Weekend in Miyazaki

Golden Week just passed, and as usual we headed to Victoria's temple in the middle of the mountains in Miyazaki.

The highlight this time was a Buddhist baptism for the babies, and me wet nursing. Not at the same time you'll be glad to hear.

We all left at a comfortable late-morning hour on Saturday; me, Amy, Lena and Erica in Baachan's car and Kanji in mine. We can't all fit in one car!!! Besides, Kanji could only stay one night. We stopped at Toys'r'us in Oita and handed the kids some of their otoshidama (New Year's money) and set them free. Amy got a birthday party tea set for Mell, Lena got a Pretty Cure (Japanese girl-hero TV cartoon) electronic thingy and a HUGE stuffed dog. I got Erica some bath toys and I got some salt and vinegar potato chips for me.

We had lunch at Joyfull, bleuch, me and Kanji aren't very fond of Joyfull, but we decided we'd just stop at the next Family Restaurant, they are the best bet because of the varied menu. And actually the new Spring menu wasn't all that bad. Then we hit the road for the two-hour trip over narrow mountain roads to rural Miyazaki. There are probably more sane roads to take, but not on a holiday weekend, when the main routes are jammed. Amy only got a little nauseous towards the end, and was okay when we got her to switch cars and sit in the front of Papa's car. I wonder why I didn't think to get them to travel with him the whole way, now that I think of it! Just habit I suppose, I loaded them all into my car.

We arrived late afternoon, and after we got upacked we enjoyed the salt and vinegar chips with beer in Victoria's English garden with its croquet lawn and genteel seating. The kids disappeared pretty much instantly, they found Sahara and rocketed off to the fairy garden, only coming back to get some spelling advice for the sign for the fairy garden (No dogs because they run and break). They miraculously re-appeared when dinner did, and disappeared again not long after. I managed to snap a shot of them before they took off:

Dinner, in the larger back garden with its mature trees (and fairy garden) was pot-roast chicken made in a dutch oven, with potatoes and salad. Simple and simply delicious. I managed to eat, even though Erica was being fussy, with help from Kanji. We had New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to accompany the chicken. After we cleaned up, we all went up to the temple dining room for dessert - a cheesecake for Junsho's 50's birthday, lamingtons and champagne.

That night there was only us and one other family staying, so we slept in the tatami room attached to a out-building in the temple grounds. Normally another family with younger babies gets it, but they were not due to arrive until Sunday. Again, the children appeared just in time to be cared for, complaining of being tired, and they went straight to sleep. They were up before me in the morning and gone before I knew it.

We did yoga in the morning, then had morning tea up in Victoria's kitchen, with lamingtons I had made. I made lamingtons for the first time when Mum was here, after Erica was born, and I've made them several times since then. They are soooo delicious, and I am getting quite good at them. After morning tea, Victoria, Erica and I went shopping, the children scattered to the four winds, Kanji wandering around, not sure what he did...

We got back at nearly 1pm, in time for the Baby Naming Ceremony someone had booked at the temple at 1pm. While we were gone, Kristen and family had arrived, they have a six-month old baby. So we lined up all the babies in the temple, and after some chanting and a short speech, the babies were presented with a little sash and some prayer beads. It was quite spontaneous, and it was a lovely thing to do.

Kanji left after that, I got some lunch and took the baby for a nap. Meanwhile two more families arrived, and I woke up to all of the heading down to the river for a swim.

I quickly got Erica changed and headed down to the river as well. It was COLD! You can tell by the expressions on their faces! Erica only put her feet in, and I only went up to my knees this year.

Then we all piled back up to the out-building (Victoria has some name for it that I forget; I call it the school-room because it looks like an old one-room school or school hall; the kids call it the wheelchair room, because it has a wheelchair in it which is the focus for lots of their games!). There the girls all piled into the goemomburo, and old-fashioned Japanse tub, heated from below - if you stay in too long, you literally cook!

My theory is that all those explorers' rumours of cannibalism have their origin in lost sailors washing ashore in Nippon and being politely ushered to a nice refreshing bath before their dinner. I can just see the silly natives gesturing 'wash wash' and 'eat eat' and your average 18th century Englishman, who of course, would never have seen a bath before, forming quite the wrong conclusion.

Dinner was a barbecue, this time out the front of the temple between the main hall and the front gate with its bell. Meat, chicken, tuna sashimi (cut by me), potato salad, and more, I can't remember! Victoria made Sangria, which I had a few glasses of. However, I spent a little more time than I liked getting the baby to sleep. I tried to endure her fussiness through-out the meal, but I had to give in eventually, and take her up to sleep, this time in the main hall. Unfortunately, the balconies of the hall were being used as a race track by the other children and their radio-controlled cars! So it took quite some time to get her to settle (much as I wanted to yell and scream at every other kid there, I didn't think it was fair to stop everyone from playing and having fun just for one little baby), then she woke several times.

Finally she got to sleep quite soundly, once all the children had gone to bed, and I was able to come down to have a peaceful chat and a glass of champagne, which Victoria had cleverly left until the very last. By that time though, I was so damn tired I soon went to bed too....to be woken by Amy vomiting in the middle of the night. At the time I thought it was tiredness, or something she ate, but now I think it was asthma, as she is coughing every night again. Unluckily she managed to spew on not just her futon, but Lena's too, so I had three blankets, two pillows, two pillow-cases and two mattresses to deal with. I cleared away all the soiled bedding. A friend woke to help me, and gave me a spare duvet, and fetched water, and my towel bag from the out-building (about 30m walk away in the dark!) so I could clean up, and make up a new bed. Then I had to lug all the soiled bedding down to the goemomburo bathroom to rinse it - if there's one thing I've learned it's to ALWAYS rinse the spew out at the time! (It feels great when you wake the next day and remember that all traces of spew were gone) Erica woke and started to cry while I was gone - thanks again to that lovely friend, Claire, who tried to soothe her while they waited for Mummy to come back!

Next morning we had a big bacon and egg breakfast together. Yoga again in the main temple hall, while I helped finish the breakfast dishes and started a load of washing. Erica took a nap in the corner of the main hall where the yoga was - and the same friend again tended to her when she woke while I was off finding the washing machine! I had to take the blankets to the laundromat, so I was keen to find friends to go to the hot spring with me. I figured I'd go there while the things washed, and I could put them in the dryer when we had finished washing ourselves.

