladders*.

*Well, most of us anyway. Graydon did announce his presence at 5:30 this morning by climbing into bed with me and saying "Hey, Mom, I need  you to change my diaper." Good morning, son. Good morning.

SuperMan?

The day before we left for Japan, I excitedly informed my kids "OK, guys, tomorrow we are going to fly to Japan!" Addie cheered, but Graydon said "NO, Mom, we not flying!". I said "Why not, buddy? It's going to be so fun!" To which he replied "Because. I no have my cape."

Pebble Post

*My entire last year of blogging was filled with lots of posts about not blogging. And that's understandable, given what was happening at the time, but I'd like to post more this year, without always feeling like I need to give a narrative structure to the post. I'm going to call these posts "Pebbles" because ultimately all mountains are made of lots of small rocks. I actually just made that up and have no idea if is factually true, but if feels poetically true, so there it shall stay.

We missed the shuttle the other day and that was bad. There is a small bus that goes around the base and stops at the most important places, including the temporary living facilities where we are staying at the moment. It usually comes by every half hour or so, but this was the last shuttle of the day. And we missed it. So we had to walk home with our three exhausted children and bags and it was a few miles and it was hot. We were streaming sweat and berating ourselves and feeling generally cross and inconvenienced.

But it was also evening and the sun was setting and as we walked around and across the airfield, we stopped for a moment of rest and noticed that the sun was piercing through the clouds in a series of long shafts of light that colored the sky gold and rose and pearl. Clouds were breaking like waves over the mountains that cradle the base like an egg in a nest and lo and behold, we could see Mt. Fuji in the distance, massive and majestic and unmistakable.

We missed the shuttle and that was actually quite good.

Hiatus Part 2: The Revenge

Tomorrow at 7 AM the packers arrive to take some of our things to storage. And then on Weds our second shipment of stuff  heads to Japan. This is the smaller-but-still large shipment of things that go by plane. Our enormous shipment that goes by ship has already been taken.

And then we leave on Thursday for what is sure to be a fun filled trip full of laughter and peace and deep thoughts and conversation ....oh no, wait, we're driving for 18 hours with three children under five. One of which will eat every half hour or so it seems. Dear God, let us all survive with sanity more or less intact.

I have thoughts,oh so many thoughts, about leaving Rochester and the end of Tim's residency and leaving my alternate residency family and leaving Tim's actual family, and Emilia's first two months of life and what it's like to see Addie with her sister and Graydon as an older brother, and oh my heavens, I want to blog so so badly. I'm so afraid that I'm going to forget how this feels and that if I don't pin it down, I'll lose it, and THAT makes me want to burst into tears for roughly the 875th time in the past four months.

Still, I'm going on hiatus due to technical difficulties. Really, I have two main problems. The first and most insurmountable is that we will be in North Carolina for roughly a month, and we will have internet access but only via Kindles and the iPad and have you ever tried to blog on a touch screen? It's awful. Seriously. The only thing that could be slower and more excruciating than "hunt and peck" is actually setting the type on a big ass printing press and cranking out a physical copy a la the 18 century. I would rather write it out longhand and kick it medieval style with illuminated capitals and awesome calligraphy than hunt and peck because at least then I could wear my robe all day and listen to Gregorian chants and get high on incense.

The second is that none of the devices mentioned above have my camera program on them and I don't like doing multiple entries without photos. A few here and there are fine but I like pictures and blogging actually spurs me to work on my (admittedly poor) photography skills.

Therefore I probably won't blog again until August. Ugh. Wretched but unfortunately necessary. So, until August, dear blog.

Emilia's Birth Story: Part 2

If you missed Part 1, start here

When we last left our heroine, she had just had her water broken...and we now re-join the scene...(I find this works really well if you imagine it in a Spanish accent, but that's just me)

The contractions went from a whisper to a scream much faster than I could process.

I actually think full-on unmedicated hard labor is something every woman should try to experience at least once. Even if you don't stick with it (as I didn't, this time around), the sheer force of what's happening in your body has to be experienced to be believed.

