Trailing spouse: Philippines and Thailand edition

Blaine has 2 months left as the Post's Tokyo bureau chief but he can't slack off! He's been in the Philippines for 9 days and was scheduled to return tonight, but has now been sent on to Thailand to cover the govt unrest there.

Alas, we were looking forward to his return tonight and to family activities during the upcoming "Golden Week" holiday in Japan. Come home soon, Blaine!

Trailing spouse: Health edition

Blaine is in Seoul this week to report the last story in his yearlong examination of North Korea. It's a valuable time to be there because the Obama administration has sent its special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, to Pyongyang this week. (Here is Blaine's preview about that.)

Unfortunately, though, Arno has been sick since last Saturday with a very bad cold, low fever, congestion and general unhappiness. He skipped 4 days of school and only today - Day 6! - he felt well enough to trade his horizontal couch position for a trip to the grocery store to buy some Japanese candy that is packaged in small boxes. He actually doesn't care much about the candy but wants to use the boxes for "junk art," an obvious sign that his brain is working again.

So I've been tethered to the house for days and days! I can't wait for Arno to go back to school tomorrow, Friday, so I can get of here, go swimming, do some holiday shopping - or just hang out in Tokyo.

Trailing Spouse: Obama edition

Blaine has been quite busy in the past week covering President Obama's visits to Japan and, today, to South Korea.

Here are some of his stories, often with WashPost White House correspondent Anne Kornblut:

Hiroshima: The dreaded invitation
Obama declines offer to visit the bombed city on his first trip to East Asia

In Japan, Obama stresses Asia's role in U.S. economy

Obama, Japanese premier at odds over air station negotiations

Obama to discuss vexing N. Korean behavior with S. Korean leader

In Seoul, Obama will confront trade and security issues

Sights of Yokohama

Blaine was in Seoul over the weekend, so I took the children to Yokohama on Saturday to see what we could see. It turned out to be a very pleasant day trip.

We emerged from Yokohama's Sakuragicho train station to find the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which Wikipedia tells me is the tallest building (71 floors) in Japan, with the world's second fastest elevators!


At Yokohama Station, Bubby's restaurant; this satellite of the Tribeca favorite opened in June 2009.


The moving sidewalk (under a roof) that transports you probably more than a kilometer to see the sights.


The Nihon Maru, a four-masted sailing ship that was built in 1930 to train Japanese sailors.


On the Nihon Maru: the deck, rigging, and tiny bunks with privacy curtains.




Destination: World's largest ferris wheel, called Cosmo Clock 21. I dodged the endless drip-drip of yen for little rides along the way.



At the top of the ferris wheel, the views from our glass bubble: The next car, Yokohama Bay, a mini-golf course on the roof of a nearby building, the Hotel InterContintental.






For lunch, we went to the American House restaurant. Here's our waitress, the ketchup supply and our hotdogs, served with lettuce and onions in the bun and a dozen french fries.




Nutty sidewalk performer and the balloon hat he made for this little girl.



We took a water taxi from the Hotel Intercontinental to Yokohama's main train station. It's rare for us to be on the waterfront in Japan.


The boat lands near the huge Sogo dept store, which you walk through to get to the train station. We checked out the children's floor (8th floor), which had toys, spectacularly fancy clothes, and $25 bibs.




I'll leave you with this sign from the water-taxi pier, which sums up the public experience in Japan. Rule #3: "No annoying behavior for others."

Trailing spouse: Philippines edition

Blaine has been in the Philippines for 10 days and 3 stories, so I've had lots of time with the kids! (He's on his way home tonight.)

This weekend on Sunday, I took the kids to what's known in Tokyo as the "Science Museum," or Kagaku Gijutsukan. It's in Kitanomaru Koen (park) near the Imperial Palace.

We took the subway to Kudanshita station to the boundary of the park...


