We Moved! - Episode 51

Are you having trouble completing your toddler's bedtime routine in a timely manner? Are you having trouble sticking to a consistent bedtime routine? Establishing a consistent and drama-free bedtime routine for your toddler can be a challenge, but using a color-coded timer can make the process much smoother. This timer not only serves as a visual cue, it helps signal the body that it's time to start winding down for the night. Ultimately, this can lead to fewer bedtime struggles and a more peaceful and restful night for the whole family.

We look forward to reading your comments. ❤️ 💫

TIMESTAMP:
►00:00 - Intro
►00:09 - What does Yuntaku mean?
►00:37- We Moved to ....!
►00:46 - Recent Happenings
►03:00 - Difficulties moving with young children
►04:13 - How to Look for Mommy Groups/Educational Actives
►08:11 - How We've been Managing Stress
►10:53 - How we've been Managing our Children's stress

QUESTION: Have you moved with your family? Have any tips you’d like to share? 

MUSIC:
► Copyright Chillhop Music - https://chillhop.com

#movingwithyourkids #managingstress #consciousparenting #realizeyourtruenature

Podcast Transcription

The transcription below is provided for your convenience, please excuse any errors made by the automated service.

Episode 51

Tamo: This is episode 51.

Akko: And the topic of the day is we moved to Hawaii. And lots of parent life stuff. And before we get started. Please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show. Now let's get back to our recent happenings. So recently, We obviously moved And we are finally settled and getting ready to get our life started in Hawaii.

Tamo: Took a long while we've shared that we're going to be moving.

in episode 49. And finally after months,

Akko: Yeah,

Tamo: Settled down and really working to.

Start our life here in Hawaii and. Even between that time. Episode 50 to 51, there is so many things that had for example after one week in Hawaii. The car that we shipped. Didn't even last a week. It broke down within

Akko: Okay. No

Tamo: And the cost to fix it was way more than the value of the car. So we decided to donate that and then I had to fly back. And then ship my car here and there's just so many things that

Akko: oh.

Tamo: It was continuous.

Akko: And I was stranded, during that time with the kids.

And, during the afternoon, it's so hot it's hard to get the kids out during the afternoon, but, we made it all happen.

And what else do we have? We had a lot going on and then we had wedding.

Tamo: We had a wedding. We had to fly out to a different island.

and so we were there for, two weeks And then we had what.

Akko: Family. come over.

Tamo: Yes, family came over and then Friends came

Akko: Yeah. Friends came over. We had a Performance that I had to perform. There's just A lot going on.

And then we're finally able to exhale. And, get life started.

Tamo: But that's only going to be for another, maybe a week. two weeks, because then we have to fly to California. We have a wedding part two and just a lot of stuff that's been in the pipeline. So we've been quite busy and not only that. During that time, we're looking for a place to stay. And then for the kids, keeping them busy, which is a full time.

Akko: Oh yeah.

Tamo: times 10 then also looking for a school for them. Yeah. And yeah,

Akko: yeah, and looking for a second car.

Tamo: Yeah.

Akko: was a lot going on. Oh

Tamo: so much that happened. And then we had to furnish the place. There's just so much that we went through, but not complaining. It's just been a great. Time of challenge and, overcoming those challenges. And now we can share what we learned. So, Yeah. Difficulties moving with children. Let's just go. Straight into the topic of the day, which is, we moved and then just sharing the parent life stuff. When it comes to moving with very small children it's very difficult because they need full attention.

Akko: And they need some time to adapt. They're obviously feeding into our emotions. And our stress. So we need to make sure that we can help process their emotions.

Tamo: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I have to say this move. Definitely. was one of the more difficult times of my life, just because yes, if it's just a moving by myself or with Akko. It's simple. It's much more simple. But now when it comes to with small children There's a lot of just a paperwork that has to be done to we've you know, getting new utilities,

Akko: Oh, yeah. ,

Tamo: Changing everything out like the addresses and things like that. So it's been just more than plane ride here. So it's definitely not a vacation. It's more of a. It's just a, it's a move. Yeah.