Time stops flowing normally. Minutes last for ages and yet somehow hours go by quickly. You're not moving much, yet you break a sweat and feel unbearably hot in your own skin.. You want to speak, to ask for help, to explain what's happening, but you can't form words. It's incredibly primal and all you want is for the pain to end and yet you want it to continue because each surge is bringing you closer and closer to your child. . You are surrounded by people but somehow the pain is entirely personal and private. It's simultaneously humbling and empowering as you cry and groan and breathe through each pain and work to channel the energy coursing through you. It both breaks you and strengthens you every time you ride the contractions through from crest to peak to ebb. It is a force of nature, immense and difficult to contain. Working through it, for any length of time, is a source of pride and strength for the rest of your life.

I labored for roughly an hour, trying to let my right side catch up to my left, and trying to maintain control of the process. Each time a contraction hit, my mind was saying "no, no, NO, NO!" which is not really the way you want to go into a contraction if you're going to labor naturally. You HAVE to accept the pain and work with it, and it really helps to have a good meditative practice. Needless to say, I didn't practice my hypnobirthing this time around...out of lack of opportunity, not desire...and it really showed. I just didn't have the mental reserves I needed to surrender to the labor.

I asked for an epidural. Tracy said "You're at full dilation and if I just push this little piece of cervix back while you push, we can have a baby" which I immediately vetoed. I was terrified to push, afraid that the baby wouldn't come quickly and I would be suffering for hours. Everyone had assured me that the second vaginal birth is worlds easier than the first, but I was afraid to believe that. As it turned out, since I did end up pushing for a little over two hours, so I'm very thankful I got the epidural. 

Anesthesia was amazing and got in the epidural super fast, along with a spinal which took immediate effect. In a funny turn of events, the anesthesia doc was the husband of a friend, and his resident was our neighbor. Did I recognize either gentleman? No. no I did not. It could have been Barack and Michelle Obama for all I noticed.

As soon as the spinal hit, I looked at Tim and said "Epidural. Number Two." No one knew what I was talking about until I said "Vaccination, Number One, but epidurals are the second best achievement of modern medicine". True to his calling, Tim said "What about joint replacement?" to which I replied "Not even close".

The midwife and nurse left for a bit to allow the spinal to wear off and the epidural to kick in and I recall absolutely nothing about that time except for the blissful absence of pain. When they came back, Tracy said "OK, let's have a baby!" and I started pushing.

And kept pushing. And kept pushing. For hours. The goal was to get in three pushes (or more) to each contraction and to keep moving the baby further with each push. The baby was moving down the canal, but she just was NOT coming out. They brought me a mirror and I kept watching her head advance and retreat and I could see that I was making progress, but not quite enough. I was getting upset because I was totally confused as to why I sucked so much at birthing babies. Shouldn't pushing be easier than this by now?

And then the baby's heart rhythm started to show signs of stress during each contraction and Tracy told me very seriously that I needed to be done, that I needed to deliver the baby now. I was terrified, of course, because this is a road I've been down twice and it's not very pleasant for anyone.

The rest of the labor I only remember in fragments of conversation and flashes of images.

Push. Push. Push. Nothing. "Tara, you have to be done. You have to get the baby out now."

Push. Push. Push. Nothing. Asking: "Is the baby OK?" Hearing: "You need to have the baby. We need the baby here now. Give it everything you've got."

Push. Push. Push. Nothing. Asking through tears: "Is the baby OK?"  Hearing: "Yes, but you need to be done." Saying: "I'm trying. I'm trying so hard, I just can't do it." Hearing: "Yes, you can, you are doing this, I'm going to help you, ok? I'm going to give you an episiotomy so we can get this baby out. Don't look".

I close my eyes, in order to avoid the mirror and the sight of my flesh being cut.  I push with all my might. I see stars flaring on my eyelids, suns wheeling across the darkness, and my whole being is pleading "Please, please..." my whole body feels like a prayer, both lament and praise, and most of all, supplication, and then...

I hear Tim say "Oh my, it's a big one."

I look down and there is my baby's face, gray and chalky and huge cheeked and facing my left thigh. (Children are normally born face down, and not sideways!) Only the baby's head is free, but as I push, I watch, and my child slides into the world, whole and perfect and suddenly free of me and belonging only to itself.