The "Must Love Japan" website tells me that the parkland used to be part of Edo Castle and is now "part of The Imperial Palace Outer Garden." So we walked over a bridge and gazed down at the massive moat that protected the old castle...


...and then walked thru these two massive gates.



We walked through the park and past the Nippon Budokan, a famous architectural structure that was built for the judo competition in the 1960 Olympics. Wikipedia tells me that it's now used for rock concerts, and that the Beatles played their first Japanese concert here in 1966.


Then we came to the museum.


Tickets are cheap, 600 yen/adult and 250 yen/child over 4. On the whole, I'd give the museum a B-, but it did have some cool stuff related to physical science: magnetics, levers and gears, robotics, light and electricity.

Here are some photos of what we did and saw there.







Among the robots was this "secretary," who was sitting in a glass booth. If you said something to her - like, say, "konnichiwa"- she responded with a stream of Japanese that I couldn't understand beyond "my name is..."


The museum also had this small restaurant on the 4th floor, run by two older ladies who dished up soba and udon noodles in cold or hot broth - and corn dogs for the kids.



It wasn't the best day trip we'd ever had, but I would take the kids back there when they're a little older.

Equal parenting?

The NYT magazine has a big piece about "Equal Parenting" that is pretty interesting for any parent to consider, and perhaps more so for a trailing spouse.

The story focuses on a family in which father and mother split responsibilities and time spent taking care of home and children. Each parent works professionally for about 30 hrs per week and they endeavor to share childcare, grocery shopping, cooking, and housecleaning. In the web video accompanying the story (an effective summary of the long piece, if you don't have time to read the whole thing), the dad explains that to equalize laundry-washing, he does the dark loads and she does the light loads.

Blaine and I certainly reflect how different our responsibilities are in Tokyo vs. Seattle. Here, he often wakes up to deal with editors around 7 a.m. before the Post is put to bed the previous night in D.C., and sometimes (or, recently, often) writes on deadline at night to get a news story on the Web. My days, meanwhile, are governed by the kids' schedules: school dropoffs, pickups, swim lessons, playdates, birthday parties. Some days it seems, and feels, very unequal from a feminist point of view because I spend so much more time with the kids. But the truth is that, on the whole, I have more time to myself (more than Blaine does, that is) when the kids are at school to see friends, have coffee, or exercise, while he picks up the slack when I have editing or writing deadlines.

What will be really interesting, then, is how we shift our family responsibilities if (or, more likely, when) I'm also working full time at some point in the future.

What do you think of equal parenting? Possible? Desirable? No way?

Trailing spouse: endless kid stuff

Yeah, the kids are neat, but don't you ever get tired of dealing with them? I do.

Conveniently today, a friend sent me these amusing videos on same subject:

The Mom Song, by Anita Renfroe



And the concordant Dad Song

Trailing Spouse: Philippines edition

Blaine is in Manila this week to do a few stories - back on Saturday - and I'm having a more productive and relaxed week than usual. I'm working on a pitch to Self magazine and editing a friend's book proposal, and doing a little volunteer work for Arno's school, Willowbrook. When Lucinda has afterschool activities, I send Arno to Willowbrook's flexible afterschool program, which gives me a few more hours to get things done.

Sometimes Blaine's trips exhaust my parenting skills, but the kids have been great this week, even in my morning rush to get Lucinda to school by 8:15am.

Lucinda, as she approaches age 6, is a pleasure to be around these days. She's become increasingly flexible about choosing outfits for school, does her homework without nagging, and is feeling very confident about her reading and school experience.

She does have brief bad moods - typically if I pick her up from school and say 'no' to something she wants immediately - but she is snapping out of that moodiness more rapidly.

Which reminds me that Lucinda made up a funny rhyme the other day, to a tune she often sings about her friends or her parents:.

"Mommy and her 'No', in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love, then comes marriage.
Then comes 'No' in the baby carriage."

Adventures in parenting

I rarely think or say that an entire day sucked, but today really did.