Akko: It's life.

Tamo: yeah. It's been quite difficult, but again, like Akko said we were needing to express our emotions in a healthy way so that we can show by example to our children. And also our children would be feeding off our energy. Making sure that we give them their space in order for them to process and help process their emotions so that. It's not just a continual chaos.

It's much easier said than done.

Akko: Exactly. Exactly.

Tamo: It's how it was.

Akko: Yeah. And the second thing was looking for mommy groups and finding educational opportunities for our kids. What I did first was reach out by going into Facebook and joining some groups and asking those moms. And dads. Of any education opportunities, any preschool? For our daughter. And, I got a bunch of responses, so I Decided to look up all those preschools and programs that they were offering in Hawaii. And I came across Tutu and Me. And Tutu and Me is a program where the parent participates in the program. So what that means is. I or Tamo will go to the school and be with our kids. While they're participating in school when they have circle time, you're like, right there next to Doing circle time with the kids. And then, they have different types of various stations where they can go to and. They go to different stations to play whatever they want to play, but we're usually pretty much with them.

Tamo: It's a really awesome find. So Akko did a great job of, researching that and just going and checking these places out and found that this who was the best for our situation. And we would like to also give some context to why this works for us is because for us Our daughter she's three and a half now. And we have a son who's one and a half. And. Our daughter. Has a degree of separation anxiety. And before the move she was going to a school, it was a Montessori school. And. Every day was a struggle. She'd be crying and she just really didn't want to go to school.

Akko: Yeah. There was a period where it was okay. But then she went back to Not wanting to go back.

Tamo: And of course. There's maybe a couple of different schools of thought where one is to just say, okay make the. goodbyes really quick and just dropping them off at school, making the goodbyes very short. And then from there going off and That's one way, but I think in our case, it really wasn't working that well. I think it was triggering her a lot more than her getting used to it because this is over a span of months and I just hadn't really gotten to the point where we were comfortable with it. So we decided that it would be better for her, that she goes to, to, to me, which is the preschool that she gets to go with not only with mama, but with her brother and it's only two days a week. For a couple of hours. Now, on the other hand we found that here. In Hawaii. It's. The preschool is pretty much full-time. It was hard to find schools that were like maybe two or three days a week.

Akko: Yeah. And if it was like two to three days a week, It was more like a daycare and that's not really what we were looking

Tamo: for. We were looking for a preschool, right?

Akko: And So preschool was like literally full time. Like it was like seven 30 or eight all the way till two 30 to three or even four. And it was every day. And that's really not what we were looking for. I'm not working right now , so I don't really need. To be away from our kids for that long.

Tamo: And so that's why for us, we were debating. Okay. If she doesn't go to preschool, will she fall behind? And things like that, but in the end we went with our heart and Decided that yeah. We know that, right now. This stage of life doesn't last forever. and it's a really tough stage, but also it's so precious. And so we decided that yes, we want to be with our children as much as possible. And decided that this Tutu and Me program would be the best.

Akko: Yes. Especially, if you can, obviously there's a lot of parents out there that. Aren't able to do this. And for those parents that are given this opportunity to stay with their kids, I would definitely try to stay with their kids as much as they can so that they can be the best their kid is life.

Tamo: Yeah. And that's how we were thinking about it. And also again it's all contextual. In the context of our family life, This was the best So like Akko mentioned not everyone will have a chance for that especially nowadays, things are getting so expensive and we all have to work. And for most it's maybe even. Picking up another extra part-time job, things like that. So it's really tough. And so we totally understand. And we're just sharing how we were thinking about our situation so that maybe you can glean some insights from how we were contemplating our decision.

Akko: Yes. So now moving on to how we've been dealing with the stress. Just the, both of and just, because moving itself is high stress. Moving out as high stress. moving in as high stress. And so moving to a different environment where you really don't know that many people.