They bring the baby right to my chest, so fast that I can't see if I have a girl or a boy, all I see is cord and baby, and Tim says "It's a little girl" and my heart breaks and my face crumples and I am sobbing as I kiss my daughter's hot, wet head.





She is slimy with blood and vernix and she is howling, but she is just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I can't stop sobbing and I keep saying to her "Oh, baby, that was so hard. That was so hard. Are you OK? I'm so glad you're here. Mama loves you" over and over again.

At some point, I realize that Tim might want to see his child as well, and I look up at him and say "Can you see her?"I see him wipe his tears away and lean in to examine our newest addition, our precious daughter. It's one of the best moments of my life.

Our first photo with our precious youngest daughter

The rest of the morning is a blur. Emilia is weighed, cleaned, named, and nursed, in some order I can't remember. I'm stitched up from episiotomy #2, and I also manage to lose a lot of blood after the birth, requiring the administration of a  medicine that is given rectally. At this point, I'm just like "Sure, WHY NOT and let's try to find something to stick in my ear as well. Let's leave no orifice out!"" As it turns out, when babies are delivered "Sunny Side Up" as Emi was, mothers have a greater risk of postpartum hemorrhage. I don't know how delivering sideways contributes to all that, but it's probably not good.

Our big girl getting her vital statistics taken!

All things considered, I was physically battered and bruised and bloodied, but I was also over the moon happy about Emilia. I'm also pretty relieved that I am not a physical weakling, just oddly shaped: the midwife and I decided that I must have a weird pelvis because all of our children have presented in a decidedly difficult-to-deliver fashion.

But she is here, she is healthy, she is so worth it.

We have the exact same picture of Addie and Tim. Daddy loves his girls.

This is obviously a very personal experience, and it sometimes does make me nervous to share a moment like this on a public blog.  The reasons to write a birth story are obvious: so you don't forget anything and so you can process the whole crazy glorious mess of birth. The reason to share it is less so, but truthfully, I've learned something from every birth story that I've ever read. So I suppose this is my small contribution to the communal process by which women become mothers. 

And it's also the beginning of our family's journey with Emilia and if that's not worth sharing, nothing is! Welcome to the world, precious and beloved baby girl. Beautiful and terrible things await, but don't be afraid. We are right here with you.

Emilia's Birth Story: Part 1

"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.” 

---Frederick Buechner

Emilia Mae Ewald was born at 10:54 AM on Thursday, April 10th 2014. She weighed in at 9 lbs 1 oz and was 20.75 inches long. Like her siblings, she came out sporting a head full of black hair. Unlike her siblings, she has a tiny little head and absolutely enormous cheeks that were made to be kissed.

Five, almost six, weeks later, and I still can't believe I finally have this little love in my arms and off my bladder. She is healthy, she is strong, she is beautiful, and we adore her. Here's how she came into our lives.

Sweet Emi entered the world via a very odd labor and delivery, and it was both lovely and awful and I was so so happy when it was over and also incredibly sad, lest I never do this again. I think birth is inherently crazy and terrifying and exalting and life changing and it can be really hard to tell the story of it afterwards because nothing happens for long stretches and then all of a sudden everything happens so quickly that you can't really recall it properly.

Emilia's labor really started about three weeks before it actually started. Confusing, but I"ll explain.

I know, I can't ever really do a short post. Words. I like them.

Three weeks earlier...no, just kidding,, this is the birthing tub in the labor suite.  It only felt like three weeks.

At 37 weeks, I went into my regularly scheduled appointment hoping that I might be in early labor. I was spotting, sick to my stomach, and contracting every six or seven minutes. That was not the case, but I was "3 to 4" cm dilated and about 80% effaced at that point. This same pattern of labor-like symptoms continued every two to three days for the next three weeks and I was, of course, the picture of grace and serenity as I waited for my baby to choose its own time to be born.

Or not.

People, I was done. Just...done. I'm a fan of letting the baby gestate for as long as he/she needs, in theory, but in practice,  I was ready to evict this child. At 39 weeks they stripped my membranes. Consequently, I was up until 2 AM with painful contractions about 6 to 8 minutes apart, lots of spotting, chills alternating with hot flashes, and puking/upset stomach. But no baby resulted from all that discomfort. Just a very long day today and a touch of irritability on my part. A mere soupcon.

