Amy's Big Amazing Clever Day

Amy had a full plate today!

It started in the morning with a special event at her kindergarten for grandparents. What a shame NZ Grandma and Jiichan couldn’t make it, but Amy was thrilled that Baachan could come. I have no idea what they got up to!

After kindy it was her first piano lesson. She had very enthusiastically learned the ABC song by heart, but had to start learing to play with more than one finger. She learned where ‘do’ is (c), and has to practice a very simple tune using just two fingers on her right and left hand, and practice drawing some notes. Natually she took to that task very enthusiastically!

Which brings us to No.2, her second art exhibition. I have no photos, I took only videos this year. She has in two pictures, a slightly mysterious (abstract?) picture of a flask tied up with a scarf, and a portrait of a girl in her class. Next to that picture is a portrait of Amy by the girl whose portrait she drew.

Finally we went to the pool to pick up her latest swimming certificate. She gets quite a few of these, they fill in the space with whatever the kid achieved this month! But this time, she has finally reached Grade 14 (goes up to 1) and received a patch to be sewn onto her cap.

Amy certainly felt like she could do anything today!

Speechless, Taken Aback, Jumping for Joy

Amy was a walking cliche this afternoon when she came home from kindy to find her new piano on the table. A real piano is too expensive, too big and too heavy for our little house, so we bought her an electronic one. The modern ones have very sensitive keys that play softly when you hit them softly, and louder when you hit them harder, just like a real pianoforte.

Amy has been wanting to learn piano for a while now. I think she got the idea from playing with a tiny electronic piano/book, and enjoying working out the song. Since her new teacher (my old friend Maiko) came on Wednesday, she has been practicing the ABC song with the little book, so as soon as she saw the piano, and went through the three reactions in the title, she sat down to learn it on the real piano.

I made a little note key for her - the book is easy because the keys have the notes written on them, and they are colour-coded as well. I wrote the note names on a piece of paper and laid it across the keys for her, and by the time Daddy came home, she had learned the first three lines.

Nothin much today

I finally sit down to write and...I did nothing today. Well okay, all the housework, a little cooking (mackerel in miso) and packaging and emails. Amy and Lena are in bed, kanji is at work, and I am about to organize some recipes, read some magazines, and go to bed. I might upload a few photos while I am doing stuff, and consult my diary to see what you have been missing!

A great dinner

Do you sometimes get it into your head to just cook some nice stuff? I did that today. I cooked, finally, the Golden Soup whose recipe I got off Mum months ago. It was delicious, Amy loves it too, and I made the full recipe, so I have TONS and froze some. That’ll make me three nice lunches in the weeks to come.

I also cooked couscous, something that comes up in recipes every now and then, but which I had not tried yet, as it is not available in the supermarkets in this town. I got the couscous in Oita, a sundried tomato flavor. I cooked it with onion and green pepper, and topped it with grilled salmon.

The meal was rounded off with a salad made of lettuce, tomato, ham, cheese, chicken and boiled egg, with a mustard vinaigrette. YUM.

Red Dwarf and an embarrassed ballerina