>I loved doing a full-year review here last year, and thought this would be a great way to end this year and begin the next. It’s for me as much as for you, because I may have written and published over 300 posts in the past 365 days, but it doesn’t mean I remember it all. My faulty memory is, after all, one of my main motivations for blogging: to help me remember these years someday when my children have grown and fled from my house spread their wings to soar on their own.
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When we began 2009, we left the first five transitioning months of our time here on Okinawa behind. We finally began to feel settled in our new home and in our surroundings; we learned a few key phrases of the Japanese language, and began setting off on adventures for sights previously unseen.
Bug learned how to accessorize; Bear learned the meaning of “womanizer”; Tony had longer hours at work; I began rising at 4:45am to run in the dark – on base and off – with a friend.
The first of the many issues to come with a certain neighborhood friend began to crop up for Bear; Bug had his first of many head injuries severe enough to take him to the ER; Tony discovered that the GPS receiver he’d done “so much research on” wasn’t actually good for the purpose that he’d bought it; I organized and hosted a Valentine’s Day social that I will not be attempting on my own again for many more years.
I discovered that raising a boy is different from raising a girl; Bug wore out his first pair of shoes; Bear learned how to be competitive; Tony learned the importance of always locking the bedroom door during ‘business time’.
I began a recipe blog. And a book review blog. Both for myself more so than for anyone else.
Bug’s comprehension level and ability to communicate exploded and Bear continued to thrive in school. We battled frequent colds that were passed from family member to family member in a vicious cycle. I got a wild hair one day in which I rearranged the bedrooms and living room, moving Bug into Bear’s room and creating a playroom in what had previously been Bug’s nursery. Bug continued to spend most nights in our bed.
Becca flew from Kuwait to spend her spring vacation with us and got to spend the first three days of her trip holed up in our house while a maintenance crew stripped and re-did the floors in the entire house, and she had to figure out what to eat in a restaurant where most everything on the menu was out of her comfort zone, but got to breathe a little more easily without persistent dust in the air.
Bug continued his fear of pseudo-religious characters by boycotting the Easter Bunny, and Tony and I suspected that we’d inadvertently busted that particular illusion by not hiding the plastic Easter eggs before Easter morning, and then hurriedly tossing them onto the side lawn after lunch. Bug discovered a love of chocolate. Tony and I began attending Financial Peace University and discovered for the first time how united we could be in this aspect of our lives together.
My father and grandmother traveled in style to stay with us for two weeks in which they got the chance to see Bear’s preschool, stay overnight at Okuma, stand on the northernmost tip of Okinawa where the East China Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, and got repeatedly lost trying first to find a Thai restaurant, and later a McDonalds. Any McDonalds.
I stopped running and started eating donuts. Bear graduated from preschool and faced a full three-and-a-half months of downtime at home with me and her brother. Bug’s first full sentence at twenty-one-months-old was a near-echo of Bear’s at the same age. Tony learned that he’d be switching to a completely different career path within the Army. Bear and Bug learned the meaning of sibling rivalry; I learned how diffusing constant fights would become a part of my everyday experience.
Bear and Bug gained a cousin, and Tony and I became an uncle and aunt to Avery, who was born into the family in May. I fought a strong desire to add another Critter into the family, which became increasingly more difficult to do as the months passed because it seemed everyone I knew was pregnant or had recently given birth.
Instead we gained a small turtle. And adopted two black cats. And a month later a third. (Just to even it up.) We battled ants and geckos and earthworm invasions in our house.
Tony and I celebrated a full decade of love, tears, and change. Bug’s weight gain increased as Bear’s slowed. Bear read her first book on her own. I began writing about Bear’s first days and our introduction to parenthood. Then I paused that line of writing to go further back to the Origins of Tony and Heather. And then I lost track of that, too.
I celebrated my 29th birthday with a surprise party thrown together by Tony, who’d planned every detail but forgot to buy spaghetti for my spaghetti and meatball dinner party. I fell in love with my brand new Kindle.
Bear and Bug’s Mommy was overhauled and Critter Chronicles began. I set a blogging schedule and mostly stuck to it. Bear wanted to learn karate. Bug turned two. Tony and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary.
We went for nearly four months without watching television before hooking our TV back up in our living room. Bug became a full-fledged talker and finally started sleeping through the night in his own bed.
We celebrated one full year of life on Okinawa. I celebrated my 300th post on this blog. Tony and I realized how similar our children are to us; how they’ve picked up our habits in the most peculiar ways. Tony and I paid off the last of our non-mortgage debt and celebrated one whole year of non-credit card usage.