I was trying to explain my state of depression to my husband and I made the admittedly foolish mistake of saying "I don't know, my nerves are shredded right now, I feel like a shell of myself" and he made the admittedly much more foolish mistake of saying "Well, I wouldn't say THAT" as he laughed fondly.

Note to everyone not uber pregnant: things like "logic" and "humor" have no place in conversations with those great with child.

By 40 weeks, I was a wreck, frankly. Late pregnancy is truly awful in a way you can only appreciate if you've been there. You're tired of not being able to sleep for more than two hours straight, tired of peeing approximately 114 times a day, tired of lumbering around with all the speed and grace of a Panzer division, tired of your aching pelvis, your aching back., your aching feet. tired of the heartburn, tired of the nausea when your child shifts its weight to your stomach, tired of the various substances welling out of  your body, and you sort of know in theory that you're going to produce a child at some point, but it feels like that is a big fat cosmic joke and that you may be the first person in history to never ever EVER stop being pregnant. 

And that's why God is smart, because the last few weeks of pregnancy are so miserable that you actually look forward to labor. Now, that's ingenuity.

I know this is the end. I know it might possibly be THE END of my childbearing days for the rest of time, and given that, I wish I was appreciative of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was not.  I did jumping jacks. I ran (lumbered) up and down our stairs. I ate spicy food. I tried to bribe the baby into appearing by promising it milk and cuddles and cute outfits. I prayed. I cursed. I tried to cry. I tried to meditate.

Which brings me to April 9th and my state of mind was admittedly poor. My state of body was large. The same ole pattern of symptoms started up and I thought "oh yes, good, let's do THIS again" but this time the symptoms persisted from roughly 4 PM until about 11 PM and things seemed to be getting more intense and more rhythmic as time went on. I dithered a bit about what to do, and then decided I was going to lie down. Tim immediately vetoed this idea and said we were walking around the block for as long as it took. This tiny factoid should tell you that I was totally awesome to live with during this time period, because Tim is not normally one to veto a nap in favor of a walk, particularly at 11 PM. One lap around our block later and I was ready to head in to the hospital.

We got the kiddos out of bed and loaded them into our (extremely sexy) minivan for their last ride as the the only two Ewald kids. I was mentally willing my contractions to continue the entire time. We'd called my in-laws down from the Cities, we dropped the kids off at Kristen Yuan's at midnight (now THERE is a friend) and I was really upset that it was all going to be for naught, as we could very easily be sent home yet again. Tim offered to drop me off at the hospital but I insisted on parking the car with him and walking from the employee lot to the hospital to magically open up my cervix in the last 500 yards.

I got checked in and the midwife examined me and said "OK, you're 7 cm dilated, we'll get a suite set up for you".

I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor. Seven centimeters? I wasn't even in pain. I could have eaten a BLT and watched the Real Housewives, which does not square with my previous experience of "seven centimeters" at all.  I was not about to complain about this, mind you.

We got checked in and I got super excited and nervous because we were finally going to meet our little one. I confidently predicted a baby by 4:30 AM.

Waiting for Baby E3

At about 6:30 AM I woke up from my nap in a labor that had basically halted. They checked me out and I was 9 cm dilated on one side and 7 on the other, which was more than a little bit odd. No big deal though, they would break my water and deliver this kiddo before the shift change at 7. Except that I balked at that, because I did not want to get caught in the shift change in the midst of pushing out an Ewald baby (read: huge).



So Tim and I wandered around for a while, then met the new nurses and the midwife, Tracy (who was amazing!) and we talked about our options. We could either 1) continue to wait 2) start some Pitocin or 3) break my water. Tracy explained that I was going to get uncomfortable at some point to have this baby and while it was fine to wait, it was basically delaying the inevitable. I had mixed feelings about intervening in the process, but finally agreed to let them break my water since I was already 9 cm dilated anyway and just wanted to meet my little person.

So they broke my water. 

And now I have to break my birth story into two pieces because Emilia is up and typing whilst breastfeeding is quite difficult...believe me, I've tried....but I'll give you a hint about Part 2. We had the baby!

