Girls and Dolls

We didn't do anything special for Hina Matsuri, the Dolls' festival, this year, we somehow ran out of time.



It's getting harder and harder to get Erica to sit still for a portrait! Here's our first try:



We had more success getting her to lie down on the cushions pretending to sleep - so the big girls followed suit!



She refused to pose mainly because she was so intrigued by the dolls, which she thought were amazing, and said so!

Park Life

The weather is perfect for parks right now! Here are the mad three letting loose near the castle (where we went with Grandma for Hanami No.2 in 2004)

Valentine's Day

I know, it's a whole week late, but we did have a very nice Valentine's Day! The weather was superb, so the kids played outside most of the day, coming in just long enough to get Daddy's chocolate ready. We chose a very simple method of using lollies and things to decorate a plain block of chocolate.












I made the blue one.
Amy had other ideas though. She melted a block of chocolate, then dripped it onto a cooking sheet to make a chocolate cookie, decorated with silver balls and other sweets.



Amy's and Lena's efforts. Lena made the white one, slightly adapted from the book we were using, and Amy did hers freestyle. They are decorated with marshmallows.



Here Amy and Lena are copying an old photo of me sitting at our kitchen table, bathed, pajama'ed and ready for bed, hands together in a little prayer. So here are MY little angels. Right, the table ready for our feast - we had crumbed chicken nuggets, potatoes and gravy for dinner, followed by chocolate fondue. We were utterly unable to make a start on the other chocolate, which all went back in the fridge to pick at over the next week.



Dad with the girls, and me with the girls.


OH MY GOD YUM!!!The chocolate fondue went extremely well with Bailey's. The fondue was delicious, and I did NOT use the Ghana chocolate or the recipe that comes with this set, I used another double chocolate fondue recipe I found in a magazine. We ate it with bananas, strawberries and green tea castella (madeira cake). Yes, green tea! I had recieved the castella a while ago and froze it, and defrosted it on the day. I had no idea until I opened it just before we ate that it was green tea flavored! Never mind, it was delicious.

Making me Smile

Life with a baby is so fun! Sorry to gush, but accentuating the positive is my way of coping. I don't care what anyone says about the stress and frustration and tears and time and money spent, one thing is for sure - you smile and laugh more with a toddler in the house! Erica's at a stage where her unselfconscious silliness has all of us rolling on the floor laughing. We decided she's way better than TV, as we ate our dinner and watched her singing and dancing and doing silly stuff in her highchair. All you have to do is look at her and gets this cheeky grin like she's anticipaing more fun. All along, we have all responded to her pressing our belly buttons like it was a laughter switch, and there I was, convinced I'd fooled her into thinking that's what belly buttons are for...then the other day, while getting dressed, she found her belly button. She pressed it, making a 'pshht' sound like the fake 'button press' sound I make, then let out a totally fake 'ha ha ha ha' laugh. So she knew we were fooling her all along.

Likes....

Try this: Type "(yourname)likes to" into google and report back on the first ten hits. Oh, and take your name off the blog, if you don't want to keep hitting your blog again next time!

Me, well I...

...likes to keep her two lines of work separate. But I never forget that she’s a teacher when we’re hanging out after hours.

...likes to "boo" the "bad rhinos"!

...likes to just try underwear on in the middle of the store

...likes to play around with her look

......likestoramble.blogspot.com

...likes to sing and make up funny songs using the tunes of old familiar songs and adding goofy lyrics

...likes to ride her bike, play tennis, and hang out with her puppy Brewster

...likes to write about silly things that she has no idea is people will read or not

...likes to cook. and sew,

...likes to keep her private life private but she was starting to let her guard down with Deputy Head Eddie Lawson.

And my darling husband!

...likes to stir the pot

...likes to have fun all day, he just loves to play and play!

...likes to laze in the sun, but he still loves having fun!

...likes to sew and do various crafts but takes up acting tough in order to seem more manly.

...likes to cook, clean, and sew. ...

...likes to make up fake riddles and when someone gives and answer that could be correct he says that they are correct

...likes to laze about with him widdo tongue stickin out a teeeensy bit.

