My Flock of Five

Hi, there! It's a busy week and I'm here with a short post on some of the activities we've been doing around the home lately. The weather here has been pretty nice, but it's just hard to get all three kids out on week nights when I'm already tried from working all day. These are great activities for when you can't go out because of weather or when you can't go out just because you don't have the energy to.

1. Painting with Food 

Grab those fruit and veggies that aren’t quite bad but won’t taste too good either and dip them in some paint. Let your kids use them as stamps on paper and having a blast with the different textures and shapes.

2. Blanket Fort

Round up all your throw pillows and cartoon character blankies and make an amazing fort on top of kitchen chairs. Perfect for playing games, eating snacks, or watching a movie.

3. Make a Book 

Get some paper and some crayons. Write and illustrate a story with your kids and then read it together!

4. Dance Party 

Turn on you favorite dance songs and jump around with your kids. The bonus to this one is that it helps get their energy out!

5. Puppet Show 

Grab some stuffed animals and something to get behind. Take turns performing for each other and laughing away. For extra fun, video it so that they can watch it from a different perspective.

 6. How to Draw YouTube Tutorials 

These are so fun! You can find just about any subject your kids want to draw and the videos are even at varying age and skill levels.

 7. YouTube Yoga 

More YouTube! There are a lot of kid yoga videos. It stretches them out and entertains them! 

8. Baking 

Kids love to eat sweets and they love to make them, too. I measure everything out and then let them pour them in and stir. Depending on the ages of your kids, they could do more or less!

 9. Taste Testing - This was a fun one we did a few weeks back. We just bought small snacks from a couple of different stores and compared the tastes. We kept a tally to see which store had the better store-brand snacks.

10. Card Making 

What holiday is coming up? Doesn’t matter how insignificant of a holiday or how far away - your kids will love making cards for it! There are loads of designs and ideas for any holiday card on Pinterest, or you can just let them draw!

When it comes to traveling with kids, it can be really challenging. It’s more expensive and less relaxing. Depending on the age of your kids, it requires many more stops for everything from feeding the baby to diaper changes to potty breaks and “don’t-make-me-turn-this-car-around” lectures. It’s easy to just keep putting it off. It’s easy to say, “when they’re just a little bit older, we’ll go.” But I have found with my own kids that it is worth the power struggles and extra stops. And here’s why.

#3 Traveling Builds Relationships 

Traveling gives you a unique opportunity to just love on your littles. Of course, you always love them, but it’s usually alongside a busy routine. When you occasionally take them out of the ordinary, it’s incredibly special to them. They recognize that this is something different and they get to see you in a different light, too. Now maybe you’re the mom that builds a sandcastle with them on the beach or looks at dinosaur bones with them in a museum instead of just the mom that nags them to eat all their food and put their shoes on in less than 2.5 hours. When traveling, you can be making their best memories without even realizing it. We took a weekend trip to the beach when my daughter was four and she still talks about it as one of her very favorite times.

#2 Traveling Provides Unique Teaching Opportunities

Again, you’re taking them out of their element and out of their routine. This means a couple of different things. It means that it will be trying for your kids. Yes, it’s exciting for them, but it’s also exhausting and full of unknown factors. They have to cope with long days and no usual schedule, but this is good for them. I promise. As humans, we have to be able to adapt. We need to learn to handle different situations and traveling takes your kids out of their comfort zones to do just that. As I mentioned before, it will require some extra patience on your part, but it’s worth it. You can minimize the struggle by preparing your kids ahead of time. Let them know what to expect by sharing your schedule with them each day and explaining anything they might not understand. Let them ask questions and encourage them to be excited about what’s going to happen. It goes such a long way and will make your trip so much better.

#1 Traveling Expands Their Worlds 

I really think this is the number one reason to travel with kids. In our lives, we get so used to seeing just the things and people around us. Especially for children, it’s easy for those worlds to become self-centered. It’s easy to think that our lives in our homes is all there is and all that matters. Traveling reminds us that we’re not the only ones in this world. You see new places, new people, new ways of life, and new cultures, making it impossible to believe that yours is the only one there or the only one that matters. None of us would actually ever say this, but this thinking is prevalent in our society and easy to fall into if we’re not careful. I didn’t realize just how many of my thoughts and opinions and prejudices came from the fact that I’m an American until I was surrounded by people of a completely different culture in a completely different country. I didn’t realize how many of my own personal morals came from my Christian faith until I was in a country of non-Christians. I learned these things after I became an adult and I wonder how much it would’ve changed if I had learned this as a child. I travel with my children so that they will know. They have heard another language and seen another religion. They’ve seen history and customs of other cultures and they know that the U.S. isn’t the only country that matters. Their worlds are bigger because they have traveled, and to me, that’s enough reason to bring them along.


