Dark, dark, dark!

I am amazed how dark it gets so early here. When we landed at O'Hare it took us so long to go through all the motions anyway that I didn't really notice when it got dark.

The second day I went to Great Lakes Naval Station to check in for my temporary duty while I do my final admin for leaving the Navy. After doing my business on base, I visited the Navy Exchange at probably 4:30 or so. When I came back out at 5:00, all was dark. I called my father on my cell and asked him who turned out the lights! On Guam it never got dark earlier than 6:00, and that only in the wintertime. I drove to my sister's home through the darkest night - so many cars on the road, so many cars, period! All of them dirty and covered with salt.

My kids are constantly amazed at the darkness too. When we lived on Guam we did dinner around 6:00 and had them in bed during the 7:00 hour. They almost never were out after dark. In fact, that was a special treat when they were out after dark because they could see the moon and the stars very clearly. Now it's dark even when we just go to my sister's house for dinner. They don't get how early it really is.

We're still adjusting to the major time zone shift after arriving on the mainland two days ago. My oldest slept all night last night and was the only one of the family to do so. My wife and I were wide awake at 1 AM (that's 5 PM on Guam). Both the boy and girl twin woke up during that hour, and we were fine with that because we couldn't fall asleep anyway. The girl walked into our room looking for mommy just a few minutes after she convinced the boy to go to sleep, bribing him with a cup of water (his favorite nighttime treat).

I can see how seasonal affective disorder can affect people!

7 Quick Takes Friday - Stories About Moving Week

Now that we're safely back on the mainland and the crazy stories of the past week are over, I can finally blog about them!

--- 1 ---

Our oldest daughter does not have pressure on her brain. Of chief concern for us this past week was that she was vomiting at night, in her sleep, for no apparent reason. At first we thought it was connected to her cough or fever that she had early last week, but then those went away and the vomiting was still there. Worse, it wouldn't wake her up and we would walk in to discover her with it at night. This concerned us greatly and led to a last minute doctor's visit with her pediatrician.

The doc ordered a CT scan just to make sure nothing was wrong inside her head, since the day afterward we would be boarding a plane and flying across two continents for 20 hours. The scan was clear, so she determined she is suffering from acid reflux. Why our daughter has that, we don't know and didn't have time to find out. We just threw a prescription at it and will solve the overarching problem when we arrive at our final destination.

--- 2 ---

Tumon, Guam is really like a Japanese resort town. I didn't realize this until we actually stayed at a resort hotel there during our last few days on Guam. When you are staying in your neighborhood with all your other military neighbors, you forget that the other chief industry on Guam besides the military is tourism, mostly geared toward the Japanese.

Taking a late night fitness run made me realize how tourist-oriented that area is. Many of the ads on buildings are written in kanji, and many happy Japanese couples and families were out for a late night stroll. I saw very few Chamorros or other locals there, except working at the businesses. Gave me quite a different perspective.

--- 3 ---

It is nice to no longer be a player in the island's political madness. Without going in-depth about my job, it suffices to say that I was involved daily in the island's bizarre political crises (more on that later). When I was driving to return the Beast to our friend on my last night on Guam, it was nice to not care how Senator Rector's corruption scandal would turn out, or how the military buildup might drastically change life on Guam. No, it was relaxing to just drive with the windows down and smell the island salt air one last time and enjoy wearing shorts and flip flops.

--- 4 ---

Our littlest boy was very brave at the water park, but probably won't be so brave again. The resort where we stayed the last week had an incredible water park which included a magnificent water playground for the kids. My wife and I were so amazed that our littlest boy climbed through all the water obstacles on his own, getting water all in his face and barely being able to see in the process. He cries most of the times when we bathe him. He usually makes bath time miserable for everyone else.

But there he was, climbing right up to the top of the structure and jumping in the tube waterslide. Of course, what he didn't realize was that I was still running over to catch him at the waterslide when he jumped on it, so when he landed in the shallow pool at the end, it took a second or two before I was over there to lift him out. He has a set of very prominent, large eyes, and those eyes were wide with surprise by the time I got to him, quickly lifting him out of the pool.

He didn't go down the slide again after that.

--- 5 ---

Our twins make adorable elves. Due to the last minute trip of my daughter to the doctor, and us having only one loaner car, no cell phones and having to figure out the day on the fly, I took our twin children to my last day of work. All that was really left was for me to do my final checkout interview and grabbing my orders and records, but these were things that absolutely had to happen before I could transfer. I brought the twins into my work and politely asked my former employees if they would watch them while I did my final checkout.