...likes to play soccer, it is basically the only thing he does besides talking

...likes to train, eat dumplings, play soccer and winning

Health Report

Amy - fine and symptom free, on the inhaler Furutaido/Flixotide twice a day, and the Japanese medicine Onon, which is an anti-allergy medicine they hand out here for asthma. We got her blood test results back and she is not allergic to anything, including dust and bed-bugs, the biggie I was afraid of as having an allergy to that would mean doing a lot more vacuuming! Not to mention big guilt-trip for not doing very much vacuuming to date. For some reason the doctor turned around from explaining that Amy didn't have any allergies, and prescribed another month of anti-allergy meds. Maybe there's something else about that drug that I don't know. It seems to keep some of the symptoms at bay, but is that just addressing the symptoms, but not the underlying issue? Anyway, she's on the furutaido, which is a preventer.

Lena is also on a month's supply of onon, and it does work to keep her coughing down, and her very, very runny nose in the morning. I wonder if she has a dust allergy, probably we all have a mild one, and I really, really should vacuum the bedroom, and the beds, more often.

Sadly, little Erica has joined the procession at drug-time after dinner. She too has mild asthma, which is what really makes me think it must be my lousy housekeeping, or the cars, or the pollution. Onon for Erica too! And some cough medicine and another one to take away the phelgm. Again, all this addressing of symptoms that makes me mildly concerned. I think her doctor (she's going to the pediatrician, Amy and Lena are still at the hospital) expects it to go away naturally, as so many children's asthma does. I hope so too.

And me, I had a filling removed because it was causing the gum underneath to become inflamed. No cavities, just swelling, and I'm taking antibiotics for two days (two days???) until I go back to have a new filling put on. At least it's not a root canal.

Kanji is fit as a fiddle. At least someone is! Okay, off to dose everybody up!

Erica's Lunch

Holiday Report

Thank God for big sisters! It's a warm day, a little overcast and windy, but not enough to stop kids. I'm trying not to think too hard about what Erica's getting up to out there with her sisters. Apparently it involves the creation of a water-fall under the pine trees.


Lena bringing water for the waterfall's pool. She may be doing mucky kid-work, but you can't take the princess out of her! She actually didn't get dirty at all.

They watch her, and are both especially diligent about not letting her put anything in her mouth, but unlike her scaredey-cat helicopter Mum, apart from that they pretty much let her be to explore, so she has a wonderful time out there with them.


This is only the start, it got much worse than this!

I'm trying not to think about the creatures out there either, or rather thinking about the grasshoppers and ladybugs, but not the centipedes and snakes. It's bad enough inside - I stood on a slug yesterday. I felt something wet on my sock and noticed the slime trails on the carpet moments before seeing it sqished among my toes. I just about scared Erica out of her skin screaming and jumping around and whipping that sock off inside-out so it wouldn't get away.

I threw out the socks.


Amy doing dishes. She's been dressed for summer all day, she's quite sure she isn't at all cold!

Big sisters are also good for getting a sleep-in. Erica climbed onto Lena's bed this morning, then they took her downstairs while I slept on! I needed it, as I went out last night, just for a few hours, for a birthday dinner. $10 for all-you-can-drink, and starting at a reasonable 9pm, after the kids got to sleep. I was home before midnight but stayed up watching American Idol and eating cheese on toast.

Hospital Photos

The first night in the hospital, when we were alone in a two-bed room. Erica was with us that evening. Amy was still quite happy at this stage, especially with Erica there to amuse her. And being the only ones in the room, we could let Erica run around. The next day, in the four-bed room, the door was often left open so we had to keep chasing her or trying to hold her - not easy at her age! But after a few days, we felt more comfortable in the room, more like it was 'our' room and less like we were intruding on others' space. Especially after all the kids there when we came left, and new kids came. Then I felt like I could go up and shut the door, open and shut curtains, turn lights on and off.


Lena was left with the difficult task of taking care of three of the dolls at home. Mell-chan went to the hospital with Amy.


The kid in the other bed. He was five, and the child of a woman who owns a bar I used to frequent before we were married! I didn't recognize her at first out of her night-time make-up. Amy and Takuma made friends and played with dinosaurs, but he preferred his hand-held game and she preferred her coloring. I hope you can get some sense of how small the room is from this photo - a wall on the far side of Takuma's TV, and Amy is standing right in front of the second bed.