Have you traveled with your kids? How far did you go? What were some positives that came out of bringing them along?

1. Don't say never or always.

2. Share your feelings.

3. Share your dreams.

4. Have a date at least once a month.

5. Put your phones down.

My brothers and I shared a room until I was about 11. I technically had my own space to keep my things and change my clothes, but, every night, I would head into their room and my little brother would make room on his full sized bottom bunk.

I didn't like to sleep in my room because I didn't like to sleep alone. I was afraid of the dark and monsters and bad guys, so my little brother would always make sure the night light was on and he checked under the bed for me. (yeah, he really was that sweet!)

Because of this, I always had this picutre in my mind of my own kids sharing a room.

Lisanna and Arrow are pretty close to the same age difference as my brother and me, so it made perfect sense that they would share a room.

We had a three bedroom house when Arrow was born, and we put his crib right across from Lisanna's in a really cute room that was half pink and half blue.


We quickly realized that wouldn't work. At first, Arrow would cry and wake Lisanna up or she would cry and wake him up. Then, as they got older, they'd stay up all night talking and giggling or one would keep the other more tired child awake until they came and told. We cleared out the storage room and moved Arrow in there.

Since then, the kids have always had separate rooms.

Recently, we lost the remote for the heater in Arrow's room. In Japan, there's no central heat so you have to heat each individual room. Being that it's January, it's far too cold for Arrow to sleep in a room without a heater, so we put out a pallet and put him in Lisanna's room.

The transformation in the two kids was amazing. Fighting bedtime all but stopped, Arrow quit wetting the bed, and they woke up more rested in the morning. We had them like this for a week and then decided to make the change permanent.

Here are 3 reasons that led us to make that decision!

1. They sleep better!

This was obviously a big selling point. Ever since we switched Arrow from a crib (about a year and a half ago) we've had issues with him getting out of bed and playing with his toys. Putting him in one room with only beds and dressers fixes that problem for two reasons. Lisanna keeps him accountable (aka, she's a spy because she does NOT like to be woken up) and he doesn't have any toys to play with anyway. They're all in the playroom.

2. They're not alone.

I think just knowing that they're not alone has made a huge difference. One of the biggest bedtime fights we were constantly having with them was that they don't want to be alone. They're used to being together or being with us or being with friends. I remember the feeling. When I finally moved to my own room at 11, I was excited but a little sad that I had to sleep on my own. I remember that being the thing about marriage I was most excited about - no longer having to sleep alone! So I'm all for making the stretch of time they have to sleep without another human nearby a little shorter.

Homeschooling has been an interesting experience for me. My husband and I were both homeschooled, so we're definitely familiar with the concept. I actually remember discussing how we would educate our children when I was still pregnant with Lisanna. Being that I'm a certified elementary school teacher, I thought she would go to whichever elementary school I taught at. But my husband insisted she be homeschooled so that he wouldn't miss out on time with her and she would get a Christian education. I also remember us deciding that we would just figure out it when we got there.


Kindergarten has actually been a really amazing experience for Lisanna. It's kind of been a meet-in-the-middle situation. Because we live in Japan, we want her to be able to understand and speak Japanese. However, we also want her to be fluent in English. After much thought and prayer, we decided to put her in a completely Japanese preschool. That means that from 9 am until 2 pm, she is completely submerged in Japanese culture and language. There is only one other kid in her class who speaks English.

She's really picked up on it fast! Her second year ends next month and she can now quite easily carry on a conversation. She can also read and write the first, basic Japanese alphabet, which really impresses me. I'm sooo thankful for this opportunity that she has to grow up knowing two languages!!

With all that said, we also recognized that it is really important she's fluent in English. She will probably still attend an American college (if she decides to go to college!) and get a job in America after graduation, so she should be fluent in English. The school I teach in is international with a full American curriculum, so that is a real option. However, schools in Japan, including my school, don't start until 1st grade. Despite that, students are still expected to come with a kindergarten level education concerning reading, writing, and math. That means we are realizing all of my husband's dreams and homeschooling, too. At least for kindergarten.