It was a slow day, so they gladly did so. Of course, what ended up happening was that someone had perfectly sized elf hats and elf shoes for a set of two year old twins. The girl looked cute and all, but the boy looked like the real deal. You'd swear his ears were pointy. He also had on a red shirt to go with the red hat and shoes, and the shoes had jingle bells on them that tinkled every time he stepped. He had this scowl on his face, like he was suspicious of what he was being made to do but going along with it anyway.

They were paraded around the various offices by one of my former office-mates, who got them to follow him by feeding them chocolate. He brought them into the lobby where I was waiting to be seen, and the command held an impromptu photo session with their two little elves in front of the Christmas tree. Had I not been so stressed out about my daughter's well-being and getting everything done for the last day on Guam, I probably would have enjoyed it more.

--- 6 ---

Cutting food into cool shapes really is entertaining to two year olds. The twin daughter had a children's meal for dinner on the flight from Japan to the mainland US. Of course, this flight originated in Japan, and so did the food. While she didn't like all the Japanese childrens' food, she did enjoy the veggies that were cut into different fun shapes.

She especially enjoyed the pickled red ginger cut to look like an airplane. I've never seen her pick up a piece of food and pretend that it was flying like an airplane, but she certainly did it with this one. I was grateful for anything that would keep her from getting upset about being strapped down for an 11 hour flight, and it was very amusing to us both. US airline industry, take note!

--- 7 ---

Three and a half is our magic age for airline travel. I always wondered what the age would be for our kids to be tolerable on long airline trips. I think we found it. Our oldest daughter finally entertained herself through most of both flights, either by napping, looking at books or magazines, drawing, looking out the window, and talking (of course). When the twins were freaking out about being strapped down on yet another flight, our oldest was very tolerant of my ignoring her to make sure one of the twins didn't choke themselves on their seatbelts during a tantrum. All this without whipping out the DVD player. It was amazing, and I finally feel like I can take her on a trip around the world and do it sanely.

Sure, she didn't really want to carry her very small backpack of books, but she would when I told her she needed to "support the family." For the most part she was a team player. Even with her and the twins and their occasional freakout sessions, I still feel like we did better than the family that had one kid flying over from China that we met. Their kid only slept an hour or so during the 11 hour flight, whereas our three kids slept probably 3/4 of the flight.

 ***

All this being said, it sure was nice to show up at the baggage claim on the mainland to the waiting arms of grandparents who just made things so much easier. We're finally spending the night back in my homeland of Illinois. This is the first time the twins have ever left the eastern hemisphere and the tropical climate, but the warmth of our family will make up for the lack of warmth in the air.

7 Quick Takes Friday - Things I Will Miss About Guam

*** 1 ***

The boringly predictable weather. This one is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, from 11-3 every day it is ridiculously hot and the humidity is a killer. On the other hand, I know exactly what I'm going to wear each day and what my kids are going to wear each day. The girls' few long pants can stand in as capris as they outgrow them, making them last even longer. Also, island formal attire occasionally includes a tie - most of the time it does not. Now I might have to actually look at the weather to see what to wear.

*** 2 ***

The first friends of my children and their families. Our oldest daughter was only 10 months old when we moved here, so all the friends she has made through her life live here on Guam. Granted, as a military community we move all over the world as a matter of routine, but that doesn't make parting ways with these other families any easier. We have many memories of our children playing with the others as our oldest learned to socialize. As much as we have hopes to get together again someday, that someday may never come.

*** 3 ***

The lack of real traffic. We do have traffic and we do have traffic jams on Guam. Some of the traffic jams can be atrocious. None of them are even comparable to the traffic you can experience daily in any major metropolitan area in America. Sure, I gripe that it took an extra 10, even 20 minutes to get home, but those days are very rare and predictable (Friday nights at 5 are usually bad). There are no interstates here, but there are no toll roads either. I can drive anywhere on this island for free, which is more than can be said for my home state of Illinois.

*** 4 ***

Christmas Village at the Friary. This will merit its own posting when we make a final visit in the days to come, but this is a Guam tradition that stretches back many decades and goes on throughout the Christmas season. Our kids have grown up going to the display and we have enjoyed seeing their fascination with the event grow every year. We are sad that our own family tradition of attendance will have to end this year.

*** 5 ***

The experience of being a minority. I've heard it said that only 10% of the population of Guam is white, while 30%+ is Chamorro and another 30%+ is Filippino. Most of my life I've lived in communities where there are members of other ethnic groups, but whites of European descent are the dominant group. It's been an odd and refreshing experience to see it from the other side. My oldest daughter's preschool class of 11 has two white children in it, including her. The other nine kids are Chamorro or Filippino. Her class photo looks very different from my preschool class photo, and we're glad she got to experience being a part of such an ethnically diverse community, even if she doesn't realize it now.