Amy on her bed. Her space goes from that curtain to the window on the far side of the TV table. Her lunch tray is on the table. She liked the meals, but got a bit sick of them. I made her a mince pie on Thursday, and bought her McDonald's on Saturday, and also brought her fruit, yogurt, and chocolate cake (the one she's making in the video below where Erica is dancing to the mixer). You can also see her Pokemon pillow. I brought the pillow from home as the only one they provide is a little hard sack of grain. I also brought a bottom sheet, as they only change the sheets once a week, and her favorite blanket, the yellow one. You can see these in teh photo below. I also had to bring chopsticks and other cutlery and even a glass for her water. Also, all our own tolietries. The only thing they provide is water, hot and cold, but you have to go get it yourself in the kitchenette. We also had to bring our own towels.

Extra Hours

You know how some days you complain that the day is just too short, and you wish you had an extra 3, 6 or however many hours?

Well today it feels like I got that extra six hours.

After over a week of rushing, and fitting things in between trips to the hospital, I can't quite get over the fact that it's only 1:24 and I still have several hours of today left to go.

I have some work to do on the computer so that's what I'll probably do. I've already tidied the upstairs bedrooms, done 3 loads of laundry and the shopping. I'm kind of waiting for Erica to wake early from her nap so I have to go and put her to sleep again - because I usually lie down and take a nap with her when that happens, and I'm feeling kind of sleepy.

The girls are home early today, they'll be here soon in fact. Then when Erica wakes, I'll take them to Youme Town to buy some books with the book tokens Amy got from Aunty Toyoko while she was in hospital. A present from Grandma also arrived yesterday, which involved sewing, and she was very intrigued by that too. She cleaned her whole desk out yesterday afternoon! No prompting from me at all, nor any nagging either to finish the job once started (she's good at starting, good at suddenly declaring the whole mess somehow my fault and giving up). Picture perfect.


Lena lost another tooth. Now she has three out, looking like a toothless old hag, which makes me laugh when she cries. I'm so mean! Constant reminder too that I need to go to the dentist.


Then I have to go to work. At the bloody hospital! I found myself thinking as we left yesteday, "Thank God I don't have to come back here again", but then remembered, "Oh, yes I do." Well, we certainly won't be talking about medical issues today. Something light, maybe food or vacations.

Lena will go to English today, and Amy will go shopping with her Daddy to get some new inside shoes for school. She doesn't stop growing! Then I'm taking them to Joyfull. The best diet choice because their food is so mediocre that you're not tempted much! I might give in and get some ice cream though...

supplemental

Just after that, the girls came home in a whirlwind of sounds and energy, and Erica woke up. So I went up and lay back down with her and had a wee nap. Now they're doing their homework and I'm trying to get started on my work while refereeing their fights. No time to get those books, we'll go after I get back from work.

Amy in hospital

It's been a week, but I feel I have a little time now to sit down and write up about it without either having to rush off to the hospital again, burst into tears or rant and rave about doctors and hospitals. Which I'll probably do anyway, actually.

She started coughing quite a lot more last weekend, but I thought it was a cold. We stayed in on Saturday due to the snow, then went to visit friends on Sunday. On the way home from that visit she didn't stop coughing, and I realized I was going to have to take her to the hospital. She got quickly diagnosed, but then the doctor kept questioning me about why wasn't she being seen already for her asthma? She'd finished her visits and stopped her medication quite some time ago. I said she didn't have it so of course I didn't come, but he asked if she'd had no coughing at all, and I said yes some, so we'd got ventolin off the doctor in NZ, and used that, but that didn't seem to be enough for him. More talking, he made me feel so bad, like it was all my fault and I was stupid. I can't be bothered going into it right now, it was too confusing.

We went home that day, but she didn't sleep much, nor I, listening to her wheeze. We came back in the morning, and she was admitted (with another doctor). She was in a pretty bad shape that day, with a low fever, and very confused, kept asking me where she was and why, over and over. She was put on the usual cough suppressant and anti-allergy drugs, and IV steroids, and 3-hourly nebulizer treatment. Not a puffer anywhere.

She's slowly gotten happier and healthier every day. She was kind of excited about all the fuss on Monday, and had a new lease of life after getting a big dose of reliever on the nebulizer, so she was okay that night. The next day though, we shifted into a room already full with three others, 2 babies and a 3-year old, everyone with curtains pulled making the room feel so small and crowded. She was exhausted, and didn't do her usual favorite activities of drawing and coloring. Just alternated between flopping on the bed and complaining.

