The Power of Wanting One Toy... Woody

Gaku is so into Toy Story it's crazy! He's been really into it for over 6 months now. We've rented Toy Story at least 3-4 times and Buzz Lightyear 2-3 times. Tak said we should just buy the Toy Story DVD so we can stop renting it. Every time Tak takes Gaku to the video rental place, that's what he wants.

When my parents were here in June, they bought Gaku a Buzz Lightyear doll at Toys 'R Us and would have bought him Woody as well, but they didn't have it. After my parents left, I saw a set of Buzz and Woody at the Disney Store. Too bad we hadn't checked there first. Since then, I've also seen the solo Woody doll at Toys 'R Us. Gaku has pretty much played with that Buzz doll every day. He wants to wear one of his Buzz shirts every day (we have 4 that are EXACTLY the same, otherwise there's an issue of "not that one"). Last week, his big thing was that he wanted Buzz underpants. So when we went to the dentist in Ikebukuro on Friday we stopped off at Toys 'R Us and bought a pack. He was so excited. Now he wants to wear his Buzz undies all the time.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the local restaurant we go on a weekly basis. The owners have twin girls who are about 6 years old. There's one tatami room in the restaurant which has a small box of smallish-sized toys. There were a whole bunch of toys from Toy Story in it this time. Gaku was really excited.

On Sunday, Tak said let's go check out Woody toys. He kept telling Gaku that we were just going to look and probably wouldn't buy one, but maybe. (I kept thinking, yeah right, of course you're going to have to buy one with the way you're talking...) I told Tak about the ones at the Disney Store and the ones at Toys 'R Us. So (while Gaku was sleeping) we checked out Disney first, but they were sold out of the Woody/Buzz dolls. Gaku started to wake up so we made a quick exit. On the way to Toys 'R Us, Gaku kept telling us not to forget that we had to go get Woody. When we got there, the first thing we saw was the huge Halloween display. Gaku started checking things out and I thought he was going to ask for something for sure. But HE DIDN'T ASK FOR ANYTHING! He just said he wanted to go get Woody. Wow! I was quite impressed with his single-minded determination. So we got to the section with Toy Story toys and they had Woody! It was at this point that Tak made it clear that he had been thinking of the smaller toys like the twins had at the restaurant. If he had mentioned that was his thinking, I could have told him they didn't have them. Anyway, Gaku finally got his Woody doll! He was so excited, we opened the doll as soon as we got out of the store. Gaku must have said thank you to Tak at least 4-5 times before we even got on the train. Tak commented to me that he thinks it's the first toy that he has actually bought for Gaku. Usually, I'm the one who buys toys for him, or he gets them from other friends and family.

Tonight is the first time Gaku got to watch the movie since he got Woody. I didn't watch it with him, but I'm sure he was practicing lots of Woody's lines as he watched. (I think he knows most of Buzz's key phrases.) Today on the way home from day care, he was holding Woody and saying "howdy, howdy, howdy". It made me really realize just how much language he does pick up from the movies he watches, and what a good mimic he is!




Some favorite Toy Story phrases:

"Somebody's poisoned the waterhole." (which gets changed to other crude phrases involving bodily functions)

"Reach for the sky."

"Howdy, howdy, howdy."

"Hey, hey, Potato head."

"You're just a toy, T-O-Y, a child's plaything."

"Mayday, mayday. Come in Star Command."

"You should never open a space ranger's helmet on an uncharted planet. For all you know, my eyeballs could have been sucked out."

Abigail Rose Loree

Abigail Rose Loree was born!!

September 4, at 12:22 am.
6 lbs. 6 oz.
19 1/2 inches.

I'm hoping for pictures soon!!

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 / Gaku's Party

From now on, I'm going to try to make my blog bilingual, not a complete translation but at least some of the stories. Up until now, my main readers have been family in the States, but I'm trying to get some of my Japanese friends to follow it too. I'm sure the Japanese will get longer as I get better at writing! :)

今日から日本語もがんばって書いています。変な日本語が出るからごめんなさい。今、日本語は短いですけどもと上手に書けるになったら長くなると思います。下のほうに書いてあります。
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I read a review that was talking about how awesome IE8 is, so I decided to give it a try. Well, I guess the word "Beta" says it all. The new features look pretty cool, but as of right this moment it's complete crap for me.

It's incompatible with the "New" Facebook and the Skype add-on. And even dumber is that it's incompatible with Office Live Workspace, which is a Microsoft site that I'm using to create my web page and share files. Duh! You'd think they'd at least be compatible with their own sites from the get go.

So I uninstalled IE8 and went back to IE7. Guess I'll wait until it's not beta anymore. By then they should have all the compatibility kinks worked out, hopefully!
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Hana should be crawling very soon. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks, so it's not much longer. She seems to have a cold this week, though. She has a very low-grade fever, but is soooo fussy, which is really unusual for her. Usually, she's the most easy-going baby you've ever seen. But the last couple of days she just wants to nurse and be held ALL THE TIME. I'm getting tired...