*** 6 ***

The thrill of island shopping. Please let me explain what this means. You quickly learn on Guam that if something shows up at the store that wasn't there before, and you want it, you buy it right there. Don't go home and sleep on it, don't see if it's available somewhere else cheaper. I guarantee that if you do either of these things, by the time you return to the original store, that item will be gone for months and you will hit yourself. Impulse buying holds less of a stigma here; it's not an impulse purchase if that's the only time you'll ever see it.

*** 7 ***

OK, I've tried, but I can't think of a seventh. I think my mind is having trouble thinking of things that I will miss because I'm so ready to leave. Three years is a long time for me and the family to be stuck in one place, and I'm ready to get home to spend the holidays with our extended family. More and more I concentrate on the negative, the reasons why I want to leave rather than the reasons why I want to stay. In less than one week's time we will be back on the mainland. Our household goods all left today and I am writing this on my wife's laptop on the floor of our bedroom. It is amazing how much crap we possess. So much of it is for the kids, but two days of packing with 3-6 guys per day is almost embarassing. All of this stuff is headed to storage until we find a new place to live.

If we can do without it for an indefinite period of time, do we really need it?

Who Are The Real Invaders?

We did our initial inspection Tuesday with our landlord. It went much better than we expected. We were practically begging her to look at stains and marks on the walls because we've heard she can be really hard on the tenants when they move out. Most everything, though, she dismissed with a handwave and a general admonition to "just vacuum it" or "just use some Magic Eraser."

I think being a tenant who didn't complain much or make a big fuss about anything made for an easier time at the checkout. She even apologized that she had to be as hard on us as she was; if she wasn't, she claimed, her boss would come down hard on her.

What I did point out to her was that we are losing the battle against the ants in our kitchen and that is something they will want to deal with when we move out. We've kept them in check for the most part over the past few years, but just this month they came on in force and are racing us to eat whatever it is we've made. They even got into an unopened package of crackers.

Our landlord remarked that this is a frequent problem with houses on our hill. With a perfectly straight face, she said all of the houses might be built on one gigantic ant colony. That's right, this hill we live on could be one massive anthill.

I later remarked to my wife how, the last time I sprayed for ants outside, there were just as many streaming down from the roof as there were coming up from the ground. "So are they invading our home," she quipped, "or are we invading theirs'?"

Ants of my hill, the house is yours in less than a week. I am sorry for living on your turf for three years.

No Winter Clothes

Part of our long term strategy for getting ready to return to the mainland has been getting our wardrobes ready. We haven’t worn anything approaching winter clothing since October 2007. My wife and I still have several pairs of jeans in bags under our beds, along with sweaters and sweatshirts – even snow boots. Melissa experienced one winter when she was less than a year old, so chances are she doesn’t remember it. The twins have never been anyplace where the temperature was less than 70.

I’m not looking forward to having the troupe put on coats, mittens, hats and boots before we can go anywhere. Right now when we need to leave the house, I yell out that it’s time to get shoes on and our girls get them on all by themselves. Only our boy still needs help getting shoes on, mostly because he wears actual shoes with socks and not sandals.

And yet this process is still a struggle.

The three year old girl debates with herself or us what pair of shoes she will wear (flipflops or tennis). The twin girl takes her sandals on and off throughout the day, so she spends time wandering through the house trying to find where she last left them. And the twin boy gets distracted so easily that someone has to force him to sit down and put his shoes on.

In the meantime, we asked the grandparents to go shopping for us at a rummage sale for children’s clothes in Colorado. While the girls can do the hand-me-down game, our oldest doesn’t have any winter clothes to hand down. The twin girl is older now than our oldest girl was when we arrived on Guam. Each child has to get a brand new wardrobe. We ended up getting over $1000 worth of children’s clothing for only $200 from the rummage sale in Denver. These clothes are being sent to Illinois to meet up with us as soon as we get off the plane.

We Go For A Family S-W-I-M

We have to spell this word out in code whenever we use it in front of the kids. Mere mention of the possibility of swimming provokes a strong reaction from our oldest daughter, and now also from her younger twins. Both girls love swimming and would probably go to the pool every day if we let them. Our boy doesn't have quite the same level of passion for it, but he does have a good time once he gets there.

We can't even tell our oldest ahead of time that we are planning to go swimming. We spring it on her as we are getting ready. I was reluctant to go, mostly because I hate having to be a lifeguard for all three kids. It's hardly a relaxing trip to the pool for me.