Sahara came with us in our car, which was great as she helped with directions to the onsen, although she didn't know how to get to the laundromat. We met one other family there. Before we left, the next crisis happened - one of the kids fell down the stairs. She got a bloody nose, and while she seemed okay at first, her parents decided to take her to the hospital to make sure. I had passed them on my way home from the onsen - I thought I recognized the woman, and saw them turn into the hospital next to the onsen. I thought they had mistaken it for the onsen at first, then when they didn't come out, I thought I had been mistaken and went back.

They were at the hospital for several hours, and this is where the wet-nursing comes in. We didn't have any way to contact them and didn't know when they would be back. They had left their six-month old baby sleeping, but of course he eventually woke up. We fed him, we gave him juice, but after a while it was apparent that that was not what he wanted. Eventually I decided to have a go at feeding him. We were all talking about it, Victoria said she had always wanted to see what it was like to feed another baby, I was curious too, though I would like to think I did it more because we thought he was hungry and didn't know when his mother would be back. Anyway, he latched on with only a moment's hesitation getting used to the slightly different anatomy, and drank quite strongly, stronger than Erica, made me wish she would feed a little more efficiently like that. Or maybe he was just mega-hungry. He quickly went to sleep, and I got him off and put him to bed. Done. Now Erica has a breast-mate and I have a nursling.

Only one more crisis to go! We lost ALL the children. Well, not all of them, but six of them. They spent most of their time god-knows-where, and that was fine, but this time was not, because one girl had taken her four-year old brother, and also, I had told Amy only half an hour before that we were ready to go home. Then they disappeared. Not at the river, nor, thankfully, in it. Not in the fairy garden, not in the wheel-chair room, or in Sahara's bedroom. Nowhere! The came home eventually, after fruitless searching by me and Claire, taking turns going round and round the garden. They had been tramping through the rice paddies, led by Sahara (6), who at least knows where she is going, even if she doesn't realize how much Mummies worry!

Crawler

She did it! Yesterday, May 1st, she started crawling. She's still not very fast or efficient, but that's okay, cos I need time to get used to this! Getting every little crappy piece of junk off the floor is not easy when you have two chaotic kids running around as well. I have to watch her like a hawk when they are home, and I'll have to start nagging them with even more force than usual to be careful where they drop their stuff. We have yet to see whether she'll use both knees or one knee and one foot like her sisters. She's also pulling up onto furniture, although she still prefers me!

I missed out how much she 'talks' and the words she understands. She knows all our names, and mostly looks at the right sister when their name is called! She also know 'bath' (no surprises there!) and 'splish splash', upon which she splashes the water. And 'kiss kiss' - she takes your face in her hands and sucks your chin or goobs all over your lip. Yuck, but charming all the same.

Shopping for a Southpaw

I know it's only just begun. I guess I should start looking for left-handed scissors now. I know from growing up with two left-handers just how set-up for right-handers the world is.

I just did a spot of baby shopping, and stopped by the food utensils section to see if I could find a soft, short rubber spoon that I could give to Erica to wield about like a light sabre without choking herself while I try to feed her, and there was quite a selection - almost all of them curved gently....to the right. Perfect for plain old right-handed babies, not so useful for out little Southpaw.

I got the ONE that had no curve. None were curved to left, needless to say.

Erica at Seven Months

Erica has discovered the raspberry. She especially likes to make one (perhaps only can make one) with either her hand, or my finger, jammed into her mouth. She grabs my finger, shoves it in, and raspberries away, quite proud of herself! This is in addition to her usual Lamaze breathing ('hee hee huu huu'). She also added BaBaBa a few weeks ago, but she seems to have forgotten that. She 'talks' with vowel sounds only: "uuuuueeee" and mostly to Amy and Lena when she hasn't seen them all day, like she's saying "Where on earth were you, I was so bored and I wanted to play!". She still gets excited when she sees them and flaps her arms up and down and kicks her legs. She likes all other kids too, and is often nonplussed when the random kids she solicits for play in the supermarket (by kicking and flapping and "oooo"-ing) don't respond to her.

The moving is still 'nearly there' but not there yet. She took one crawl-step today; we spent the rest of the day encouraging her to repeat the feat, in vain. I'll have lots of video footage (again) of a non-plussed baby, distracted by the camera itself, with background noise of Jessica Rabbit and a nutty mother going "Come on! Come on! Come on!". She stands, mostly to play the piano. She has stood up by herself twice, once in the bath, which I am going to try to photograph tonight, as her bottom is just delicious!

I love watching her figure out her hands. After a period when I thought she'd turned ambidextrous, she's a definite left-hander again. I think she just realized her right hand was there, after having it curled around her thumb for months. Now, it's her left she uses to reach for something, and while she's happy to eat her cracker with only her left hand, if I put it in her right hand, she'll bring the left up to help. She sits there twisting her wrist and watching the effect, or delicately moving two fingers together, just to see.

She eats apples for breakfast, sometimes with weetbix and milk (mother's milk), soft-cooked rice with pumpkin or sweet potato, and baby crackers. Nothing else yet, as she got slightly sick last week, a low fever and lots of throwing up, so I cut back on her food. She likes to eat, she's just got the hang of getting the food off the spoon efficiently, after several weeks of poking her tongue out at the wrong time! She likes eating crackers most of all.

Playtime

Playtime at our house! Erica, as you can see, can stand! This one was a set-up, but she has pulled herself up twice, once in the bathroom and once at a restaurant. Lena's classmate Kanade has come to play, and they in the garden setting up tents and climbing trees, and Amy has made a house for a slater. She still loves bugs.

A Day in Mel's Life

Amy got a Mel backpack for her birthday, which inspired another round of Mel games. I don't know why Mel, of all the dolls, has become No.1. Her pink hair maybe? Mel started out as a bath toy, her hair would change color in the water. We have three other baby dolls - a soft-bodied one the Lena got in her present basket for being the last baby born in Hawera Hospital. Then Popochan, Amy's first baby doll. Then Molly, who Lena got for Christmas in 2006, and who talks. But Mel is the No.1, and they manage to share her beautifully and hardly ever argue over her. She has stolen Popochan's bed, which is up on Amy's bunk. Amy got Lena the shower for Mel for Christmas, and the toilet for her birthday. Lena got Amy the backpack/table-chair for her birthday. Santa got them a Cinderella and a Little Red Riding Hood costume/book set for Christmas. Here are some photos of a day in Mel's life, how she is always with us!

