Finding our groove

A few quick updates:

1. We are on the road to regular sleep (almost). Kids are going to bed exhausted at 7:30. Today, Jack got up at 4:30 (but stayed resting in bed til 5:30, when the girls woke up). It's not a perfect, full night's sleep yet, and we have very cranky kids at various points in the day (Katie has her melt downs in the morning, Livie at night, and Jack is just SO tired all day and sits down on the sidewalk while walking various places), but it's an improvement and we'll take it.

2. We have gone to the grocery store each of the last three days to buy a variety of items. Each time it has cost 14,000 yen (~$140). This makes us wonder if that's just what it costs to go to a grocery store? Or is it some magical formula that what we can fit in our baskets (and eventually on our backs and in the stroller) is always $140 worth of food and household items? Curious...

2a. On a related note -- I found (expensive) pancake mix yesterday which will be welcome by everyone as I still have been unable to find flour (much less baking powder or soda). I also found a small container of Jack's favorite, Philadelphia cream cheese. I bought them with a twinge of guilt as they were expensive and very much not Japanese... but it seems like there is so much that is new and challenging for all of us, and for the kids in particular, that I am buying them anyway. There is time for sushi, I think.

2b. Also related to the grocery store -- I went yesterday with the girls while John and Jack stayed at home (Jack's many sitdown breaks on the way to the store made us realize he might not be up to the outing at that particular time). I had been relying greatly on John's Japanese (which milk is skim? which is whole? he can tell these important things) and yesterday had been searching for vinegar. I couldn't find it (or what for sure was vinegar) and so pulled out my phrase book/dictionary and asked a shopper for help. She (mostly) understood me and took me to the vinegar. And we had a delicious salad last night as a result.

3. It has been MUCH easier to meet people here on the playground than it was that first lonely year in Lethbridge. We have gone to a local park each of the last two mornings and ended up talking with two very nice people, a man with a four year old girl named Lisa, and a VERY pregnant woman with a three year old boy whose name I don't know how to spell. It's amazing to see how the kids all play together, blowing bubbles, getting on and off the seesaw, racing down the slide, even though they don't share any language. John has been along this weekend and makes talk with the adults easier, but even on my own, with my dictionary and their much better knowledge of English, I was able to "talk" a bit. These kind of conversations never happened during that first lonely year in Lethbridge... and it's nice they are happening here.

Kids are getting squirrelly so we will head out to the park. There is much more to write about -- I'll try to get back soon.