Busy? Doing what? (with video)

It feels like the past week has been pretty busy with lots of little things...

Last Friday, Hana and I went to the one baby play area (jidokan) that we go to the most to make a video of me talking with her. The woman who does family counseling is making a video showing how moms and babies communicate. She took about 10 minutes of video and we'll go back and do it again next month. On Sunday I took Hana there for her first baby massage. Gaku and I went almost every month when he was a baby.

Gaku has been kind of funny since last Friday - not really sick, but not eating as much and his stomach was a bit funny. Yesterday daycare called for me to come pick him up early. He had a slight fever and wasn't his normal, energetic self. Tak took him to the doctor, but Gaku wouldn't take the medicine. I don't think he really needs it though. Last night Gaku seemed to be back to normal. He ate tons at dinner and was really crazy last night. Today he stayed home with me, but seemed fine. He'll stay home with Tak tomorrow, but I think he could probably go to daycare.

Today (the 29th) is the last day of my contract with Macmillan. So tomorrow morning I have to go to city hall to get new insurance cards f0r me and the kids. From tomorrow we'll be on the national health insurance. I went to city hall last week to ask them what I needed to do. They were very helpful and even called my company for me to get the paper they needed sent directly to them and told me to just come in on the morning of the 30th and they'd have our new cards. After that, I'll take our old insurance cards to Macmillan and go out to lunch with a couple of people from the office. I'll take Hana, but leave Gaku home with Tak.

So, now I'm working on what I'll do next. I'm going to do a couple of presentations for Macmillan at a bookstore event in the next couple of weeks. Then Robert, my previous boss at Macmillan, has been really putting out the word for me with some companies.

Tak has been doing a lot of selling on Yahoo auctions. I think I should do the same. I need to work on getting some stuff cleaned out, and some of the stuff I want to get rid of could definitely be sold on Yahoo auction rather than just thrown out. I just have to start organizing all my junk. But before I start on that, I need to make some photo albums and finish my website...

The picture above is from tonight. Gaku is telling Hana a story. He's telling her the story of The Great Big Enormous Turnip by Alexi Tolstoy in Japanese. In the video below, Tak is encouraging Gaku to tell Hana a story. Gaku keeps saying his hands are dirty (te ga kitanai) and then he finally tells her the story.

Lost Days

Since I'm not working right now and don't have much of a schedule, I'm starting to lose track of what day it is. I could have sworn today is Wednesday, but it's Thursday! I remember the same thing happening when I was home after Gaku was born. It'll get better once Hana and I get onto a regular schedule and start going out more often, but that might not be until spring. It's gotten quite cold (for Tokyo) this week - a low of 0C/32F and a high of 6C/42F with a pretty cold wind - so we won't be going out much unless we have to! Unfortunately, this means that our electricity bill will end up being quite a bit more expensive as I hate to be cold. Whichever room I'm in has the hot carpet and the electric AC/heater on along with a humidifier.

A busy few days

We've had a busy few days here.

On Thursday, I went to my office to drop off some paperwork. I was planning to pick up Gaku from daycare and buy him new shoes, but I spent a little too long at the office. Everyone was having fun oohing and ahhing over Hana. I ended up staying for over an hour. When I got to daycare, it was almost an hour later than I had planned but Hana was still sleeping. I told Gaku we would ride the bus and go buy him some new shoes. While we were at the bus stop in front of his daycare, Hana woke up and started screaming. I asked Gaku if we could just go home and ride the bus another day. Of course he didn't like that idea; he wanted to ride the bus. The problem is that it's about a 10-15 minute walk home and completely impossible if he's not going to cooperate. Finally I bribed him. I said I would buy him chocolate on the way home if he would agree to go home and not ride the bus. This worked perfectly! Just one small piece of chocolate is all it took.