First, there was the lingering problem of Lucinda's gymnastics class. This program, called "I Can Gymnastics," effectively owns gymnastics for expats in central Tokyo. The owner, who is well-known, conducts classes at the three major international schools in our neighborhood, including Nishimachi, and at the Tokyo American Club. His program is the only game in town unless you're willing to travel (without a car, in our case, which would probably take an hour) to another neighborhood for a one-hour class. Also, I think his classes are somewhat repetitive.

But Lucinda likes gymnastics; in Seattle, she went to weekly classes at a program called The Little Gym, and I could see that, for example, learning to walk on the balance beam did build her confidence to try other new things. I'm not planning an Olympic career - after all, she'll probably be about 6 feet tall - but I think gymnastics at this level can be fun.

But the owner of I Can Gymnastics and I do not get along, which is pretty unusual for me. He likes to philosophize with parents about how he, personally, convinces children to try new things in his classes. I'm not saying he's not effective, but in my experience, the activities are more important than any one teacher - and I've said as much.

What happened today is that I tried to get Arno to join Lucinda's class. Arno is old enough, he likes jumping and swinging and somersaulting - and Lucinda really wanted him to go along. He has resisted before, but this time, he took off his shoes and took a few steps toward the other kids... and then ran back and clung to my leg.

The owner, seeing this happen with Arno for the second time in the past few months, promptly lectured me that, in his program, the children must decide to participate - implying that I was a pushy parent. I objected and said that (1) if I waited for my children to want to put on their shoes in the morning, we might never leave the house, and (2) my children often resist new things, but almost always enjoy them if they give it a try - sometimes with a nudge from me.

The owner then said, with some disdain for my cruelty, that Arno "has only been on this earth for three years". And insulted that I would question his expertise, he asked, "How long have you been" a parent? Six years, I said. I tried to explain myself - and then he told me that I was a bad listener. He wondered aloud why I didn't seem to like him. When all I want is a simple program where my children can have fun - and if I can drop them off for an hour on a kid-intensive weekend, so much the better. (A few weeks ago, when Blaine took Lucinda to class and planned to read at Starbucks for an hour, the owner cornered Blaine to lecture him about his philosophy, too.)

The whole interaction was so absurd, and I fumed about this for much of the day.

Then later, after I'd taken the kids to the Tokyo American Club and we'd trekked back on the bus and stopped at a coffee shop, I couldn't find my house key. It was cold outside and very windy, which made me panic a little. I called TAC, but they couldn't find the key. I decided I would take the kids home to look for the key before I called the management company for help.

So where was the key? Sticking out of the lock in my front door, where I'd left it after rushing to go to the damn gym class. On the plus side, that's one benefit to Tokyo: Leave your key in the front door for six hours, and no one breaks into your house.

Trailing Spouse: China and North Korea edition

Blaine left today for an amazing trip: to Beijing and, on Monday, to North Korea (!) with the New York Philharmonic. Blaine's travel can be tiring for both of us, but I think this is so cool.

It's very hard for American journalists to get into North Korea; many foreign correspondents who cover the Koreas never get there. But the Philharmonic had space on the plane and naturally said yes to the Washington Post, among others.

The Philharmonic is on tour in Asia. It will play in Beijing on Sunday night (Blaine is going to that, too) and then will fly to Pyongyang on Monday for a concert on Tuesday night. The orchestra and journalists will leave N Korea on Wednesday to fly to Seoul; Blaine will probably be back in Tokyo on Thursday.

I don't know anything about where Blaine is staying or what else he'll be doing in Pyongyang, but I'll blog if/when I get details.

The program in N Korea includes Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 From the New World and Gershwin's An American in Paris. Will Kim Jong-il be there?

(Here's a creepy website about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, if you're inclined to read a "bio" of the Great Leaders.)