Amy's 8th Birthday Party

Emily and Masaki came back from NZ just in time for the party, but unfortunately her other friends were unable to make it. Two from school had other committments, and Karin and Momoka were unable to come. She got over her disappointment, and we had a fun day, with one of Lena's friends coming, and their old kindy teacher, who is now living just around the corner.

We had plans to have an all-day party, but most people came for lunch and afternoon tea. Lunch was sausages, pizza and sandwiches - very eary for Mum to prepare! Afternoon tea was sweets and the cake, of course. Lacking a dolly varden tin, I tried making it in a mixing bowl, but it flopped. I cut and pasted, using icing, to make the above dress out of about ten separate pieces of cake!

We had a treasure hunt, which was nearly ruined by rain, but we went nice and fast and the kids soon found the chocolate strawberries in the tree in the front yard. We made a 'Pin the Wand on the Fairy' but we have yet to play it - we are waiting for a day when Amy will finally manage to get a few friends together to play, which we'll call her 'Second Party' and we'll play Statues and Hunt the Thimble and Pin the Whatever on that day.

Thanks Grandma!

Yabakei onsen

We went for a drive to Yabakei to check out hotels and onsens for a Foreign Wives' Club convention I am organizing. So we got to test the waters!

Erica the Prodigy

What baby doesn't love a piano to bang! But have you ever heard one play this well?

Now that I have figured out how EASY uploading a video is, expect to see lots more!

Erica, by Amy

Six Months Old

And what can she do? Well, as is clear from the photo, she can sit, and balance very well. Amy and Lena literally screamed when I let go of her for the two seconds it took to take the photo, and, as you can see, Erica was herself a little nonplussed!

She looks a little severe in this photo, but her normal state is smiling. She's always smiling. She wakes up smiling and I can hear her smile-breathing - mouth breathing with a smile plastered on her mouth, a kind of 'hee-hee' breath that's very cheeky, and usually indicates she is, or is about to, engage in some very fun activity that may or may not be what her mother thinks of as a good idea!

She is NEARLY crawling. She leans forward from a sitting position, and slaps her hands on the floor, lifting her bottom off the ground. It looks like she is going to do it just like her big sisters, and crawl from that position on one foot and one knee, skipping belly crawling altogether. She hates it when she ends up on her belly, and cries to be saved. We called her Eri-kame, 'kame' means turtle in Japanese, and on her tummy she's like a turtle on its back, helpless to move. Sometimes she rolls over to her back, and she's happier like that. She also micalculates often and ends up smashing her nose into the floor. It's all red now, and she has a bruise on her cheek. She also likes to practice standing whenever someone will hold her up, and just yesterday pulled herself to stand, rather wobbly, at the table with the piano on it. Need I say she loves the piano? What baby doesn't love banging piano keys? She always looks so proud of herself when she succeeds in doing one of these grown-up tricks.

And like any crawling baby, she's clingy too. As she realizes she can move independently away from me, she wants to make sure I'm always there to go back to. She likes best of all for me to sit on the floor so she can practice her pulling-up techniques on me. I can use one computer from the floor, and do the laundry that way, which is good, because I am able to leave her alone less now than a month ago! She has always been very content to amuse herself with her toys, but not so much at the moment. It doesn't help that the girls keep waking her up, so she's tired and cranky too. But even so, I know things are going to be a lot harder when she begins to move. I still have it good that once I plonk her down, she can't go anywhere! Only problem is, she knows that now, and it frustrates her!

She's not eating much yet. I've given her a few things, rice and bananas and bits of mandarin. She's not so interested once we sit her down and feed her with a spoon, but she still breastfeeds pretty often so I guess she's just not hungry. She hardly needs it anway, she's now 8.8kg!

It's Spring Break, which means I have to think of something to feed the girls every half hour or so! "Mum, I'm hungry". Only 8 and 6, my god, how many times in my life am I going to hear that? Mum-Judy, do you want to hazard a guess at how many times you've heard that?!! Today was strawberries and pineapple and cookies for morning tea, and I will cook rice and tuna fritters for lunch. There's cheese and crackers for afternoon tea, more fruit, some cake that no-one is particularly interested in, but I'll try to feed it to them.

Spring Break also means kindergarten is over for Lena, and she will enter school in two weeks. And I will go back to work. Right now with Erica just starting to get clingy and shy of strangers (she cries for Baachan now, whereas she didn't a month ago)! I am lined up to do my favorite class, the technical university. Three hours twice a week. We figure if Kanji feeds her, gives her some milk out of a sippy cup (she won't take a bottle), gives her a bath then goes for a drive with her, that'll about take up the three hours.

That means some savings! Things are not looking good on the savings front. I lost some money (I'm just about to turn this room inside out to try to find it) and it's harder to save than we anticipated. We have not booked tickets yet, and people are talking about booking summer tickets already, and the planes being already booked out. I suspect part of that is the travel agents' bulk reservations, which will come free a month before the flight. So we might still make it! Amy and Lena are dying to come - Lena is excited beyond belief about getting her ears pierced, and Amy just wants a world with no homework where she is free to do her own thing. I'm trying to tell her NZ is not that much of a paradise, but absence makes the heart grow fonder! We all got rather wistful watching a TV show the other day with a Tasmanian family, with the big yard, and bbq area, lawns and trampoline! For this, and this alone, will I torment my precious baby with the shock of dear mummy leaving her. She'll get used to it I suppose, they all do.

Spring Break Picnic in the Park

We went for a picnic in the park. Just ham and tomato sauce sandwiches, yogurt, bananas, boiled eggs and a box of chocolates. Erica had a little play then I fed her and let her sleep in the car while I read a book and Amy and Lena played their hearts out. Everyone happy!

Last Day

Of the school year, that is. Amy went off to school this morning with a sore throat, but she is finishing before lunch today so I think she'll be fine. Lena finished last Friday, I'll post more about that with photos. Erica is eating, but not terribly much, and trying hard to crawl, but she only gets as far as balancing on her hands and knees, with her feet tucked under her since she moves from a sitting position. I have one lesson today, and a whole HEAP of cleaning up to do, the house is an obstacle course again. Hopefully by tomorrow, the first day of the Spring Break, we will be all tidied up and ready to celebrate Erica's six months' birthday!