By Wednesday the room had cleared out a little, and Amy was ready to come home! No chance of that yet. The last baby went home, and a 5-year old boy moved in. They've made friends now and play all day with dinosaurs. They took her drip out on Sunday, and we truly thought we'd be home today, but were disappointed this morning when the usual doctor came back and said they'd reduce the nebulizer drugs first and see how she coped before she went home. I suggested coming up to the hospital to do the nebulizer, but the doctor thought that would be too hard on her. So we're stuck there again for another night at least, and possible two more.

This time, as a primary school student, we are not supposed to stay overnight, though we are free to come and go at pretty much any time, so we can be there when she sleeps and arrive again in time for her to wake up. That's usually Kanji, as I am busy with Erica. He stayed with her the first night, when she was in a 2-bed room alone, and he could take the second bed. I really hated leaving her that second night! I left early, and Kanji stayed until she slept, then I stayed until she slept on Wednesday. As time's gone on, she's gotten used to it, takes herself to the toilet alright, knows where the nurse call button is, and I left my phone with her the first night so she could call home anytime.

The hardest part is balancing out her care with Erica's. Two children needing 24-hr care in two different locations. Hmm. Every bit as hard as it sounds. After a few days we settled into a routine, with Kanji going to Amy at about 6:30, when she wakes up, then to work at 7:00. Meanwhile, I get Lena and Erica up, and take them to Baachan's for breakfast. I leave for the hospital, getting there around 7:30, while Baachan takes Lena to school and Jiichan watches Erica. She then stays there until nearly 1pm - an unprecedentedly long time for my Mummy's-Girl Erica! But she's coping very well, and has even gotten used to going to sleep without Mummy or the carseat, which might come in handy when we get to NZ!

1pm Kanji finishes work and I take Erica home to clean, do dishes, laundry, cook dinner and wait for Lena to get home from school. We have an early bath, then I take them back to Baachan's around 6-7pm, so I can spend the last few hours with Amy. It means Lena and Erica don't get to bed until after 9pm but you can't have everything can you. Consequently, they are both tired and moody this week. Lena also misses Amy terribly, and can't wait for her to get home. Erica is clingy when she finally gets hold of me and more whiney than usual, and is not sleeping as well at night. But after a few hours together at home she relaxes and calms down.

Amy plays with the boy, draws, colors, watches DVDs and Japanese TV, and goes to school. Yes, they have a school-room, and a teacher coming up from a nearby primary school to give her lessons - four a day, 45-minutes each, which is quite a lot for a kid who's not well, especially when you consider how much of the school day consists of organizing and arranging and passing out papers and handing them in, etc, so that the kids probably don't do more than 2 hours of actual work, and even less time talking to the teacher. Compared to that 4 x 45 minutes of one person hanging over your shoulder must be quite exhausting! She's better off with it though, not only so she doesn't get behind (Japanese school being so very competitive) but it also breaks up her day and prevents cabin fever and her getting tired of her coloring and drawing.

At the hospital I eat my breakfast, instant oatmeal, far too many snacks, and sandwiches or salad for lunch, and endless cups of tea from the kitchenette, which, in typical Japanese fashion, doesn't have a rubbish bin. I've taken to wearing a mask and carrying an anti-bacterial wipe with me every time I go, to try to avoid the influenza that's also on the ward. I wouldn't want to add that to Amy's woes (or my guilt-list). I managed to get the nurse to change the sheets today too, which was a favor, as they are not usually done until Wednesdays, but I convinced her that since we'd been in the same sheets since last Monday, we really needed to change them! I anticipated this happening this time, and brought a cover sheet for the bed that I can take home and wash.

I end up alternating between rushing round like a headless chicken doing shopping, chores and picking up and dropping off children, and hours of downtime at the hospital reading or quietly playing chess with Amy, or at home watching telly while Erica tries to catch up on her breastfeeding.

So of course, we are all aching to get back to normal life. Although I will keep up Erica's newfound love of her grandies, and take her there at least once a week for a long extended play day. She went to sleep on Jiichan's back this morning - reminded me I had meant to ask Baachan how to do the Japanese 'ombo-hime', a way of tying babies to your back. When she did it with Lena, she somehow got her stuck on there with just a long piece of material wrapped and tied this way and that. But this morning she came out with something with a seat and leg-holes in addition to all the straps and ties, in faded red and gold spotted velvet. It's as kitch as it sounds, she must have dug for hours upstairs to find it!