That evening Gaku was really in a Mommy mood. When I was ready to take Hana downstairs to the bath, Gaku decided he wanted to go with me. I said fine. Tak asked how I was going to do that. I told him the same as always. Obachan will watch Hana while Gaku and I go into the bath first. Then after we're washed up, I'll bring Hana in. So we're outside our apartment going down the steps to the bath. Each flight is about 8 concrete steps. I'm holding Hana with one hand and the bath bowl with the other hand. Gaku knows how to hold onto the railing and walk down the steps carefully. He's being a bit slow, as always. I'm at the landing at the bottom of the first flight and he's still at the top goofing around with something. I call up to him to come on. He goes, "kaching," and puts his arms out. (A bit of background is important here. This is the character Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. Gaku does this and jumps off the low table in our apartment all the time.) In the split second before he does it, I'm thinking there's no way he's going to jump. The next thing I know is he's airborn. There's nothing I can do to stop him and I sure can't catch him. I can't exactly remember how he landed, but I think he must have landed on his head. I know he did a somersault before stopping in front of me at the bottom. I dropped the bath bowl and gently set Hana down on the ground (luckily she was wrapped up in the heavy quilted blanket that Bev and Phil gave me when Gaku was born). I grabbed Gaku and yelled for Tak. Both Mizuho and Obachan had heard the fall and come running. Everyone thought Hana had fallen at first, but hearing Gaku screaming realized it was Gaku and not Hana. Obachan took Hana downstairs to the bath while Tak and I went inside with Gaku. I was expecting a lot of blood, but there was none. At first I couldn't figure out where he was hurt. Basically, he only had a big bump on the top of his head and a very, very slight scratch over his right eye. He cried for quite a while saying he didn't want to go the bath, he just wanted to change into his Thomas pajamas. Also, he wanted Daddy and then he asked about Hana a few times also. Finally, he decided he wanted to go to the bath, but with Daddy instead of Mommy. What I discovered from talking with Tak is that Tak has been playing Buzz Lightyear with Gaku on the steps! Gaku is at the top and Tak goes down about 3-4 steps; Gaku jumps and Tak catches him. Gaku probably couldn't understand why I hadn't caught him. After his bath, I told him I was sorry I didn't catch him, that I didn't know about the Buzz game. He then said sorry to Hana. When I asked him why, he said that I had said sorry to him and that Hana's head hurt. What a cutie! We've now clarified that Gaku is NOT to play Buzz with Mommy. Within an hour after his fall, he was jumping all over the place like nothing had happened. Gave me a good scare!

Since then, we've just had days that were busy enough that I couldn't get my computer turned on, but no more incidents. Friday, Hana and I had our one-month checkup. Hana now weighs 3950 grams and we're both fine! On Saturday it was raining all day, and it was just me with Gaku and Hana. I knew if we stayed home all day Gaku would drive me crazy, so we went to one of the children's play halls for the entire day. Then yesterday and today, I was just making sure that I had as much play time with Gaku as possible. Tomorrow Gaku has daycare, so it'll be just me and Hana.

Restless

Hana is sleeping well this afternoon! We had a free vist from the city midwife yesterday. Hana now weighs 3850 grams (about 8 1/2 pounds).

I'm feeling a little restless, like I need to get out of the house. We're not supposed to go out much until Hana has her one-month checkup on Friday. But we've already gone out a bit.

Maybe we'll go pickup Gaku today instead of Tak... I'll wait and see how cold it feels when it's time to get him.

Back to a "normal" schedule

From tomorrow Gaku is back in daycare. He's been home for the last week for the New Year holiday. Tak's mom went back to Izumo on Friday. That evening felt just a bit empty after she had left.

Gaku was pretty cute. Tak took Mi-chan back to Tokyo station. When they left Gaku was taking his nap. Mi-chan said goodbye to Gaku, but he went back to sleep. When he woke up, he came to the other room where Hana and I were. His first questions was where's Mi-chan. When I said she had gone back to Izumo, he was pretty upset. He said he wanted to go to Izumo too. I said that Mommy and Daddy can't go to Izumo right now. His answer was that he would go by himself. He cried for about 30 seconds and then we read some books and he was fine. He had a really good time in Izumo when he went in November.

This picture of Hana is from yesterday. She fell asleep nursing and I took her picture. Unfortunately, she only stayed asleep for about two minutes before she wanted to nurse some more!

Happy New Year!

Tak says this is "the picture of the year". It's pretty gross, but funny.

We had a good New Year here. On New Year's Eve, we watched Kohaku (a Japanese music program with Japanese artists performing - special for New Year's Eve) and stayed up until about 12:30. Gaku was going a bit crazy. We let him eat more junk than normal. Also, he's usually in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10:00 at the latest.

On New Year's Day, we went to the local shrine to welcome in the new year. We thought it was funny to see people lined up to visit the shrine one at a time. At Izumo Taisha everyone kind of crowds in. If people had to wait in lines like at our local shrine, you'd never even get onto the property!

On the way back, we stopped in at Mukai-san's and ended up staying for a few hours and having lunch there. Gaku was having a lot of fun playing with Rio and Kei. Then at about 3:00, we came home and took naps until about 6:00. I made risotto which we took to Mukai-san's and had dinner with them also. Finally later in the evening, Yushi and Rina came over too. All five kids were running around and having fun until almost 11:30 - another late night for Gaku.

A fun New Year! (Although, I have to say that no New Year's Eve will probably ever top the fun of Jon and Colleen's wedding. Happy anniversary!)

Hanging Out

Well, Hana and I are just hanging out at home. I'm trying to get laundry done, and get it all hung out to dry. Today is the last day of sunny weather; it's supposed to rain from tomorrow for a few days. I really miss having a dryer.

Yesterday, Hana nursed most of the afternoon, but since she was nursing properly I don't mind at all. It looks like she's going to do the same thing today. So, she should start putting on some weight finally. When we went to see the midwife on Tuesday, she hadn't gained as much as she should have. I don't think that will be a problem from now.