Lena's Sixth Birthday Party

We had a party a week early because of Easter - we are going to an Easter party out of town on the day of her birthday. There were six party guests, plus three babies. Amy, Lena, Karin, Momoka, Maia and Shou. The cake (see below) is a Pinata Cake. Food included snacks and crudites with a cream cheese dip, a fruit platter, rice bubble cakes, Lena's favorite snack 'curls', jelly boats, choux cremes and jubes.

















A Pinata cake, as the name suggests, is designed to be cracked open with a hammer, like a pinata! A cake with treasure on top (top) is concealed under a decorated chocolate shell (above). The Birthday Girl gets to smash open the cake! (below) . My chocolate shell cracked, so she really only had to knock the pieces over, but she was still happy.






















Then we could finally put some candles on it! I had too much chocolate for the size of the shell, so it settled on the bottom of the bowl, making the chocolate very thick there, as you can see on the slabs of chocolate to the right of the candles. The proper cake is in the new Australian Women's Weekly cook-book (Maria has it, she did the pirate from it for Michael's birthday once when I was in NZ) .

Inside were eggs, Hershey's kisses and Marbles (Japan's Pebbles/Smarties/M&Ms), and Japanese money chocolate.

Party guest Momoka shows off her nasal party whistle-blowing skills! Later she did it with both nostrils.







Karin's birthday fell the day after the party, so I whipped her up a quick cake using the piece I'd cut out of Lena's cake. She got up and went and slapped both her parents. Odd way to react! I guess she was embarrassed, maybe she asked them not to tell, but we knew anyway, we've known her birthday since she was born...















Maia playing "Pin the Crown on the Princess". I drew the Princess, Amy and Lena coloured and decorated her. They soon got too good at it - feeling their way from the edge, feeling for where the crayon ended. But the first few go's were fun, with the crown ending up all over the place.















Pass the Parcel. Amy won, but the prize was a packet of mixed chocolates, so she shared. I also put a packet of jubes into each layer. We also played Musical Cushions - the first round got a prize, but then they played it over and over and over - no prize needed, that's just one fun game!

The babies. Yuuki, the baby born the same day as Erica is on the left, Erica is sitting on his Daddy's knee. And Marina, a month younger than the other two.


Marina's big brother Shou, a little shy of all the big girls!

Spring Cleaning

And it's actually Spring. I wonder if I have an identical post from last year, didn't I begin then, to get the house ready for the baby?

Well this weekend it was the upstairs toy closet, having done the downstairs one last weekend. Amy is quite keen to help, as she likes the end result - a more comfortable home that's nice to live in. Probably because I walk around the house bitching about how awful it is when you can't walk from one place to another without feeling like you're going through an obstacle course. Or maybe because she likes to re-discover her toys, know where they are and have them easily extactable!

I threw out two bags of rubbish this morning, and have another waiting for the unburnable trash day. So, what did we achieve? We sorted the dolls, the Bratz and the Ponies into their own boxes, even sorted their clothes and accessories into boxes and containers within the boxes - Amy is really good at that part. Lena is not so good, she tends to swan around the room with some toy she has discovered, dangling off things and singing a little song, getting very little cleaning done.

We went through the stuffed toys box, and the girls surprised me with their willingness to part with toys they never play with. Amy even suggested putting them in a "New Zealand" pile, meaning for trademe. Expect some more Kitties Maria! It'll be my job sometime to go through the toy kitchen and clean it up for Erica. Amy and Lena got such joy out of it, I'll be happy to bring it down for her too, when she can walk. Then there's the dolls' house, which has been lost under a pile of junk for so long I don't think Grandma got to see it when she was here! After that there was a bunch of miscellaneous toys that could go in a box, but then they would never be played with, so I have them on shelves in the closet. Things like Mr Potato Head, the marbles, a radio-controlled car, wooden train set, ambulance and doctor set.

In the downstairs toy closet we now have a shelf for toys for Erica, and in the upper cupboard, shelves (actually shoe stands, but they were the cheapest shelving option I could find!) filled with the board games and card sets, and two boxes, one with puzzles, one full of Lego. There's also a box of playmobil and a box of 'outside' toys - skipping ropes, frisbees, etc. Phew! This house is gonna be SO clean when those kids grow up!

Next on my list after getting rid of the final piles of miscellaneous junk from that clean-up is ... the spare room. Again. I did a good job of it last year, the main problem is that the clear space in the centre gets full of rubbish that only goes out once a month, like cardboard boxes and piles of newspapers.

But! for now I have a plump baby to cuddle and play with. She's so happy first thing in the morning, she's sitting on her mat, grinning at me. Mum said Jo said I was in love with my baby. There's a good word in Japanese, oyabaka - 'oya' meaning parent, 'baka' meaning silly. To describe everything from excessive worry about illness to how adorable we think our own kids are (lines of videoing parents at school concerts) to the absurd things we'll do just to get a baby to smile! I'm gonna go and be an oyabaka now.

The Easy Bit

Well I'm gonna rave again at how grown up my baby is, and how round and cuddly and cute she is. She's a little ball of sweet love. She's fat all the way to her fingers, which are triangular sausages. Her thighs are wider than they are long. She has two rubber-bands on her wrist. I still can't count exactly how many chins she has. Her hair is thinning a bit - it looks like she still has the same amount of hair as she did when she was born, only now her head is twice the size! But she still has a long lock on the top that I can tie up in a band or clip, which looks really cute!

Why are babies so endlessly fascinating? Well, your own baby anyway! I love watching her discovery the world. I let her grab bits of paper I know I shouldn't let her have, just to watch her face as she screws it up and discovers what it's all about. She happy for me to take things off her still, though I know that will stop, so it's only now that I can let her explore these more dodgy items, like my phone, and books!

She is sitting up very confindently now, and she loves it. I am aware that now is the time when I have it damn easy - she can't crawl yet, so she's stuck there in one spot, but she's ten times happier sitting up than lying down, and she's content to sit there on her mat, surrounded by her toys for ages and ages, bascially until she's ready to eat or sleep. In the afternoons when Amy and Lena aren't here, she gets a bit bored and wants to be picked up and wants to watch everything I'm doing, but as soon as they get home, she's quite happy to sit there, gnawing on one toy or another, in the same room as them, just watching them. I warned them they're in trouble once she starts crawling - she is not going to leave them alone for a moment! She ADORES them, she is so excited when they come home. She flaps her arms and goes 'oooh oooh' when she sees something exciting, including them. They play with her, let her pull their hair and grab their faces, and jump up and down for her, which makes her giggle. Having big sisters rocks!