Signs and Words

She talks quite a bit now, with 90% of it adorable, but incomprehensible babble. She has all the right intonation, expressions and gestures, just sounds, not words! The few clear words she has includes 'mama', and sometimes 'daddy', 'stop', 'nee' (inai of 'inai inai bah', and 'bah' to match, and a variation on 'what is this' which sounds like 'oossiss' but she uses it appropriately. She says 'bye' and waves, and also waves for hello sometimes. Also 'nana' for banana.

She has quite a few more signs, including dog, bird, duck, happy, love, flower, monkey, boobies. She has got the hang of learning them, and often watches our hands to see if there's something there to learn. That spurs us to teach us more, and I expect that in the next few months, until her ability to articulate the words takes over, she'll learn a whole lot of signs.

We're having so much fun with it! I'm finding that a lot of the communicative advantages the advocates talk about are indeed true, and there are a lot of situations where she's been able to communicate her thoughts or feelings to me, reducing her frustration and deepening my understand of what's going on in her little head. Maybe a lot of toddler tantrums are simply the result of the little kid's frustration as they try to get their meaning across but no-one's listening. And I am so familiar with that feeling! How many times have I nearly had a public tantrum trying to get my meaning across to someone in Japanese, but my inability to explain myself, or missing one word, makes the person think I can't understand anything, then they jump to conclusions and stop listening! Okay, this is not meant to be a rant about me, so back to the signs.

No.1 favorite has got to be 'love love'. It's a simple pat,pat,pat with her hand, anywhere on the body of the person or thing she loves. We started teaching this on when she was 10 months, back in NZ, family there will remember her picking up her doll and giving it a love. Now she uses it not only to play with her toys, but on the heads of babies, dogs and big sisters. And on mine and Kanji's shoulders when wants to tell us how happy she was to be picked up, or to see us again after we've been away for a bit. She does it to my boob when I feed her! She also does it to seek reassurance if she's afraid of something or if she just wants a bit of love. It's good to know she just wants a cuddle and isn't just being clingy or annoying.

Of course, I always doubt how much is just normal, that she would be able to communicate anyway, and how much is just my experience, and ability to guess. But any bit helps. We've recently taught her 'happy', but she doesn't do it much yet. She prefers clapping her hands to express joy. And we're teaching her 'I love you' - she loves it when we say it to her, but can't quite coordinate it yet. Of course in all of this, the older girls help me out heaps - they have a lot of patience for sitting down with her teaching her the signs.

The videos show this - they taught her the sign for 'more'. We also do a lot of animal signs, and I'm constantly surprised by how often she sees, and recognizes dogs! And flowers. In a restaurant once, she started to get excited and wriggle, and I think I would have just dismissed it as fussiness and wanting to go outside, but then she did the flower sign (sniffing) and I realized she was trying to tell me she could see a flower. It's not easy to catch these events on camera, but we've tried.

First, monkey


Then 'more'


And trying to teach 'I love you'. As of today, she puts her hands under her chin, so she's gotten a bit further

Hand Update

I don't think I ever did update you all on what happened with the new doctor we saw at the Kitakyushu General Hospital. We had been rather unsatisfied with the Beppu doctor, and were actively seeking another one with the help of a doctor friend and her anesthesiologist husband, when the Beppu doctor announced he would not be continuing at the hospital and would introduce us to the new surgeon on our next appointment. Instead we took out chance to switch (luckily, as the new doctor looked very young!), and requested transfer notes and a referral to the doctor advised by our friends, but instead he gave us a referral to his teacher, the plastic surgery department at Kitakyushu General Hospital.

We went there back in December, and we were both very happy with the new doctor. The old one had taken a brief look at her hand, prescribed cream, asked us to put her hand in a splint, and sent us on our way, telling us she'd have to have a graft next summer. I felt we lacked support in how to use the splint, and what to do about the problems we had with it, like effects on her skin, pain, and her hatred of having it put on. The man who made the splint was kind, but I would have liked something like nursing support or tips on day to day care. All I got was told to 'do my best'. Japanse speakers will understand all the nuances the word 'gambaru' can imply!