Tamo: Right at all

Akko: Yeah I have a few friends here, but it's not like I hang out with them or I talk to them on a regular basis.

Tamo: And not only that they're not even in the same situation, they're in a very different. Time over there or?

Akko: Yes. They're in different seasons of their life Their kids are all grown up or they're all in college. Maybe they're grandparents. And so

Tamo: so the difficulty has been long forgotten and to them It's oh why do you have to be with your kids so much or just throw them in school kind of a.

Akko: mindset. Yeah. I don't expect them to be like, oh, okay. But, we just let them know we want to be with our kids a lot more. But with all that said, there has been a lot of stress. And so what we've been trying to do is take time for ourself a lot more. I'll take the kids out. So that Tamo will have his own time. To relax and work, actually work. And, vice versa.

Tamo: Yeah, I'll take him out to the park. Luckily we have a park close by take them out to the park or if there's errands to run, going, shopping with the kids and things like that. And then maybe even taking them out for a drive that's been working out pretty good. So yeah really managing stress is really important. And just not getting to the point where you're pulling your hair out. I think that's really important. So just knowing yourself enough to say, okay, I need. Some time. And then helping each other manage that portion, so if one parent is getting flustered, making sure that you show that support and because if you're both stressed out it just becomes a lot more difficult, not only for yourselves, but for the children too.

Akko: Yeah, absolutely. And another thing that's been helping me is having quality time with Tamo. And that's usually done after bedtime. And usually a lot of things can get done after bedtime. Just because it's more quiet and we're more relaxed. The kids are sleeping. There's no more screaming and or crying or mom, mommy play with me or anything like that, or daddy play with me. So it's a lot easier to do things and talk about, what's been going on in our life. That's really been helping, just talking to each other and being there for each other.

Tamo: Yeah, definitely. And. It's a, again, there's a little challenge here too, because we want to get to sleep early because. When our kids wake up they definitely make sure that we wake up too.

Akko: oh yeah.

Tamo: Making sure that we tried to get to bed at a reasonable time. But at the same time, really getting the stuff we need to do done. So for example, if it's cleaning. Getting that done quick, and then also being able to spend time with each other so that we can, debrief and figure out what we want for each other, for ourselves and just again keeping the relationship nice and healthy. Yeah. And through that.

By managing our own stresses we can help manage our children's stresses.

Akko: Absolutely. Because children are very sensitive to emotions. And whatever emotions are, parents are feeling. Usually that gets transferred over and then they start feeling that distress. Whatever feeling that emotion that parent is feeling. So it's very important to be what to manage our own stress. And also the children's stress. Again by possibly taking them out to moving their body helps process those emotions. So like we said, in prior podcasts and move it to lose it.

Tamo: And not only that like when the move happened. We're moving to a different climate to the weather's are different here. It's a much warmer here, much more humid. Especially our son. He's just been sweating all over. And then he had gotten heat rash. He has it once in a while now. but his body is starting to Adapt to it quite a bit. Our daughter, she adopted quite quickly. And she now, When it's 80 degrees, she says it's cold. It's really funny, we've Days that it's a 93 plus in the house. No AC with a high humidity. Only fans and, it gets quite uncomfortable.

Akko: Humidity is 70 to 80%. And, we're not talking like 30%. It's

Tamo: Especially right after it

Akko: Yeah. Yeah. So it gets pretty warm. And there's a lot of physically getting used to the weather.