We live on a resort and the hotel pool is open for our use. It is perfect for the kids. Most of it is shallow, maybe one or two feet deep, going to a max of four and a half feet. Our oldest daughter in the past few months has grown tall enough to be able to touch bottom in all but the deepest parts. The twin daughter acts like she was born to live in the water; her nickname is "the mermaid." She doesn't know how to swim yet, but she loves jumping in the pool, going underwater, and floating on her back.

Our favorite part of the pool is the slide. Only on Guam can you have a waterslide with no restrictions on it, no rules as to how you can or cannot use it, no lifeguard at the top to make sure you follow those rules. Our oldest has been going down the waterslide in our laps since she was 18 months old, and her younger brother and sister started even earlier.

We spent most of our day climbing the stairs to the slide as a family, with my wife and I each taking one of the twins down the slide with us and with our oldest daughter going down by herself. My wife and I realized that this might be the last time we go to this pool. For our last slide down we all made a train and slid down as a family. It was slow going - I think the hard water wears out the sliding surface quickly. We all laughed and giggled and ended up in the pool together at the end.

What are we going to tell the kids when the lifeguards on the mainland keep them from going down waterslides for the next 5 years because they're not old/big enough?

I think our little mermaid will sneak past them and go down anyway.

7 Quick Takes Friday - Things I Won't Miss About Guam

--- 1 ---

I might actually get my wristwatches repaired. The guy at the Exchange has only been able to fix 50% of my watch problems. He was able to replace the battery in my Timex running watch and was able to resize my metal band on my knockoff watch from China. He was not able to replace the band on my Timex Expedition nor replace the cracked crystal on my generic Casio. Can't replace a crystal on a Casio? Seriously? But your sign says you replace watch crystals???

--- 2 ---

Running races won't begin at 6 AM. I've only run two races in the past three years on Guam, and I love running. The real reason? They all have a start time of 6 AM or earlier on a Saturday morning, meaning that you need to be getting registered by 5 AM or at least 5:30. Come on, we all know it's hot and humid on Guam, but starting a 5K at 7 AM that takes at most 30 minutes to run won't kill anyone's personal records.

--- 3 ---

There are urgent care clinics on the mainland. When child X develops a fever Saturday night or gets a bug bite that swells up half her leg, we won't have to go sit in the freezing cold ER at the Naval Hospital because they're the only place that can see a patient before Monday morning.

--- 4 ---

There will be a ton of things for the kids to do. I am not joking when I say we have seen and done just about everything our toddlers would be interested in doing on Guam. We attended a fundraiser for a children's museum for Guam about a year and a half ago, excited at their goal of opening a museum by the end of the calendar year. That was supposed to be December 2008. We have not heard from the project since. Kind of sad, really.

--- 5 ---

Typhoons won't ruin my weekend plans. Nothing crimps my style more than waiting in line to fill up my cars with gas, buying cases of bottled water in case "the big one" ever comes through, and hoping that the kids will enjoy eating canned chili cooked over a Coleman camp stove. Then I wait by my phone waiting to be recalled to the Regional Operations Center. At least once a month since August of this year we've gotten all excited over some baby typhoon nearby that has threatened to sock Guam - only to have it bypass us completely or peter out into an embarassingly sunny day.

--- 6 ---

The postal system might work - or at least work better. Only first class and priority mail or higher comes by plane. Anything less, like magazines, non-profit mailings or parcel post, comes via ship. I swear that there is a container for Guam someplace in the US where the island's mail accumulates. Once it fills up they put it on the next boat that is scheduled to go to Guam at some point in the next 6 months. You can tell when that container arrives because everyone's post office boxes are bursting with junk mail and magazines. It's always funny to open up your PO box on November 1 to find the October issue of Good Housekeeping with "Great Ideas for Halloween!" Maybe next year.

Also, I understand that they've curtailed home delivery in the mainland, but on Guam we've been ahead of our time. Our PO box is in Hagatna, 15 minutes away. It's not big enough for packages, and when we first got here they would give out packages until 5:30 PM. Since then they have cut hours at the post office to be from 8:30-4:00, which is right when everyone works. Instead, we all line up to pick up our packages on Saturday morning, where the post office also cut hours and is only open from 9-12.

--- 7 ---

I might win the fight against mold, rust, ants, boonie cats and the bestial jungle plant that eats my driveway. We store nothing of real value in the garage because the mold or wasps would find a home in it. I bought a pair of clippers to cut down bananas from our trees, and after two years they are completely unusable and rusted shut. Ants have invaded our kitchen and are finally getting the best of us after two years of ongoing war. Boonie cats peed on a box of our Christmas ornaments the first year we were here; we had to dispose of the whole box. The landscapers do their best with the jungle plant, but after two weeks it grows big enough to make backing out of our double driveway a near impossible task.

***

Next week: the seven things I will miss most about Guam!