This summer I’ll be celebrating eight years of being a stay-at-home dad. It’s a role I’m good at. And within the confines of our home, I’m very confident in how I do it. I work with purpose and feel valued and appreciated at home. Content even. But as soon as I step outside the sacred boundaries of our family, I struggle with being “okay” with it. I receive signals from the outside world that makes me question my self-worth. Maybe this isn’t such noble work after all.
It’s that time again. To have another magical mythical person/creature come into my kid’s bedroom in the middle of the night. It’s time for the infamous Tooth Fairy to grace us with her presence, again. To sprinkle her tooth glitter and magically collect some teeth. The Tooth Fairy was quite busy over here for a while with Ellie. She’s already lost eight baby teeth. But lately, Chloe has been dropping some teeth. To see Chloe so proud and so excited to have a visit from the Tooth Fairy is just so cute. She even had Ellie help her craft a letter .
Happy New Year! It’s still January, right? Oh, it’s February already? MID FEBRUARY!?
Man, what a year so far. We kicked off the New Year in Japan with Aya’s family. We experienced the city, we soaked in the hot springs, ate fantastic food, visited with friends and had fun with family. The kids absorbed so much language and culture while we were there too! But all great trips have to come to an end. And just before the end, the day before we left, I got the flu. And then on the plane, Ellie got the flu. And when we landed and got home, Chloe got the flu. And after a few days of dealing with us, Aya got a bad head cold. And then she left for a week long business trip. Sooo, we spent the first two weeks back sick, miserable, jetlagged, cranky, and eating terrible. We went from going out to great restaurants eating fresh fish to eating Taco Bell on the couch. But finally, finally, that’s all over with and we are looking forward to a bright 2018! Well, at least trying…
Chloe attends an all Japanese pre-school. And while it’s incredible to watch her develop a second language and get to experience her Japanese culture, it often sends me out of my comfort zone. I could easily just do drop-off and pick-up and nothing more, but I’m determined to not be invisible and be the involved parent I want to be. I have been involved, but sometimes it’s not always in ways that I would expect, or prefer. I don’t know if it’s a Japanese custom, or just-at-this-school custom, but the school likes to have a group of parents from each class to “perform” for the kids at the holiday party. That’s how I found myself doing a synchronized dance about rice with a group of moms at the holiday party.
Now that Thanksgiving is over and we are well into December, I have dropped my Grinchy attitude and have full-on embraced the Christmas spirit. Well, at least I’ve been jamming the Christmas tunes. In my last Scroogy post, I confessed my weirdo-ness and love for Christmas music. And in the spirit of Christmas I thought I’d share my top 10 favorite albums (in no particular order) that you’ve maybe never heard of. I cherish the Charlie Brown Christmas, and love Harry Connick Jr., Frank Sinatra, Mariah Carey and all the other favorites you’re familiar with, but they won’t be on this list. There are tons of weird and ridiculous albums out there, but these are a few unique ones that I genuinely enjoy and are part of our family holiday soundtrack.