She can get herself from sitting to lying on her tummy, but doesn't roll over yet. I think I'll have to confiscate the activity gym! Start putting toys temptingly beside her. She sits in a baby chair next to the table while we eat, and systematically grabs things off the table to examine, chew and discard. We're getting good at getting up a collection of things for her to take, but she nearly got the knife the other day until Lena whipped it away! Boy, I've gotta start being more watchful again!

I think her idea of heaven is breastfeeding to sleep. She just looks like the most contented angel when she lies in my arms, eyes closed, hands up on 'her' booby like it was a sandwich, sucking deep and strong and filling her belly. My baby heaven is when she smiles. She has one grin where she sucks in her bottom lip, one wide grin with open eyes, and a big happy open-mouth smile with screwed up eyes, her face showing just pure joy - and all I did was say Hello, come back from being out of the room for a few minues, or play a game with her. So our dual heaven then must be the 'suck suck smile' game, when she sucks, looks up at me, waits for me to notice her looking (I have to be looking away for it to work), then she smiles. A few weeks ago, this would cause her to lose her grip, and then after she smiled, she's burrow back in to re-latch, curling her body around me, diving down into my body - in fact, I surmised that that was what she liked about it, that moment of cuddling in and re-attaching, like that first moment of pure relaxation and relief when you finally lie down in bed at night and completely relax. But now she has learned how to keep holding on to the nipple while she smiles, which is a whole different kettle of fish!

At home one afternoon. Lena sorting beads, Amy at her desk, a rare photo of the photographer.

What the baby does...

...she sits up! One day (last Sunday) she figured out to hold out her hand to the side to balance, and then she was off! All in one day, she sat upright instead of slumping forward, suddenly having gained the confidence to do so, now she knew how to regain her balance.

And TOYS! She is so into her toys. She gets excited with old favorites and new ones. Of course it's chewing on them that she loves the most.

Tigger and Tigger

Erica wearing her winter overcoat Tigger suit.


That tongue poking out means, pretty obviously, 'I wanna suck that!'


Tigger is my friend.

Black Tuesday and White Wednesday

It snowed today! It only just stopped actually, at 11am. It's a good thick covering, great for making snowmen or snow queens, only Amy can't go to school today. She and Lena have the 'flu. Hence the Black Tuesday, I hated yesterday, I was so stressed out! Wooried about Erica's breathing again, irrational but unstoppable. Kanji took the girls to the hospital. I was relieved that I didn't have to take Erica to that den of germs but anxious because I like to be the one in control when it comes to medical affairs. Kanji is too much of a Yes man. I didn't really want Tamiflu - but he got it, and I got so upset! Then he arrived home with them with a slew of other meds as well, in case the 'flu brings on Amy's asthma or Lena's Perhaps-asthma. I just don't get giving them a bunch of cough medicines and mucus minimizer and what-not. If it's asthma, just give them asthma drugs! A preventer and/or a reliever. A cough is a symptom of asthma, not the illness itself, surely just relieving the cough is not enough? I know things like excessive mucus can bring on asthma, but still, why not give them an asthmas preventer then????

It's this kind of thing that makes living in a foreign country so frustrating and stressful at times. You just feel like no-one has any common sense.

....oh, well, it was just all too much! A black day. I was clock-watching at 11:58 thinking, "the sooner this day is over the better" even though nothing was going to change from that time until morning!

Now the kids have gone to Baachan's for the day to help try to keep Erica 'flu-free. I haven't touched the girls since they came home from the hospital, and they haven't touched her since Sunday night when they first started feeling ill. That's been really hard, because I'm a huggy mummy, especially when my kids are sick. I told Amy yesterday that I wanted to hug them both so bad, but I couldn't, because we have to do everything we can to try to keep Erica from getting ill. She understood, but got a bit teary-eyed as well. At least they have each other, and now their father, who is coming down with something too. And Baachan to fuss over them. I sent them away all bundled up against the cold, with a pot of vegetable soup, which Amy had asked me to make yesterday, and a DVD player and a bunch of DVDs. They think the guys working at the Stand might like Grease, so they brought that.

I'll probably pick them up after dinner, in the meanwhile, me and Erica have a big long day to ourselves to fill! Easier, cleaner, but she misses playing with them! She can't figure out why no-one will play with her, and not even Daddy will cuddle her. At least she's used to it being just her and me most of the time.

Catch-up

I just called mother, but she's out. Later then. We will go shopping in a moment, the girls don't want to come, they want to babysit themeselves, but it's still too soon, I think. So I shall drag them with me and do two days' worth of shopping. Amy is sewing, and I promised to wait until she is done. Erica is on her tummy, happy to be with her sisters. Lena is wriggling around managing to do absolutely nothing as usual.

I went to the AFWJ convention last weekend, more about that later too. Erica's had enough, or rather, the girls have left her and she's annoyed. I just set her up with one of their dolls, that's keeping her happy. She all hands! She's always grabbing whatever I have in my hands, usually I can see it coming a mile off as she's rather slow to get coordinated, but sometimes she sneaks up on me! I hold her in my left arm, so I can use my right, which leaves her stronger left hand out front. She always grabs my wallet when I am paying for my groceries. She actually really likes riding in the supermarket strollers, but she's always had enough by the time we come to pay! I put her back in the stroller yesterday while I paid and packed, and she managed to reach for a rubbish bin and started to eat the bin liner while I was busy packing. And when I hold her on my knee to eat (cos Mums aren't allowed to eat in peace, you know) I have to clear an arc in front of her. She is no longer happy gazing outward, staring in fascination at the curtains or the fridge. She MUST be facing us, she twists her body round to see what I am doing, what I am EATING - she is fascinated with food. I have tried a few things in her mouth, but she is still poking out her tongue in response, so she's not ready yet.

She's moving toward a saner night schedule, not that I was bothered much by the midnight to midday schedule, it had its uses! Now she is going down about 8pm, wanting to stay hooked onto her boobie for ages, which is neat, cos then I sit up in bed and read to the other girls. So that's come together nicely. Then she sleeps until a little earlier in the morning, more like 8 or 9am. So I can do less in the morning, but eventually we must move towards SLEEPING at night and being AWAKE during the day, so it's all for the best. We are getting into a routine of having dinner first, then bath, then straight to bed.