On Sunday, we had a farewell party with the kids at Gaku's daycare. It was such a blast. Twelve kids from his class, plus a few older sisters were there. It was held in a kind of community room that anyone can rent. When we got there, they had tables and cushions set up for lunch. Along the one wall, there were somewhere between 50-100 of the cushions stacked up. That didn't last long!! As soon as lunch was done, they were making a cushion mountain and piling them on top of eachother. All the kids were running around like crazy. One of the moms commented that it's like this every day for the teachers at daycare. Yikes!!

Gaku is such a little monkey (not always in a good way). They were making the cushion mountain, and Gaku ended up under some cushions. Yama-kun was throwing more cushions on top of Gaku. And I'm not quite sure why but Gaku got really pissed off about this. So what did he do? Hit Yama-kun? No. Sora-kun was right in front of Gaku, and got a big slap across the face. Poor Sora-kun! He hadn't done anything. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Actually, Gaku is like this quite a bit. He gets mad at the closest person to him, not the one who is responsible for his bad temper. Often when Tak tells him no or gets grumpy with him about something, Gaku will say that he "hates Mommy" and "likes Daddy". *Sigh*

I'll put some pics and video up on Facebook, but haven't uploaded them from my camera yet.
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We're getting closer to getting Tak's visa, so I'm hoping we'll be over by mid-October!?
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日曜日は岳の保育園の友達と一緒に「さよならパーティ」をしました。すごく楽しかった、でも、さみしかった。岳は二年半は滝野川北に行っています。みんなとずっと遊んでいました。リス組から１２の友達プラスお姉さんたちが行きました。みんな大興奮しました！壁の隣に５０－１００枚の座布団がありました。すぐめちゃめちゃになりました。座布団の山を作った。岳は山の下にいった時に怒った。やま君は岳の上に座布団を投げたから怒ったと思いますけど、そら君は岳の目の前にいましたから岳がそら君の顔をたたいた。そら君がかわいそうでした！

みんな大興奮でうるさかった。保育園で毎日このかんじかな？先生たちすごいですね！

後で写真とビデオはfacebookにアップします。リンク教えます。

Kind of Blah, Ho-Hum Feeling

I'm feeling a bit tired and blah this week, a completely unproductive week all around. Oh well. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I have both Gaku and Hana for the day. I think we need to go do something fun, so I can reset. Maybe we'll go to that water museum from the guide on kids in Tokyo? Maybe we'll just go hang out at one of the jidokans (baby play centers)? It's supposed to rain in the afternoon, so we'll have to do something indoors.

Hana is getting more and more mobile and interactive. It's so much fun to watch her and Gaku together. She absolutely loves her big brother! When she hears his voice, she looks for him. All he has to do is make a funny face and start laughing, and she'll just laugh and laugh. It's contagious. It makes me laugh every time.

Hana is already pretty tough, and seems to have a pretty strong will of her own. She was on her stomach lifting her upper body up with her arms. Gaku (on purpose) knocked one of her arms out from under her. She kind of made a small noise of complaint. She lifted herself back up, and he did it again. Boy did she let out a scream. She was so pissed! It only lasted for a few seconds, but wow! She was very clearly telling him not to mess with her. He didn't do it again, but that could also be because at the same time both Tak and I yelled at him not to pick on his little sister.

Then a bit later the same day, she was playing with a toy. It's an empty plastic bottle with some beads in it that I made when Gaku was a baby. Lately, Hana really likes this bottle. She was sitting in her Baby Bumbo chair and holding it, when Tak took it from her. She kind of complained a bit. He gave it back, and she stopped instantly. Tak took it again, and she complained again. About the third or fourth time, she let out her big scream. But it cut off instantly once she had the toy back in her hands.

Hana is also a huge talker. She's always making noise and talking. Lately, I think she's starting to make certain sounds when she wants certain things. She says "ne ne ne ne..." when she wants to nurse and sleep. If she just wants to nurse or be held by me, she says "ma ma ma ma..." Sometimes, it seems like she gives a half-wave to say good bye to people down in the bath. The wave could still just be lucky timing since she doesn't do it all the time, but the two things she's saying have been pretty consistent over the past week.

Hana also puts EVERYTHING straight in her mouth. I left her on the floor in the living room for just a minute and when I came back, she was eating Tak's newspaper. A few days ago, she got a hold of my cell phone strap. It had some beads and some flowers made of fabric on it. The beads were properly strung on the thread, but I discovered that the flowers were just glued on, I think with double-sided tape. Hana had sucked them right off the string. A few minutes later, she was gagging and Tak realized she still had one of the flowers in her mouth, so I scooped it out. Gonna have to watch her like a hawk!

Sad News, Life Goes On...

I haven't written my blog for a while. I just didn't know quite what to write for the last few days.