We started her kindergarten officially in September, and it's been an interesting journey. I've worked with many kids over the years, but I had never taught my own child. It's definitely its' own brand of frustrating and rewarding. I've been able to use some of the teaching techniques and strategies that I learned in college and in my own classroom, but some of them don't apply to my own kid. I can't have the same kind of consistency and professionalism toward her that I can have toward my students. I can't only put on my best and sternest face around her, because she also sees me at my silliest and in my pj's.

So, over this year, I've learned a few things that I'll continue to employ until she officially starts school in September.

1. Be consistent.

With her also attending Japanese kindergarten and me working full time, we found it was hard to make sure we did it consistently. She was tired or I was tired or we all forgot and now it's bedtime. She didn't make much progress at first because we did it so sporadically.
As a teacher, I know that consistency is key. You need to set a plan, make a schedule, and stick to it. Kids learn things based on how many times they are exposed to it. They need practice to get closer to perfect. That's why teachers assign homework each night, to make sure that whatever they taught is cemented in the child's mind by exposing it to them once again. The same goes with homeschooling and teaching a child to read - if they are not exposed to letters and words and phonics on a consistent basis, they're not going to learn very quickly. It wasn't until we finally introduced consistency that my daughter really took off.

2. Be forgiving.

With the consistency piece said, remember that you're in charge, so you have some leeway. There are some days where it just isn't doable. Some days where you or her are just too tired or busy and that's okay. Give yourself a break. You're a parent and maybe you even have other kids and a job. Take the day off, read to your child instead of having them read, and then get back to it the next day.

3. Be patient.

Teaching a kid to read is HARD. English is a very difficult language to learn because for every rule that you learn there are many, many exceptions. It's going to take some explanations and some time before your child is going to pick it up. When we started, Lisanna knew all the sounds of the letters in the alphabet and it still took her 10 minutes to read two pages of a BOB book. (you know, the ones that are like "Pat sat. Mat ran."

4. Be insistent.

Your child may want to give up at some point. Going back to my last point: it's hard. When it got hard, my daughter wanted to give up. She didn't want to sit there and struggle through short, boring books. She wanted to read her princess books and read them well.
But this is the opportunity to teach your child not just to read, but to teach them the valuable lesson of not giving up. Use it to teach them that life is hard and that persistence is key. Teach them that when you try really hard at something and you succeed, there's a sense of accomplishment. That when you don't give up, you get better.

5. Be encouraging.

I think this really goes along with most of my other points, but it is so important that it also needed it's own point. Kids respond to positive feedback. If they feel like they are succeeding, they're more likely to keep trying and keep improving. Have fun with them, get silly, offer some rewards. It can even be a reading reward! My daughter wanted to play a phonics computer game, so I had her read one real book to me first. She wanted me to read a princess book to her that is a little too hard for her, so I had her read a short book first or just read a few of the smaller words in the princess book. Make it fun for them, help them see their progress, and they will succeed.


So, other homeschooling mamas, what have you learned through homeschooling your own children?

What is the longest plane ride you’ve ever been on?

I rode on a plane for the first time when I was 12 years old. I went on a mission trip to inner city Florida with my youth group, and I remember having such a terrible headache from the altitude change. The next time I flew was after I got married at 19 and I was so worried about the headache, but it didn’t even end up bothering me. Little did I know that I would one day be moving to a place that’s a 24 hour plane ride away, and we would be making the trip back annually.

The first time we came to Japan was when Arrow was around six months old. Since then, we’ve traveled back and forth from Japan and the U.S. every year. So we’ve made this plane trip four times. Each time it gets a little easier because the kids get a little older and we get a little more experienced, but now we’re going to make the trip with a baby again. As I’m racking my mind to remember all the things that helped with bringing a baby, I thought I’d share my tips for what to bring with your toddlers and kids!

First, let me mention two very important things that I’ve learned make a huge difference in how effective your carry-on items are.