And if you want to see and hear the concert for yourself, the NYT says: "The concert takes place in Pyongyang on Tuesday at 6 p.m., which is 4 a.m. on Tuesday in New York. Channel 13, WNET, will show it on tape on Tuesday evening in the New York area, and it will be available two days later to other PBS stations. It will also be shown around the world."

Going crazy

Anyone else out there whose children are driving them crazy? Mine are, and I am!

Some days, it feels like the demands from Lucinda and Arno are endless - and come endlessly in quick succession.

Some juice, some milk, I want to paint, I need more paint, wash my hands, is my painting dry, I need help cutting paper, where is the glue, is supper ready, I don't like carrots, I want some toast, with butter and jelly, what can I have for dessert, i want some ice cream, I want some cookies, I don't want a banana, I want some apple, where are my Superman jammies, come upstairs with me to get my doggies, is my painting dry, wash the paint off my hands, I want some juice, I want some apple, I want two books, I don't want to go to bed, I want some water, I want another snuggle, why did Lucinda get an extra snuggle?

I was running around all day - went to Costco, bought paper towels and cleaning supplies, long train ride, etc - picked up the children at their winter camp, walked home and called my mom on Skype with the video camera. The kids sang to her, and then, when I wanted to catch up w/her, they started to hum and squabble and generally be annoying. And it drove me nuts!

My friend Susan and I talked about this yesterday, and it really helped both of us feel better. Kids are great, mostly, sort of, but they are really exhausting and sometimes we get angry when we can't live our lives at the pace we want, that we can't be alone when we want, that we can't check our email when we want - and that children are such a demanding and physical presence.

That sounds harsh, but it is also a reality.

Sunday in the park

Blaine left today for Seoul for the week, and I stirred myself to get the kids out of the house by 10 a.m. I sometimes find this hard to do, especially if I allow myself to get sucked into reading newspaper websites or start to answer overdue email - and then I start to resent that I'm supposed to entertain the children. Better to face up to it and get on with it!

I plotted out a simple itinerary: a visit to Isetan, a big department store that the "Kids in Tokyo" tour book credits with a rooftop pet store (sounded exciting), and then our first visit to Shinjuku Gyoen, a gorgeous park that friends have been raving about recently.

We made our way to the Shinjuku neighborhood in central Tokyo, home to several big dept stores, including Takashimaya, the elegant store with an outpost in Manhattan.

This was the outside of Isetan, which reminded me a lot of Bloomingdale's on Lex/59th St. Note the big red sign on the top right of this photo, because you will see it again.



We went straight to the 8th floor roof, in hopes of finding the pet shop. Out the elevator and door, and this is what we found: a pretty amazing rooftop garden. We'd come up to the red sign, on the right.




But there was no pet store - maybe it will re-open in the spring? We went down to the sixth floor - the kid and toy section! There was a fantastic collection of very expensive German (I think) wooden building toys - the sort of toys that Lucinda and Arno spend 2 minutes looking at before moving on, not worth considering. (Sorry, photographs not allowed.)

I told Lucinda and Arno they could each spend 1,000 yen (less than $10). Arno found a red Power Ranger doll that he and Lucinda pronounced "cool." Lucinda settled on a flower-girl doll; she has absorbed my refusal to buy her a Barbie, but this doll was at least more kid-like. (The doll cost 1500 yen, oh well.)

We made our purchases and walked a few blocks to Shinjuku Gyoen; the tiny entry fee of 200 yen ($1.75) for adults, free for kids under 6, keeps out the crowds. Today was chilly, probably in the high 40s in the shade and a cold breeze, not the best park weather, but the park was lovely - by far the best I've seen here, like Central Park with wide, soft, grassy fields to run on.



This is the map of the park.



We will definitely go back with a baseball, bat and soccer ball on a sunny day. Today, the children made do by running around with their new toys.

Trailing spouse: Mom-leaves-town edition

For the first time since we moved here in mid-Aug, I'm feeling a bit lonely here.