This doctor was so different! First of all he wasn't afraid of English, picking up my medical dictionary and having a good look at it! We spent at least twenty minutes discussing the graft in great detail, in Japanese and English, with the doctor using a wall chart of skin to describe the differences between dermis, epidermis, etc, the depth of different grafts, and the reasons for them.

He explained that since the palms have no pigment, he would probably take the skin from her sole, with a second graft from her hip to cover the sole. The hip wound would be let to heal by itself. He also explained that since her first wound scarred, the graft would probably scar and contract too - it's just her genetic tendency. (Her TB stamp has also not healed. Guess she'll get stretch marks too as she gets older). And that therefore, she'd probably have further surgery in her teens to straighten up any further problems BUT not to worry as he assured us that she will eventually regain full function.

Best of all he said the first surgery would not be until she was about three (phew! it's a lot easier to deal with a three-year old in hospital that with an 18-month old! The previous doctor seemed to have no idea how willful and difficult toddlers can be!). And we would only need to visit him every three months, so we are going back in March.

He also said we could ditch the splint. Or use it if we want, if we think it makes any difference. Needless to say, she hasn't worn it once since he said that! He was of the opinion that the contracture happens anyway, and with surgery full function will be restored, so it's not really worth the effort. He also said we could use whatever hand cream we liked, just any ordinary cream. I am still using the Hirudoid though, and now I've been prescribed more for her dry skin, which is partly contributing to her 'mizu ibo' these kind of pimple-like wart thingies. What the heck are they called in English someone?

Mysteries of Babies, no 42,693

Why do they think their HAIR is the appropriate place to put unwanted food? Bye Bye soup and bread. It was nice. I ate the leftovers. Meanwhile the older girls decided to make themselves some dessert/afternoon tea. They made me one too. Here it is, a banana 'split' with honey and crumbled chocolate cookies. I think they want me to stay fat. Fat Mum = lots of dessert and trips to McDonald's. Skinny Mum = salad and lots of grilled fish. YOU figure it out! And now for two totally superfluous vids, Erica riding her rocking horse with great skill. Watch closely, I can't figure out why she suddenly became so intrigued by her sock, but maybe the horse ran her foot over? In this vid, she's supposed to be saying cute things. Oh well, failure is cute too when you're one.

Cute Stuff

The cheeky grin is because she KNOWS she has tofu in her hair. She put it there.


Amy and Lena with best friend Maia

Videos:

No prizes for guessing what's in the box:


Proof my kids brush their teeth.

Aren't baby giggles the best sound?

White Christmas:


My baby got the moves, she can groove. Sugar power.

Sankanbi Again

Just got back from the monthly observation class. Amy's class were doing an interesting activity with tape on the floor dividing the room into four quadrants, and the kids went to a different one depending on their answers to a question. Just simple stuff, like do you prefer udon noodles or ramen noodles.

Lena's class were doing Reading Comprehension - a little story about a fox and a bear and a rabbit, which was apt, because the whole reason she wanted me to come, and the reason in the end that I went, was to see a book in her classroom that has a rabbit in it called Rachel (above, the rabbit and my name in Katakana)


For both of them, half the fun is having baby sister Erica come in and disrupt the class! Here she is, sitting at Lena's desk. The kids literally poking her, are saying 'It's a baby! It's a baby!'




Leaving the school grounds, Amy and Lena take on the 'one, two, wheeeeee' job of flying baby through the air. Advantages of having more than 2 kids - you get to stand back and watch! And a rare half-decent photo of us.


On the way home, Amy's feet started hurting, so Daddy indulged her. We don't know if it's just growing pains, or too-small shoes, or if she's injured herself, but sometimes she just gets really sore feet. Lena was happy because it meant she got to hold Lena the whole time.


Erica loves her big sisters of course. Here she is, running towards Lena, who comes to save her from her fall, but Erica just keeps going! She's wearing mittens with squeakies on the palm, so she had padding on her hands.

Climbing Demons

And I'm not actually talking about my kids.

We went to a groovy festival last night, the highlight of which was a Kagura dance Oni demon who climbed up a bamboo pole. I say pole, but really it was a bamboo tree, propped up firmly on the ground, and secured at the top with three guide ropes. I'm sure it was three storeys high to the tip of the leaves.