Lena has been having dramas this week. She finally lost her first tooth!

.... much later on, after Princess Diaries II, shopping, lunch and Harry Potter 5...

Lena also had a major drama this week nearly killing her finger. On Thursday I picked them up after But Biting Bug class (which is a whole other story!) she complained of a sore finger. I looked at her finger and its tip was wrapped in selotape. I quickly cut it off - it was white and cold to the touch. I got the selotape all off, it was pretty tightly wound, amidst her complaints of pain. Once the tape was off, it hurt even more as the blood began to recirculate, and it swelled up to twice its size. I thought she had put it on a few hours earlier, but as I talked to her, I realized she'd had it on for over a day. I remember her getting the tape out of the cupboard - I'd told her to make sure she put it back, and was happy when, a little while later, I saw it returned to its rightful place, but it never occured to me to ask what she was using it for, I just assumed it was for paper. Turns out she was concerned about her nail. She bites her nails really badly - down to the quick almost, and until it starts to hurt. She herself is getting worried about it, and she thought that if she covered it, it would stop her biting it and hurting. I think she got the idea of using the tape from all their games with their dolls, when they 'get injured' and Amy doctors them with tissues and selotape.

Well, after a night of worry, with Lena the most worried, all was well in the morning, it was just a little swollen and sore. She'll never do that again!

cold!

I think winter finally found us. We had a few fluffs of snow yesterday, nothing on the ground, just a reminder in the air that it really is cold out there!

Here's bubs all rugged up. Isn't she getting big?

Stuff

Erica is definitely teething! Her cheeks are bright red. That little white spot on her gum is getting bigger and whiter. Mum, I was right! Remember when she was just a few days old and she was crying with a big open mouth like they do and I said, Hey isn't that a tooth? Well I think I was right, her teeth are not far under her gums, showing up as white spots. And here she is, teething much too early - she can't even hold on to her teether properly, I have to sit there and hold it for her while she frantically gnaws on it.

She is also sitting up, leaning forward. And she laughed out loud again yesterday, with indefatigable Amy playing peek-a-boo. She was aniticipating Amy's reappearance, and looking around for her over my shoulder, then Amy would pop up and she'd get just enough of a fright to make a noise, mostly a 'gnnnhhaa' or a nose-blowing noise she's taken to making lately, but then just that once, a real laugh. And then she giggled in her sleep not long after which the girls found so endearing - clearly dreaming about her fun time with her big sisters before bedtime (not that she went to bed, oh no, she took a short nap, then stared up at me with her big eyes until I looked at her, whereupon she grinned from ear to ear and cooed. She stayed awake until her Daddy got home, then some...finally nodding off at around 11:30 again)

Both girls had a parent observation day yesterday.

Lena's was all morning, from 9:15 and scheduled to run until 12:00, but it didn't finish until 12:45 due to some last minute prep and practice for the mothers' performance at the kindy concert. I like going to see what she does at kindy, but really, do they think we have nothing better to do for THREE HOURS? Especially when they didn't do anything that they do on normal days. We played a game together in the hall, a human board game which was fun and really well done.

The kids, acting as board squares, sitting in a circle as the teachers explain the rules

Lena was the 'Take 3 Steps Forward' square

Then they had a bunch of traditional and New Year toys set up in the other rooms and the kids took their parents to play with spinning tops, cat's cradle, cards, and 'kendama', and kind of cup and ball.

Then we had a class meeting with the teacher, in which she spoke in vague terms about the behaviour of the kids, what they have gotten good at (taking turns, sharing, chores etc) and what still needed work, including how some of the girls (Lena and her crew) fussed too much about whether their hair and clothes were labelled 'kawaii' (cute) by their friends or not. Then each mother in turn (and Kanji, the only Daddy) spoke about her concerns or things she thought were working. Japanese people often won't speak up unless everyone has a go in turn! Kanji talked about our worries that Lena wasn't adjusting to kindy the easy way Amy had, and that we were worried that she couldn't speak as well as Amy. The other mothers thought it was great that she could speak English as well, as that it would be to her benefit later. That was nice to hear. And also enlightening to hear the other mothers of Lena's best friend/nemeses that it was much the same for them - their girls also come home complaining that so-and-so said she liked/didn't like me today. So it looks like it really is just silly little girls with no social skills. It hurts her so much though.

Amy's was next, after we went home for a quick lunch. Erica was wonderful through all this, didn't cry once. I fed her once in the hall, and walked her to sleep during the meeting. First, she looked at the pictures on the wall and cooed at them, which was super-cute, if a bit noisy, but at least she wasn't crying. She dropped off to sleep again during Amy's class. I wanted to as well, or at least to sit down, it's a hard slog carrying that heavy baby! In her class, we watched as they first read aloud, then examined a story. Lots of independent thinking going on, but I kind of lost track, as I couldn't hear what the kids were saying very well. It was a mystery story about Who Broke the Vase?

Amy's classroom. Her art work - plasticine turtles

Babies and laundry baskets

Say no more!

In other baby news, Erica appears to be getting a tooth. Dribbling, gnawing, an extra feed added overnight, fussy feeding. A small white bud visible on her bottom gum on the rare occasions I can see into her mouth, and I can feel it too. It's not red or swollen so I don't think she can feel it. Aapart from her increased need to suck and gnaw, she's pretty contented.

She definitely left-handed. The first of six children and eleven grandchildren of two left-handers! She is learning to grasp deliberately, and consistently chooses her left hand to practice. She holds up her hand, looks at it with her cross-eyed baby look, and deliberately aims it towards...usually my nose.

Amy has finished Little Red Riding Hood and now her and her friends are making up dances to songs. It puts a spring in her step on the way to school. Lena declared her day at kindy yesterday to be 'perfect', so it looks like the efforts the teachers are making are paying off. Kanji's friend suggested we change schools, but I'm not ready to go that far yet. Only two more months and she starts school. There will be new kids, and new classroom lists so the dynamics will change. I don't think the bullying children are being deliberately mean at this point, just stupid.

