The world as seen by the Britons

It's all theirs :)

Un grand merci à l'expéditeur:

Bonne fête Maman

Today is Mothers day in France. I received beautiful flowers from my three boys :)

Rainbow roses and the sweetest note.

Bonne fête à toutes les mamans!

And later on, Agnes surprised me with flowers as well. This day is great :)

Enrollment

Wednesday night we enrolled Oskar in a preschool nearby. Starting June 15th, he will go there every morning to start. Ultimately he will spend the whole day there.

We received his uniforms and backpack. We filled more paperwork than one can imagine.

We have been briefed that it will be difficult because he will cry - potentially a lot.

We will start slow with one of us joining at the beginning then disappearing over time because we prefer soft transition to hard one.

I am both excited and terrified at the idea at the idea of Oskar going to school. I guess I have two weeks to prepare myself.

Swollen feet

With the second pregnancy, I feel like everything is happening faster. Everything but the full 9 months that on the other hand feel like eternity. The first time everything is new and every new symptom is a sign of progress. This time it's just additional burden to carry.

While I like that I can feel Pikachu earlier, I don't really enjoy that my belly looks a month bigger than it is. I was already big (huge) compared to Asian stardards. It's not getting better.

For a few days now, my feet are systematically swollen in the evening. It does not matter how much I drink or walk or keep my legs up, at the end of the day my feet are full of water and my toes are hard to move.

The coming 3.5 months are going to be fun if swelling starts now.  

Please let me leave

After the disaster at immigration when I arrived in Japan, I took a train earlier this morning to ensure I would have enough time at the airport.

I had checked in online but could not print out so I went to the counter to get my boarding pass.

Lady: are you pregnant?

Me: yes.

Lady: are you ok to travel?

Me: yes.

Lady: how many weeks are you?

Me: 23 weeks (technically 23 weeks and 6 days but let's not go into details)

Lady: silence....

Me: is there a problem?

Lady: we need to make sure you are ok to travel?

Me: because... Otherwise you will keep me in Japan until I give birth?

Lady: (stunned, no idea what to answer)

Me: I have a letter from my doctor.

The lady took a copy of the letter, as well as my resident card and my passport then let me go. I cannot help thinking that if I had put my sweater on already she would have never asked just thinking I'm one big fat European girl. Good that I had the letter from the doctor with me. 

After that, I bought all the souvenirs I needed, went through security and headed for immigration. Of course, immigration was not busy and by 9:15am, I was done. A little less than two hours to wait now. Better this way than stressing in a long queue.

Tagliatelle bolognese with Kobe beef

After a long day, I arrived at the hotel of the day. Normally I would order food in the room if I'm alone but today I wanted to have a proper meal given I didn't have one in the past 24 hours. We you are on the move the whole day you grab food when it presents itself.

I picked the restaurant on level 36 and this maybe not the smartest choice. They had two menus, one Japanese insanely expensive and one western much cheaper. So I went western and ordered pasta: tagliatelle bolognese but with Kobe beef inside. It was very good. Did the beef make a difference? Not sure but at least I can say I had some Kobe beef :)

Of course I would have preferred a steak, rare... But that will have to wait.

What's happening in Osaka this week?

For what's probably my last business trip this year, I left today for Osaka. As it was a last minute decision, I had a hard time finding a hotel. I managed to have a place to stay for each night, but a different place each night. I'll be hoping from one hotel to the other for four nights. 

When I asked my Japanese colleagues what was happening in Osaka they had no idea.

Tonight when I arrived at immigration, I had a chock when I saw the queue. It took me one hour and 15 minutes to go through immigration instead of the 15-20min usually. It seemed like five planes just landed from China at once with lots of Chinese tourists. The custom officers were simply overwhelmed by the number of people. A little over an hour on the queue they finally opened two more counters. I couldn't help but wondering where was the legendary Japanese efficiency. It was also fascinating to see how clueless they were when they had to manage Chinese people queuing. They don't nicely stand in line one behind the other. They pack at every counter and push their way through. 

As a consequence, I missed the direct bus to the hotel. I also missed the following three to Kobe and only managed to get into the last bus at 00:05. That was two and a half hours after I landed. Lucky that I made the last bus at least. Otherwise I would have had to take a taxi which costs a fortune in Japan. Airport to Osaka station in taxi cost 200-300$, so I don't want to imagine how it costs to go to Kobe.

My journey was not yet over. From Kobe station, I then had to take a taxi. By 2am, I was finally in bed. 

It was a long journey this time. 

Clearly we are not tech enough in our choice of baby items

It's not too late to reconsider our choices and try those out for Pikachu.

I know someone who'd love to receive updates on temperature on his phone :)

Another one with long legs

Today we received the report from Pikachu's morphological ultrasound. As the doctor nicely positioned it, it was not a surprise at all to see that his legs are exploding the chart. Same as Oskar when we checked back then.
It was not a surprise to me either given how much kicking Pikachu has been doing lately. The fact that he is lying across my belly also contributes to feeling him even more.
The coming four months will be fun :)

Bye bye Tess

Last week was Tess' last week with us. Agnes has arrived and we've had one week of transition. One week for Tess to train Agnes. One week for Oskar to get used to Agnes.

Yesterday she brought me flowers and a card for Wolfram with very kind words. There was also a letter from her fiancé thanking us for all the help and support we provided her with while she was getting her visa. 

Although it's been a little bit less than a year and a half, Tess has become part of the family and let's face it, one of the reasons why Oskar is such a sweet boy. We will miss her a lot and I cannot imagine what will happen when Oskar realizes she is gone. Keeping our fingers crossed that it will be relatively easy.

Of course we are very happy for her and wish her all the best in her new life in the U.S. At the same time it sucks to see her go.

Suprise in the mailbox

This morning as I checked my mailbox at work, I found unexpectedly a big envelop for me. It was coming from Alice. 

Inside was a collection of books for Oskar to prepare him for the arrival of his little brother and potty training.

Thanks Alice for thinking of us. We miss you!!!!

Happy Wolfram

Not only did he get to see them, he could actually play with one.