1. Prepare your kids ahead of time. Going on a plane is a big deal for kids! Especially if it’s the first time, it can be very scary and overwhelming. We made sure to talk with our kids about the upcoming plane ride from the time that we booked it. We talked about what would happen, what it would sound like, and what it would feel like. We even watched a few different videos and children’s shows that showed riding on a plane. We discussed how long we would be on the plane and that we would ride it past bedtime and need to sleep while we were on it. We also discussed voice level expectations - we need to make sure we’re not yelling or talking loudly when other people are trying to sleep.

2. Make sure your kids are well rested. One year, we had the great idea that we would take the kids out sightseeing at our layover in Tokyo. We figured it would wear them out and they would just sleep for the whole plane ride. What actually happened was that they were over-tired, so there were so many tears and even a bathroom accident that would have never normally happened. We learned such an important lesson from this and now make sure our kids get a good night’s sleep and have a laid-back day before we take off.

Okay, now it’s really time for me to share the list with you! These are the things I’ve learned are absolutely necessary from spending over four days on airplanes with my kids.

1. Bring a carry-on your kid can actually carry. 

2. Bring surprises and build the anticipation. 

3. Bring snacks and drinks. 

4. Bring kid-sized headphones. 

5. Bring a change of clothes. 

6. Bring quiet toys. 

7. Bring a familiar pillow and blanket. 

8. Bring a car seat. 

That's all for me! What else would you add to this list?

Let me just preface this post by first saying that these things are obviously particular to my experiences. Each and every birth is different - even between the two I had at the same hospital in Kansas. It’s different depending on how the birth itself goes, what hospital you’re at, your doctor and nurses, etc. So - with that said, here are 10 things that really stuck out to me as different concerning the prenatal visits, the birth itself, and post-birth care!

1. You get a sonogram at every single appointment. 
With Lisanna and Arrow, I had two sonograms done - one to confirm the pregnancy and one to determine the gender. With Uriah, I had over twenty sonograms done. Each prenatal appointment includes a sonogram where they check height, weight, position, heartbeat, and amniotic fluid. It’s pretty cool seeing your baby at each appointment!

2. Effacement is not a thing. 
I think I was about 36 weeks pregnant when they started checking for dilation and effacement for my first two. So I’d get the number of centimeters and then a percentage concerning my effacement. I was not told my effacement percentage a single time here. What does it mean anyway? I know the technical definition, but personally, those numbers mean nothing concerning when baby will come. The day Uriah was born, I was a three at 9am and had a baby in my arms before 4pm. I was a three for about two weeks before Lisanna was born! Anyway, I didn’t even remember about the effacement percentage until my mom text to ask.



3. There are very few hospitals that offer epidurals. 
Japan is split into prefectures and we live in Nara. In the entire Nara prefecture, there is only one hospital (at least that my friends know of) that offers epidurals. Women here just plan on giving birth naturally - that’s how it’s always been done and how it’ll keep being done. Plus, if you do elect to get one you have to pay out of pocket because it is not covered on your government healthcare. I am so thankful that I decided to give birth naturally in the states! There was enough craziness going on without this being my first natural birth, too.


4. You’re in the delivery room from the onset. (not just from a 6) 
Now this one I’m a little iffy on because it could actually just be because I was induced. They had me in the room from a three because that’s where I was when they started the induction drugs. But I do remember being administered pitocin with Lisanna in the pre-delivery room and then being wheeled swiftly down the hall when I finally hit a 6. With Uriah, it ended up being a good thing that I was already there because the time from when I hit a 6 to when he took his first breath was only 35 minutes.
 
5. The delivery nurses have midwife training. 
They help with pressure points and breathing. I’m not sure if it was just the translation, but the delivery nurses called themselves midwives. I had a really helpful nurse that reminded me of all my forgotten breathing techniques and pushed on my pressures points throughout each contraction. I’m sure this isn’t the case in every delivery - but she was a rockstar and she’s basically my hero now.

6. There is very little pain medication given. 
Okay, so we covered no epidural. I didn’t have an epidural with Lisanna or Arrow, but the second those babies were out of me, the drugs started. They gave me pain killers by IV for a little bit, then really strong medicine for the next five days. I haven’t gotten so much as Tylenol since Uriah has been born. Thankfully my body is amazing and is healing itself quickly, but it was hard to sleep the first night from pain. I know my roommate isn’t doing as well as me because I keep hearing her whisper, “ow, ow, ow!”