My mom flew back home today after 2 weeks here, and her visit - and the fact that I won't see her again for 7 months - made me recognize how far away we are from our family and US friends.

That might sound silly: how could I not see that earlier? But the busy-ness of life here, the school dropoffs and pickups, meeting so many new people and the novelty of the place smoothed over a lot of the emotional ups and downs of moving.

Also, Blaine is in Thailand this week - so we have gone from a full house to me + kids. Lucinda and Arno handled their grandma's departure pretty smoothly this morning, but there was some serious blowback tonight, with fighting, whining and general fussing and unhappiness.

I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow, so best to go to sleep and get on with it.

Trailing Spouse - Burma edition

We thought Blaine might leave for Bangkok this weekend to cover the Burma aftermath.

(Burma, Southeast Asia and Australia are part of the empire I call Greater Blainia.)

So I'm faced with an unexpected moral dilemma: If the Burmese govt maintains its brutal crackdown, repressing millions of people, Blaine will likely not spend as much time covering that story. If Burma opens up, freeing millions of people, Blaine will probably spend weeks and/or months there - a definite challenge for us in Tokyo.

For now, we think he'll be in Tokyo for a few weeks, at least, now that the Korea negotiations are done for now.

Am I worried that Blaine could go to Burma and risk arrest or worse? A Japanese photographer was shot to death there last week.

Blaine probably couldn't get a visa from the current govt. He went there in 2000 and wrote a series of A1 stories for The New York Times, and I'm guessing that someone in the former SLORC knows how to use Google.

Trailing Spouse - Korean Summit edition

Blaine has been in Seoul all week to cover the summit between South and North Korea - find his many WaPo stories here. He'll be home tomorrow after lunch.

But we've had an improved week of solo parenting. I've gotten the morning routine better organized, so I can get them out the door by 7:55 a.m. The children love school right now and don't stall on the way out the door.

After school, I've been taking L and A to a playground to fully wear them out. We're having cooler, fall-like weather here - finally! - and that is great playdate weather. Then an early dinner and bedtime by 8pm.

Now, if only I could stop reading news websites to get more sleep.

Long weekend

Some days with children are not fun - and this was one of them. On days like this, I remind myself not to blame Tokyo, but being here adds a degree of difficulty to the average, not-fun day.

Lucinda and Arno dragged Blaine out of bed to make pancakes, and within an hour, they were squabbling, shouting, screeching and driving us crazy. When will they be old enough to play by themselves in the morning?

Then Blaine told me he felt sick - and he also had to work this afternoon, which meant that I was solo-parenting for the seventh day in a row. (Blaine was in South Korea last week and took a reporting trip to Yokohama on Saturday. He is working like a dog.)

I scrambled and took the kids to a park, Hibiya Koen, near the Imperial Palace, where there was a playground we hadn't visited. It started off well: we emerged from the subway to see Tokyo's version of Nature with a pond, turtles on a rock, ducks and a German garden where several people were painting the scenery from benches.





On to the playground which, like so many Tokyo playgrounds, looks like something you'd find in Romania, circa 1978. Run-down equipment with a bit of rust, on dirt sprinkled with scrubby weeds. Not inspiring.





On the plus side, the park was the finish line for a charity 10k run, and there was a guitarist singing in English. I'd been feeling bummed out, but the kids threw themselves into playing, and pretty soon were chasing each other around.



Then they got tired and Lucinda started whining, but sometimes I can't just make it easy and take a taxi home. Instead I dragged them back to the subway and then decided I should buy groceries - which meant taking the kids into a new store where I couldn't find anything.

Soon enough, they were running down the aisles and pulling colored marshmallows off the shelves and I was hollering at them while I scrambled to buy meat and veggie. And THEN we walked home. Do you ever compound mistakes by making new ones that are just as irrational?

In Seattle, I'd arranged our family life to minimize hassles. Tokyo is more of an adventure, but sometimes it's an adventure in exhaustion.