A Low Bar is Key

I'm kind of drunk* right now, but what the hell, I'll take a stab at this anyway.

(*Fatigue drunk, just to be clear, not alcohol drunk. Sadly.)
 
In the aeons since I last posted, we have produced a beautiful and beloved baby girl. We named her Emilia Mae, brought her home with pride and love, and then promptly proceeded to lose our minds over the next weeks. And I will very definitely post her birth story, hopefully soon, but for now, I can't even process anything more complicated than the alphabet. And I might miss some letters there, if given a pop quiz.

Baby love

So there's the usual newborn fatigue and sibling processing going on, but Emilia also has reflux and is possibly colicky, possibly just high maintenance, but either way is attached to me 24/7. Like for real, for real, I'm either nursing baby girl, wearing her, or sleeping with her.

Also it's finally spring in MN, which means it's time for the Ewalds to contract a killer death plague and disappear into the sick locker for a while. Which we have done, and 2014's plague consists of some sort of mild and yet still soul shrivelingly awful influenza complete with fevers, chills, and muscle aches that actually made me cry on Friday morning.

Sick Locker 2014: Fevers of 104, aka Life Sucks

Though to be fair, I was attempting to get three small children to the doctor's by 8 AM in order to start our medical clearance for the military, and that might have brought me to tears on a good morning. The fever and chills just made it more fun.

Allow me to share my life with you.

Scene 1: Hallmark Moment

Emi is crying, because I'm not holding her. Addie is crying because I gave her water in an orange cup instead of a blue one. Addie pushes her cup away in a tantrum, and of course, knocks it over. Water is everywhere. Graydon is crying because his hands are dirty. Wait, his hands really are dirty. Is that...yes. Yes, his hands are covered in poop. He has diarrhea, probably from "Advil tummy" and went excavating in his diaper. In his distress, he is trying to clean them on anything and everything he can reach. 

Scene 2: Motherhood: NAILING IT

My mom goes back to NC on a Tuesday, right as Emilia's colic is hitting full force. Emilia has a screaming fit that lasts for two hours. She cries. I cry because I can't soothe her and because my Mom left. Tim comes home and my eyes are swollen shut from sobbing, I'm topless because I accidentally soaked my shirt with breastmilk after forgetting breast pads, and my hair is matted with spit up from Emilia's reflux issues. 

Scene 3: Feel the Burn

I attempt to hustle the two bigger kids into the shower with me. Emi is grunting and working herself up into a crying fit in her bouncy chair. I have approximately 4 minutes to get myself and the bigs cleaned before she blows. I herd my two eldest into the spray and hurriedly rip off my own clothes. In my hurry, I accidentally also rip a dangling thread "down there" assuming it's part of a my admittedly crappy underwear. (I am not wasting good undies on post partum, y'all). It is not. It is my episiotomy stitches...which I have just ripped out.  That smarts.

Scene 4:  The Future

Tim comes home and all three kids are crying while I am swigging cooking sherry and singing "Jesus Take the Wheel" at the top of my lungs.


OK, #4 hasn't happened yet, but give it time.

 So all of that is hard and I've cried more in the last three weeks than I did in the last year, but it's totally worth it for this.

Gang of three

How did I get three beautiful, smart, healthy kids? We are truly blessed and it's that long term view that gets me through the short term chaos of transition. It's always hard to add a child to your family, even when everything is "perfect" and it hardly ever goes perfectly, am I right? Still, we have not yet visited Intensive Care so this worlds, galaxies, universes even, better than our transition with Graydon.

And during those moments that everyone is crying, I just try to find one grace note, and hang on to it for dear life. Like the following: it might be noon and Addie might not be dressed yet and Emi might need a diaper change and yet another feeding and the beds aren't made but just look at their darling faces and how much they already love each other.

Sister Love: this one melts me.

So while we've kind of lost the plot here, I know it will get better in the coming weeks. We don't have much to focus on besides our family. Just Tim finishing his thesis and defending it. And saying goodbye to our friends and family here. And moving out of our house. And moving to Tokyo. Total cakewalk.

It reminds me of something my friend Danielle says that always cracks me up: like the old MadTV skit, it's all about "Lowered Expectations" for the next few ...um....years?

Brother Love