Little Horrors

The ones at school I mean, for insisting to Amy that Santa is your mother. She demanded I tell her the truth yesterday. I evaded the question - "What do you think? What do you want to belive?" and "Maybe they don't know because they are Japanese, and Santa is a European, a NZ, a Christian thing and they don't know anything about it". Hopefully the whole question will just fade away and they will be talking of other things today. She has her second influnza shot today, I would take the opportunity to talk to her about not letting her younger sister hear nasty rumours about Santa's reality, but I think I'll get her Daddy to take her, since I don't want Erica in a germy public hospital pediatric clinic if I can help it.

Erica is having fun kissing everyone! She left a mark on Amy's cheek! On the downside, she is not sleeping well at night. You know when you are tired when you blink and your eyes don't open again. Mums and night workers know the feeling, and we have plenty of both in our family so they are many of you who know what I mean.

She naps in the evening at the right time to enable me to spend some valuable time with her big sisters at bedtime, reading. This is so important right now, as Amy has just caught on, and is reading Roald Dahl's "Magic Finger" and a Little Red Riding Hood Ladybird Book. We discovered we have seven Little Red Riding Hood stories at home, eight if you cound Lena's dance for her ballet concert - as well as the Ladybird book, I have a book of original Grimm's stories, a beautifully illustrated fairytales book I had bought previously, a small travel-size compendium of nursery rhymes, songs, poems and stories with it, a Japanese translation of the Grimm story, the Mell doll book that came with the clothes set that Lena got for Chrismtas, and a tiny mention of the story in another book, which I claim as my favorite because it distilled the story down to two images and two lines: Before the Wolf, (grandma in bed) and After the Wolf (grandma tied up under the bed, Wolf waiting in the bed).

(She just came home from school absolutely full of a grand scheme she has devised - she has promised to make her friend a hood for a play of Little Red Riding Hood she is producing with her buddies. Clearly there has been no more talk of Santa today, phew!)

Meanwhile Lena is continuing to get bullied at kindy. We wrote a note to the teacher, and they said they taught the whole class what kind of things they should and shouldn't say and do to other kids, which seems to have worked, as she reported a 'wonderful' day today, and she played with Maya, who is otherwise the ringleader. Maya seems to be a fair weather friend only. (This is not the Maia who Lena went to English kindy with)

Meanwhile little Erica wakes again just as her sisters go to sleep, all bouncing and smiling and ready to play! She doesn't go to sleep until between 11-12, then wakes again for a snack at 2 or 3, and my alarm goes off at 6am. It's starting to catch up to me! But I always have the option of napping with Erica in the morning after the older girls go to school. I slept from 8am til 11:20am on Tuesday!

Catching Up After the Holidays

Two more days of winter holidays left. Amy is back to school, Lena to kindy on Tuesday. Amy still hasn't finished her winter holiday homework, I still haven't got over the fact that they gave her so much homework! Lena is a ninja. A REAL ninja, and don't you try to tell her she's not! Erica is a little, round, soft, cuddly, sweet-smelling ball of a baby. She laughed out loud for the first time - watching her sister, who shall remain nameless, on the toilet. She likes hand plays (Clap hands for Daddy to come, Inky pinky ponky,) dancing, raspberries on her tummy, sliding down my knees in the bath and as always, that activity gym! Her hands have come into play, and just in the last few days, her mouth! For a few happy days I could give her interesting things to touch, knowing she would just crunch them in her fist, but now everything is straight to the mouth! She makes the most darling 'sucky mouth' as she brings her hands together to gather up the doll, or chocolate bag (the mini-Crunchie bag is a hot favorite) or Lena's clothes (she LOVES Lena's clothes. Lena loves her clothes, so she always agonizes over her choices, and ends up with something pretty, whereas Amy just puts on the first thing she reaches for, something comfortable) or occasionally an actual baby toy.

Today I'm making golden soup for my lunches this week and meusli for my breakfasts. Amy is supposed to be doing her homework, and Lena helping me with getting the books upstairs. I'm putting all the books up into the upstairs tatami room, to be known henceforward as The Library, or perhaps The Dressing Room, since the clothes are in there too. It will retain a bed, just in case. Then I can shift the two desks downstairs into the Study, where my computer and the piano are.

Firsts

It's all about firsts, isn't it.

Today for the first time, she grabbed something dangerous, an electrical cord while she had tummy time on her nappy mat. Oops, gotta find a new home for that new multi-region DVD player now!

Her First Christmas, which was also the first day she sat on my hip, watching me make the turkey gravy. The first time she rolled over, although Kanji tells me he saw her do it earlier, so this is officially 'his' first! I found her later on, crashed into the leg of the activity gym that's over her nappy mat, rolled off the mat and consequently in quite a state! Took her a while to get over that first!

Update, later on - another first! First laugh out loud - while watching her big sister on the toilet!

Christmas presents 2007

ME

Mum - tea towels and earrings
JO - wrinkle cream and hair serum
BECK - Bath set
CHRIS - lindt truffles
Kanji - freezer
kawanos - scarf

KANJI

Mum - Key holder, mint chocolate
Jo - ferrero rocher
becky - Kahlua chocolate
me - luminarc bowls

ERICA

Santa - doll, snake, rattle, clothes
mum and dad - playmobil, bib set,
grandma - first christmas book, Marylou
P * A - name plate
mcleods - big rattle
beck - fuzzy buzzy bee
Amy and Lena - blocks

AMY and LENA

peter and amanda - name plates
mcleods - sand art
mitchells - black t-shirts
becky - Amy, funky girls drawing book, Lena, how to be a princess; dog tags
Grandma - Amy, Girls' book, Mr Men Mr christmas, Lena, classic nursery rhymes and Mr Men Christmas Carol
Mum and Dad - playmobil
Santa - clothes, Mell clothes and book, tutu, book - Amy, squids will be squids and ;Lena, dragons and petit marionette
Rachel - xmas earrings
amy from Lena - bag and clip; Lena from Amy, Mel shower

Christmas Day

Santa came! Great! Though there was the usual non-chimney family's worries about access. Luckily we have a convenient upstairs balcony where we put out the chocolate milk (Amy found out from somewhere that Father Christmas prefers chocolate milk. Good on him) and cookies the kids had baked themselves, and painted with egg yolk and food coloring. Great - that meant I could eat ALL the Christmas cake! Gosh, it took me half a lifetime to acquire the taste, so I'm kind of happy it'll take the rest of them another 10-20 years to acquire it, because in the mean time, I have to make up for the last 20 years that I missed out on.