On Monday, I had a message on my mobile phone to call Mary Ann. I noticed that she had sent the message at 5:30 am her time (6:30 pm here), but I didn't see it until a few hours later. I knew something was up because of the time she sent the message. I had expected something along the lines of Mary Ann had to go to the hospital because of her anemia, or something with her mom or dad. So I was quite shocked and very sad to hear the real news.

Michael Spaman passed away on Sunday night. (I'm not going to post any more details in my blog because not everyone knows, or should know, all of them.)

He has left behind family and friends who love him very much. I can't know what he was thinking, but can hope that whatever was were haunting him has not followed him to where he is now.

Mary Ann, James, Shane and Holly: I love you guys a lot!! I'm sending you lots of (telepathic) hugs and prayers. I can't wait to see you all when we get back to the States and hope that gives you something to look forward to!

Now, on a lighter note, here are some funny Gaku conversations/stories.

In front of the supermarket.

Gaku: Daddy, why is that dog tied up outside the store? Why can't he go into the store?

Tak: He might poop in the store.

Gaku: (thinking) Well, I won't poop in the store.

Hana was crying.

Tak: Gaku, why is Hana crying?

Gaku: Because I was picking on her all the time.

(I don't think he did anything that time.)

At daycare, they have a fairly good-sized pool. This is the first year he's been able to go in it. The past two years, he could just play in buckets and small inflatable pools on the veranda. They put one of those rings you can go through on the bottom of the pool. Gaku went underwater and swam through the ring!! Wow!

Summer Means...

• Clear, blue skies with fluffy, white clouds
• The hot sun beating down on you
• Soporific heat, and sweating, while lying next to the pool, half asleep in a kind of trance-like state
• Knowing that you can't resist too much longer before jumping in to the nice cool water
• Sounds of kids laughing and splashing in the pool
• Ice-cold water from the cooler box
• Cicadas singing in the trees
• The pleasure of a good book (being read by the pool, of course)

(You can substitute "the lake" for "the pool" above.)

This is kind of how I felt this afternoon. Tak was off in one of the pools with Gaku, and Hana was sleeping on a towel next to me.

Summer is definitely my favorite season!!

:)

Keeping in Touch

I guess my favorite thing about computers,the internet all this technology is the social aspect. It allows me to keep in touch with family and friends who are far away, and facilitates making new friends.

I have to say that I'm completely hooked on facebook now. Last year, people in my office were talking a bit about mixi (a Japanese networking site), but I never went and checked it out. Then I heard talk about myspace and facebook, but I thought they were probably just a waste of time, something trendy that younger people are doing (like IMing, which I never really got into as it often annoyed me when trying to do something else on my computer). So in January I started this blog, thinking it was a great way to keep people informed of what we are doing. But I did find a limitation the first time I tried to post video: the video file had to be a few mb smaller than the one I wanted to upload and the playback was crappy. So in March I was talking with my friend Mary Ann and she was telling me about myspace, so I created a profile, but the interface was really busy and I couldn't navigate it easily. So I figured, what the heck, now I'll check out facebook as well. I have to say that facebook has turned out to be my favorite. I can import this blog right into the notes section without doing anything more than just posting the blog. And I can supplement the blog with unlimited videos and photo albums.

I suppose having a lot of my family on facebook from the beginning helped as well... I love how easy it is to share our daily lives, and read other people's news.

I have to confess to one problem, though. I spend a lot of time on my electronic albums and still haven't made physical albums to send to my grandparents. I was originally going to add a lot of stories and stuff to the photos and albums (like I do on facebook), but I think I'll just send the photos. Maybe I can even get it done tomorrow... (But I also need to clean out the closet tomorrow if I can...) I suppose, for me, the only thing that would make these sites even more fun for me would be having my grandparents on them, but they aren't part of the technology. I do have to say that I enjoy my regular phone calls with them. I try to call at least once or twice a week. It's nice for me to talk to them and I know they really appreciate the contact.

Now, for anyone on the Loree side of my family... I'm really getting more and more worried about Grandma. Every time I talk to her on the phone, she seems to be mentally slipping a bit more. I was talking to family today about Colleen's shower on Saturday. And even my other grandma commented on how much weight she has lost and how frail she is looking. I know that it's difficult to visit regularly since the closest people are more than an hour away. But it doesn't cost much time at all to pick up the phone and call. If you don't talk to her very often, please do call her! Her number is 810-982-1135. I know she loves picking up the phone and hearing a friendly voice at the other end. Not to be doom and gloom or anything, but I don't expect her to be around for too much longer, and am now worrying if she'll even make it until we get back...

Now, I'm just starting to depress myself, so I need to end this on a happier note with a couple of pictures of Hana and Gaku that I took today!




Oh, and an update on the Toy Story lingo. This evening Gaku was playing with his Buzz, and the latest phrase he has added to his play is "mayday". He has completed the phrase to match the movie.

"Mayday, mayday. Come in Star Command."