Emergency - Contact

If you ever need to contact me in an emergency, the best place to send a message is to my cell phone. My cell phone mail address is:

samantha51875@ezweb.ne.jp

I think Cathy scared a few people by trying to reach me through facebook. Thank you so much for the messages, Cathy! Unfortunately, I was at Tokyo Disneyland so my first inkling that something was going on was when I picked up my cell phone to check the time and realized that Mom had called my cell phone twice. Mom never calls me (unless something is wrong), so...

Grandma and Grandpa Smith were in a pretty serious car accident. Grandpa pulled out in front of a car (on a street where the speed limit is 55 mph) which pushed them in front of another car. Grandma (probably not wearing her seat belt) was on the floor of the car after the accident. Both of her collar bones are broken and she has broken ribs, but more worrying is that she may have a broken neck. The other possibility is that due to her age, the bone disintegrated(?). If that's the case, she will probably be out of the ICU much sooner. Also, she could have a closed head injury. She lost consciousness for around 10 minutes. The good thing is that she was conscious at the hospital and able to talk and joke. But the doctors are still running tests. Grandpa has some broken ribs and some swelling on his liver. He's in the hospital, but not the ICU. At their age all of these injuries are serious. I'm hoping for (good) news soon.

I hear the weather and roads in Michigan are particularly bad today, so am praying that no one gets into any accidents on their way to visit the hospital. I hope there are no more accidents over the holiday season! Please take care.

Update: Just talked to the ICU nurse directly. Grandma's neck is okay. The collarbones may or may not be broken, but are not really serious. She has broken ribs. Her right arm is broken and they will have to do surgery on it. She will have to be in the ICU after the surgery for at least a short time. Her head is also fine. Haven't talked to grandpa yet.

Gotta Love 'Em

It's getting more and more fun to watch Gaku's personality and his thought processes develop.

A little over a week ago on Sunday, we went "hiking" at Mount Takao. I say "hiking" because it was absolutely crazy! And it wasn't hiking. We went on a Sunday during a 3-day weekend, beautiful weather with rain predicted for the next day, and during the leaf-changing season. What were we thinking! Oh, and apparently Mount Takao recently received 3 stars in a special guide book. Tak put it perfectly when he said it was "like Shibuya on a weekend". There were just masses of people. It's a wide concrete path, but I was getting bumped all the time. There were quite a few occassions when I really wanted to start telling off some people who were in a huge hurry trying to run around people coming down that path and in the process blocking the way for people going up the path. Anyway, it was still fun. The amazing thing is that Gaku walked the whole way, didn't ask to be carried at all, didn't have a nap, and didn't have any temper tantrums at all (at least not until we were in the restaurant near home).

Yesterday was Kei's birthday party. He turns 3 tomorrow. So we went to Toys 'R Us to get a present. I didn't go on Saturday because I knew Gaku was going to want something and I didn't feel like dealing with it. Sure enough, he had a huge fit because he wanted one of the "go-onja" toys too. He literally cried full-out for 20 minutes. Who would think he could sustain such real crying for so long? But as soon as we walked out of the store and started heading to McDonald's (where they have "GeGeGe no Kitaro" toys right now), he was all smiles and fun again. So tough to be three, wanting everything but having no control over anything!

Gaku has tendencies to be a bit of a bully with his friends sometimes. (But he can also be very sweet and attentive, so I'm not too worried.) On Thursday after daycare Tak asked him if he had been a good boy and played nicely with his friends at daycare. His answer was that he didn't punch Taiki. Hmmm... such a specific answer. Tak wrote about this in the daily journal that is kept between the parents and the teachers. The teacher wrote back that he had punched Taiki that day. Knew it!

Today, Gaku came home with an origami heart. He was so excited that he had a present for Mommy. Then tonight, he was pooping (still in his diaper *sigh*, but in the bathroom) when I rushed in the bathroom to pee. Gaku looked at me and very seriously asked, "Mommy, where does your pee come out of? Does it come out of your butt?" So funny! He's recognizing the differences between boys and girls. He realizes that his pee comes out of his penis, but if girls don't have penises...

Anyway, it's a lot of fun to talk to Gaku lately and see how he thinks.

最近、岳の話はどんどん楽しくなっています。

先週、高尾山を半分ぐらい登りました。すごい人数でした！三連休、いい天気、紅葉・・・何を考えましたか？たくが言う取で、「渋谷の週末みたい」。本当にびっくりしました。でも、楽しかった。岳は小さいかにを見つけた。ずっと歩きました。抱っこは全然言うわなかった。

日曜日、けい君の誕生日パーティでした。プレゼント買いに行った時に岳も「欲しい欲しい」と泣いた。２０分ずっと大泣きしました。でも、店にでってマックへ行くと分かってすぐ泣き止んだ。今、マックのおもちゃはゲゲゲの鬼太郎のだからすごい喜んでいました。

保育園で岳はちょと意地悪する。木曜日の夕方たくは岳に「今日は仲良く遊んだ？意地悪したないか？」。岳の返事「たいきにパンチしたないよ」。へ～返事は面白かった・・・過ぎの日連絡帳にたくはこの事を書いた。先生の返事は「岳はたいきにパンチした」。やっぱり！

昨日、すごくかわいい質問しました。岳はトイレでおむつのままでうんちをしました。私しっこしたかったから、トイレ入ったしっこしました。岳が言った「マミーのしっこはどこからでる？おしりからでる？」岳はよく考えたみたい。「マミーはちんちんがないから・・・」

最近、岳の話は本当に面白くなっています！

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!