7. You have the choice of a shared room or a private room. 
That brings me to a shared room. With Lisanna and Arrow, my insurance covered a private room. My private room had a queen sized bed, a private restroom, and it was okay for the husband to stay. Here, a private room costs a whopping $120 extra per night, has a single hospital bed, and husband can’t stay. We elected for the shared room with a shared restroom and a shower that you need to sign up to take. The room can hold up to four people, but I’ve only had one roommate. Since my husband can’t stay anyway it’s actually kind of nice having another person in the room with me.


8. There is a set menu of food.
In my Kansas hospital there was a cafeteria that you could go get food from or even order it straight to your room. The food was actually pretty good quality and, most importantly to me, you could choose what you wanted. Here, everyone in the hospital eats the same food and it almost always includes fish. I’ve actually lucked out and gotten chicken a couple of days, but there is often something fishy even with the breakfast. I kid you not - yesterday, I got a hot dog bun full of egg salad with my breakfast. The good news is that the food is really healthy and I’m so hungry from giving birth and breastfeeding that the taste hasn’t mattered much. Although I still didn’t eat the egg salad hot dog bun.


9. You have to stay for at least 5 days. 
With Lisanna, it was 24 hours. With Arrow, I had strep B and had to stay for 48 hours. In Japan, it’s 5 days minimum - more than that if you have complications. After I gave birth, they went over a schedule concerning exactly what checkups will be done what days for me and baby. They want to keep you to make sure that you’re both healthy, you know what you’re doing, and you’re going home fully rested.

10. There are no expectations of you other than to rest. I remember after I had Lisanna - I had my skin-to-skin time and then they moved me to my room. My room was immediately full of pushy people telling me about everything from how to change a diaper to shaken baby syndrome. I had people coming in and pushing on my stomach then scolding me for not knowing how to nurse a baby. They went over a schedule concerning how often I should feed her, change her, burp her, hold her, rock her - you name it and someone was telling me how to do it right. It was a little less intense with Arrow, but the expectations of the one way to do everything correctly was still there.

Here they said, “ah, this is your third baby so you know what you’re doing” and then they gave me my baby. They have a nursery that they take him to anytime I need to shower or rest - they don’t expect you to keep the baby overnight. In fact, I kept Uriah until 10 or 11 at night the first couple of days and they were shocked. Their idea is that I will be with him 24/7 when I go home so I should take advantage of their help while I have it. This is another reason I’m thankful that it isn’t my first baby! I would be so worried about bonding and nipple confusion if it was my first - since he’s my third I’m thinking, this is kind of nice. I feel like I’m recovering much more quickly since I’ve actually been able to rest.

So that's all I can think of right now! Which one of these things was most surprising to you?

We have had a lot of people ask us why we chose the name Uriah. While uncommon, it is a little more traditional than Lisanna and Arrow, and definitely a much older name.

 Lisanna and Arrow’s names were much easier to come up with because we really only chose one name. Lisanna’s middle name and Arrow’s first name were both family names, Robert and Elaine. When it came to Uriah, we had two names to come up with. We wanted to make sure that his name was particularly meaningful. We chose Lisanna and Arrow because we liked the names, but not really because of their meanings.

 I’ll start with Scout because it’s an easier explanation. Scout is less meaningful, but took longer to come up with. I read “To Kill a Mockingbird” last year with my English students and was really amazed by the main character’s dad. We liked the name Atticus, but it is too hard to say in Japanese and sounds awkward with a last name that starts with “s.” We liked how Scout sounded with Uriah, so it became the middle name!

As for Uriah, this time in our life has been different in so many ways from the time when we had the other two. We are older, further in our walk together and with God, and, of course, we live on the other side of the world. At this current time in our lives, we have been relying on God as our light. There is so much darkness in Japan and so many more variables to our lives than we ever had in the States. Over the past two years, God has shown himself again and again, shining in the darkness and lighting our path. We wanted to choose a name that reflected that light for this new gift that God was giving us. 

The other thing we wanted to make sure of was that his name could be easily pronounced in Japanese. We plan on living here for the long run, so his name should work in both English and Japanese. That brought us to Uriah. Uriah can be pronounced (you-rye-uh) in Japanese and it means, “God is my light.” Our prayer for this little boy is that he would grow up embracing the truth of God’s light in his own life.

So tell me - what's the story behind your own kids' names?