Finding the balance

Hello,

Well, motherhood these days is like a see-saw, where I'm trying to keep both kids happy. I read to my boy, then wash my girl's hair. I have to buy two of any treats to make sure there's no obvious favoritism. Of course, there are times when I slip a treat to one kid secretly -- at my school's festival, I saw the cutest kitty key chain made by a student, so bought one for my girl on the condition that she not say where she got it.

I can't believe how much she demands of me now. She really wants to hang out -- to watch videos together, to bathe together, and she likes to leave the house when I do now. I'm so happy about this -- it happened faster than I expected. My boy, seeing us getting closer seems jealous, so he's making demands as well. I find myself running upstairs to see to the needs of one kid and then back down the stairs to see to the needs of the other. I feel more like a mom than I did when it was just the three of us and my boy clung to my husband and I sometimes felt that if I weren't there, no one would notice except for less money and western food.

However, my husband is worried because my girl has to think more seriously about junior high school. She'll have to work much harder than she currently does if she intends to go to high school. She rarely does homework and will really have to buckle down. Now that she's more stable and happy both and home and at school, we hope she will be motivated to work. Sadly, though, JHS is the time when a lot of Japanese kids start refusing to go to school. We hope she'll stay in sports and want to be with her friends enough to stay in school. It is realistic for my husband to be worried, but for a change, I think he shouldn't stress out about it until it happens. Rare for me to be more relaxed about something than he.

My boy has put himself on a diet. He's eating less and at my recommendation, eating more slowly than he used to (and making sure to tell us that he did). I told him it's a combination of diet and exercise to lose weight and that it's better to lose it slowly rather than quickly. I think he really listened! Why is he doing this now? Could it be a coincidence that he likes a girl in his class?

I'm really enjoying being with the kids more than I used to. I no longer hang out at work longer than I really need to because I'm afraid to go home and hear yelling and fighting. It seems miraculous.

xo
M