As usual in our house, Daddy was up first, and we tried to wake the children so he could see what Santa brought, but they were having none of it - we keep them up too late on Christmas Eve. I thought seven was old enough to be up at the crack of dawn toeing the presents at the end of the bed and hearing the wrapping paper crackle...

Father Christmas brought them some very dearly wished-for gifts. The favorite gift has to be the ballet tutus. Amy has been waiting two years for one. They got clothes for themselves, and clothes for their favorite doll, Mell. The clothes were from fairy tales and came with a book. Lena got Little Red Riding Hood, to match her ballet performance, and Amy got Cinderella. Finally they also got two books each, one in English and one in Japanese, since Santa knows they are bilingual. Erica got her very first doll, which is HUGE, and a big green stuffed snake, which she loves, also a tiny rattle that's just perfect for her little hand and a new dress.

Then we had our traditional ham and eggs Christmas breakfast. Or rather, I did, and the kids opted out in favor of cereal. Then we went to church! Yep, we actually went to church. Recently a lady from the Phillipines has been wokring at Youme Town, and she asked if we were going. I had been half-heartedly meaning to go past the church to check the times, but kept forgetting. So I asked her the times, then I had no excuse! There are a lot of catholics in the Phillipines, from the Spanish colonization that preceeded the Japanese WWII take-over that was followed by the American occupation that preceeded independence. Phew! There are some natives in there too I expect!

Anyway, I started my turkey cooking before we left, just like Mum, so it would be smelling delicious when we got back. Then I got to work on my roast dinner. I called Keio just before I started peeling potatoes, to see how many of the staff were coming - I had invited several of the foreign staff over for Christmas lunch. I received the shocking news that Manager had scheduled a meeting! It's bad enough that the poor buggers have to front up to work on Christmas Day, but to add insult to injury by calling pop meetings is just heinous! Not to mention it rather thinned out my planned lunch. So I talked to Manager and asked her if I could have a few staff members, please, as I had already cooked the turkey. Upshot was, Manager came over too, plus two American staff members, one with his Japanese wife who is pregnant. And Rachel, who used to work there and used to teach Lena. Lena loved that!

By this time the kids had been allowed to open up some of their other presents, including the one from Mum and Dad. We got them playmobil. My siblings will remember how many hours of fun we got out of ours. Mum will recall how expensive it is! I got an enormous amount of it second hand, it was being sold in sets, and I got several - I paid $100, but got my money's worth, since each $10 set would have been 40-60 brand new. I got a helicopter, a car, a waterfall, two buffalo, three horses, cowboys and Indians, an enormous pile of hospital gear, a Victorian toilet, a wedding party and a playground. The girls played with it for three days solid until I insisted it be cleaned up so I could vacuum! Lena has coined a new verb, she keeps saying, "Amy, let's play-mobil!".

Manager popped out for a few minutes to get something and I took the chance to open the champagne and slip my co-workers a much-needed drink! Then we put the gingerale bottle on the table. We had roast turkey with stuffing and gravy, roast potato, sweet potato and pumpkin, and peas. For dessert there was pavlova (more like a giant marshmallow than an giant meringue, the pav is still a work-in-progress) and a trifle. There was birthday cake and Christmas cake, which only I ate. And mountains of chocolate.

The guests left, and we opened up the last of our presents, made some phone calls, and spent the rest of day quietly, eating leftovers. The kids preferred left-over curry, which meant all the more turkey for me!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is considered Christmas in Japan. Some people don't even know that Christmas is on the 25th, they think it's all over by midnight on the 24th! In Japan, it's a romantic date night.

Christmas is also Kanji's birthday. So we have developed our own little Christmas Eve celebration. Kanji's favorite meal is curry, sashimi and beer, so we make that for him, and also make a birthday cake. This year Amy and Lena decided on a heart-shaped pink cake decorated with marbles (which are Japanese smarties/pebbles/M&Ms). Only the red food colouring mixed with the yellow butter to make orange. I bought the cake too, so it wasn't the nicest cake ever, but it was good enough for a happy birthday song and a little party with beer and kid's champagne. Then we settled down to watch Polar Express, a magical little movie that has become an instant Christmas classic.

Finally, bedtime...making sure the stockings and sacks are well-placed, the cookies and chocolate milk are out on the balcony for Santa and his reindeer...and finally, in the wee small hours, Santa comes!

Update

I've been told to update my blog, so here I am. There wasn't really anything going on during the last week, except for Christmas preparations. I have made the hazelnut truffles and Christmas caramels from the small Edmonds Christmas book. The hazelnut truffles have been great fun. First I could find no hazelnut powder or hazelnuts, so they became almond truffles. Then my choc bits for the coating wouldn't melt properly, so I added loads of cream. It still wasn't dipping consistency so I gave up and added walnuts and apricots, and rolled it into a log, which didn't work because it was too runny. It turned into a chocolate splat.



Then I tried a different kind of chocolate to dip the truffles, which worked, but I had a ton leftover. So I cut the chocloate splat into squares, topped each with a now half-set glob of chocolate dip, and decorated it with a piece of apricot and walnut. Still I had chocolate dip/gloop leftover, so I rolled in the extra apricots and walnuts and wrapped it in tin foil to make a chocolate lump. Which I then ate.



By contrast, the caramels were much more successful, except I made the fudge in a non-stick pot, which stuck, leaving bits of non-stick-pot-muck through my caramels. Which I ate.



Now all I have to do is once again try a pavlova, and some lamingtons to bring to a pot-luck party on Sunday. Trifles for Christmas and curry for Kanji's birthday on Monday and roast something on Tuesday. By the time I get to the bottom of the pile and tuck into that second packet of crunchies (the first packet is all eaten already) I will have put on all the pregnancy weight I lost. It's obvious what my New Year's resolution will be.

Festival

Kanji was invited to participate in a festival this year. He's president of his Business Club this year, and was invited by the branch in the town where this festival is held. I don't even know what the festival is called, only that it involved carrying a Mikoshi, or portable shrine, across the river to it's home shrine on the other side.

The men carrying the shrine have to actually go into the water, and it's early winter so it's VERY cold! They are wearing fundoshi, the loincloth that sumo wrestlers wear, along with a cotton coat that I thought would just make them colder once it got wet through