Bear began kindergarten. Bug and I found ourselves alone for the first time ever. I began walking Bear to school after learning that my summer of avoiding the Okinawa heat and humidity by staying home had led to an 18 lb weight gain since our arrival the previous summer. I temporarily ran out of things to write about, feeling the effects of near-daily posting for almost a year. I thought about returning to my parents’ house in Connecticut for a couple weeks for get a break from the monotony of everyday life, but then life stepped in: we decided to curtail our stay here by a year.
Bug had his first dental exam. Bear earned her yellow belt in karate. Tony took Bug camping on their first overnight trip. The following weekend he put on a suit and took Bear dancing. He stopped coming home for dinner on most work nights.
Bear began attempting to spell on her own. Bug began acting his age. We began getting sick again. The neighborhood friend issues came to a head and I cut successfully cut off a friendship of Bear’s that had never been quite right.
I went cheap on The Critters’ Halloween costumes and my mom flew in to help Bear celebrate her sixth birthday. She fell in love with spicy miso soup, 100 Yen stores, and used up all my carefully hoarded kitchen products. We cried when she left.
We remembered to throw Bear a birthday party with her friends this year. Bug began taking an interest in potty training. I began scoring free toys from the side of the road. I almost pulled off a perfectly executed Thanksgiving meal but undercooked the turkey, then later overcooked it. Tony baked his version of the Perfect Apple Pie.
Bear went on her first field trip and her first ride on a school bus. We experienced a huge letdown when we learned that we wouldn’t be returning to our home in Colorado for our next assignment, then began to happily anticipate the excitement of experiencing somewhere new. Tony surpassed Bear’s expectations and survived to blow out the candle on his 31st birthday cupcake.
I learned to shoot guns, and spent five hours getting ready for a Ball at which Tony barely looked at me, didn’t ask me to dance, and forgot to complement my appearance. He then spent that night sleeping on the couch. Bug stopped wearing diapers during the day, and two days later wore his final nighttime diaper as well.
We had a perfectly quiet Christmas here at our home and enjoyed (nearly) every minute of it. Tony and I reveled in our second year of paying for all holiday purchases with cash, and never resorting to pulling out our last remaining credit card.
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Although we didn’t actually pack up our belongings and move anywhere this past year (which, in itself, seems to be a phenomenon) it was a year of huge changes for our entire family. Bear and Bug have both grown incredibly in the past 12 months; their comprehension levels and abilities to communicate have expanded by leaps and bounds that Tony and I couldn’t have anticipated. As far as our marriage goes, although I’m quick to spill the beans when I feel that he’s screwed up yet again, this past year has been the most harmonious we’ve experienced as a married couple. Without the hot-bed issue of screwy finances sticking in our sides like a thorn, we have little left to argue about anymore. It’s fantastic.
And on another note, although Tony and I met in 1999 and married in 2001, the year 2009 was the first year in which Tony and I saw each other all 365 days. This is the longest stretch of time we’ve ever spent together. I liked it.
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2010 will bring with it many more changes. Although we don’t yet have a timeline about when we’ll be moving, we anticipate that we’ll begin sorting through our possessions and getting ready to move in May or June, with a departure date following in the months afterward. We still haven’t decided if we’ll go directly to our next duty station or if we’ll take leave to visit family first. We don’t yet know whether The Critters and I will be on our own for six weeks or six months while Tony attends schools to further his career.
What I know is this: I will continue blogging. Tony will continue working. Bear and Bug will continue growing and changing and making us laugh and cry. I will turn 30; Bug will begin preschool; Bear will attend her fourth school in as many years; Tony will see if he can remember how to do calculus and other forms of higher math in his new career path. We will continue living this life that may be foreign and frightening to some, but that we feel fortunate to call our own.
May 2010 provide us all with the chance to be and do our best.
Happy New Year.
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>What a great post! My favorite line was "I stopped running and started eating donuts." I may not comment often or bring up your posts in our conversations but I look forward to them and read them first thing everyday. You are such an excellent writer Heather. I hope you never stop.
Posted by Rebecca Minor | December 30, 2009, 20:33>Wow… I don't know if my wife and I have ever had all 365 days in a year where we saw each other. Usually she takes some time with the kids at the cottage or something while I'm working.An interesting recap. Where is the link to the "womanizer" story, though?
Posted by SciFi Dad | December 31, 2009, 22:21>And I am finally getting caught up after a fall of insanity!! I am SO excited about your new assignment. I have told my mom at least 3 times and Dan probably double that. Glad 2009 was such a great year. It needed to be for someone
Posted by Brooke | January 4, 2010, 02:06