Tamo: And luckily for all of us, I think We've been. Managing very well there. but that's also a stress. We need to make sure that we're managing it well, and then also helping our children process those emotions too like Akko said, move it to lose it. And yeah, Akko has been taking the kids out quite often and sometimes. we both need to take them out. What, two to three

Akko: Yeah. Oh yeah,

Tamo: do maybe two in the morning, afternoon.

and then Maybe I can take them out to the park or something at the end of the

Akko: the evening Yeah. Yeah. We got our daughter into gymnastics so that literally move to her body because she really loves gymnastics. So that's another thing too. And also joined this group called hiking with keiki and keiki means children and in Hawaiian. Hiking with keiki and I'm having the kids get used to like hiking and everything so that They can move their body. They're outside. They're still socializing with other kids as well. And doing a bunch of things so that they can release their energy and their emotions. So, yeah, that's what we've been doing and it's been working out so far.

Tamo: Yeah. Getting that routine going we mentioned in previous podcasts, like routine really does help a lot. It's just that in our situation the routine has been broken so often just because of, emergencies or having to go to a different, just flying and things like that.

Akko: Family coming over then it's yeah, The routine gets broken like so multiple times. So then you're having to get back on the routine over and over.

Tamo: So it's been difficult, But at the same time, every time I think with the routine we're getting better and better at it. Yeah. Because we were having to restart so many times. And it's not over yet. I Within the next week or two were flying out again. So we're going to have another reset, really working to get that routine back. As soon as possible and then really having a great time with the children. That's one thing that I've really been feeling in my bones is that. In my case, I used to more so feel that, okay, children are supposed to be like this. I had that mindset and that mindset was really causing me a lot of angst and difficulty being with the kids. My thought was okay, kids are supposed to listen to their parents. but obviously when you have kids, that's not the case. And just shifting the mindset from that to enjoying the moment, we always hear be in the moment, enjoy the moment, things like that. But I'm looking at it more from enjoy the moment. Instead of having a goal. Okay. Oh, in X amount of years, they're going to finally understand what I'm talking to them about, not that way, but getting to the level of our children and Being with them and having fun with them. And that's definitely resulting in much more positive interactions with not only parent child. Relationship, but it's just becoming a lot more fun and I noticed that my children love to play games. They think everything is game. There are times that I'm just tired. Hey, I don't want to play games. Just could you just please do this, but at the same time. Okay. If I want it done, I have to turn it into a game and it's just, learning and keeping it fun. So that's something that I've been learning in trying to incorporate and integrate into my life.

Akko: Yeah. And I think it's really working. Yeah. They love it. Daddy's always fun. Mama's not. So they're always like, no, we're going to go to daddy. That's really funny.

Tamo: But they know that daddy is a lot more flexible. So they want a lot more stuff from me. So that's a little difficulty that I need for kind, but yeah, it's been fun. Things had definitely changed because when we first moved, it was so stressful. That openness or that space to even be like a playful and fun. It wasn't there yeah, but Little by little working to take more time for myself so that I can give a lot more to so if your cup is full, you can definitely give to others too. But if your cup is empty, there's not much to give. And So. Been working on that.

Akko: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's been helping both of us,

Tamo: Yeah, With that said a little bonus thing is that our daughter and I we actually flew back. To California. Together. And had father daughter time in. That was really awesome. I think that really made a big impact. I think. It. Potentially change the trajectory of our lives. So yeah, it was really great. And in the future, I hope that I can do that with our son and, we are. Akko I were talking, Akko can probably do that. The same for our son and then daughter just with mama. Only time. dada only time for both of them. That's really good.

Akko: And so I think that's been a great thing and we'll probably talk about, what happened in future podcasts, because it's really interesting how she acted with just dad and without little brother. Yeah. And So it was very interesting. So something , that we will probably talk about in future podcasts. But for now, we'll just keep it with just our happenings in Hawaii. And So yeah

Tamo: So, if you think this episode is helpful for other parents, please share it. And if you haven't. Please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show.

Akko: And the question of the day is have you moved with your family? Have any tips you'd like to share?

Tamo: We love to hear from you.

Please come say hi by commenting on our website, by going to AKKOANDTAMO.COM, which is A.K.K.O.A.N.D.T.A.M.O.COM K and clicking on the podcast tab.

Akko: All right. Bye.

Tamo: All right. Till next time.