There was a bonfire beside it, and a large pan set on a tripod over the bonfire. Three traditional musicians sat by the side, playing the drum, cymbals and flute. First they did traditional kagura dancing, with a 'priest' and a 'demon' dancing round and round the fire, the priest eventually subduing the demon. During this dance, the demon comes and takes little children from their parents and spins them round. This is for good luck, but the babies of course scream, much to everyone's amusement. Erica got taken for a few seconds, and was thereafter much afraid, and clung tightly to me whenever she saw one.

Finally the climbing began, and three more onis appeared, and they took turns trying, and failing, to climb up. Finally one demon managed to do it, in bare feet, no safety equipment, shimmying up the pole, stopping occasionally to applaud himself and work up some support from the crowd. It was so exciting watching him get higher and higher (I wonder if the 'failures' weren't deliberate to make the feat seem all the more amazing), afraid he would fall or the bamboo would topple over. It swayed dangerously, but they straightened it with the guide ropes.

He made it to a cross-post high up, and untied a package of confetti, which he threw into the wind, then a bag of mochi (pounded rice cakes) which he threw for good luck. Amy and Lena managed to score some, I was too busy holding Erica and trying to take photos on my phone - Kanji took the camera to his party, and I regret letting him have it! He's going to come home with boring photos of people I barely know getting pissed, and you're going to have to squint to try to see the demon in a crappy tiny phone photo.

The descent was not a let-down - instead of coming down the pole, he slid down one of the guide ropes. Half way down his body fell off and he hung by his hands for a minute, before hauling himself back up on the rope again, then sliding down the rest of the way, with a flourish, but with no gloves or other protection from the ropes. Must have hurt!

There followed the official opening, and speeches, then another priest did some rituals in front of the huge bamboo bonfire, before three official took flames to different parts of the bonfire. I lit slowly at first and I thought I'd have time to go back to the house (this was all happening in the rice fields behind Jiichan and Baachan's house) and recharge the video camera batteries, but it suddenly took hold and whooshed up into huge flames, again 2-3 storeys high.

I was in a total panic as I was downwind and hot ash was flying around - and I had no idea where any of my children were! Amy and Lena had been running around all day with some friends from school, and I had last seen them over by the climbing demon. And a woman I vaguely know from the Stand took Erica as I was trying to photograph the men lighting the fire. Turns out she knew more than I did about how fast the flames blew out of control, and she took her far away. So when I looked around to find them they were gone!

I skirted round to the upwind side of the bonfire, and finally found Erica sitting happily in Jiichan's arms, then Amy and Lena in the furthest part of the field from the bonfire. Heat and common sense sent them there.

After the fire started to die down, the food was served - free pork and vegetable soup, fried chicken and other fried foods, and a dessert of mochi in a soupy sweet bean paste, called zensai, a special festival celebration food that no-one likes much.

I went back the house after that, but the excitement wasn't over yet. I managed to lose Erica, after we got back to the safety of the house and I let my guard down. I thought she'd toddled off to the kitchen, but when I went to see what she was doing (it was suspiciously quiet - Mums know the deafening sound of silence when toddlers are involved) she wasn't there. The door to the hall, and the front door was open. I had a split second to choose between checking the bath room and outside.

The bath is always full, as Baachan fills it with special filtered water during the day. The door is always open, but the cover is always on it and Erica isn't really aware that the bath is in there, the way she is with the bath at home.

So I chose outside, and ran out, in my socks. I couldn't see her, but just as I ran out the door, I heard Amy and Lena calling to her. They were on the other side of the river on the road leading to the festival ground. The river runs across the back of Jiichan and Baachan's back garden, disappearing into a culvert and the new road on the far side of the river runs diagonally to meet the car parking area at the rear of the house. So we could walk down the parking area, meet the road, and double back along it past the back of the garden on the far side of the river.

I thought she'd managed to toddle all the way across the parking area, find the road and start walking along it, where they happened to be. I started to follow, watching Amy and Lena run towards the river, still no sign of Erica, then Lena let out a chilling, genuine scream of terror, and I was convinced Erica had fallen into the river, which was not deep, but very muddy. So I quickly changed direction and headed toward the river, yelling to Amy and Lena to tell me where she is, and seeing them point towards me over the river, and all I needed to know then was exaclty where she'd fallen in so I could jump in there, as I knew I wouldn't be able to move far in the mud, I had to go in where she was.

Then I heard her yell - not from the river, but from the parking area, practically right next to me. I just had to skirt around one parked car to find her, standing right by the tiny (like 15cm high) wall that runs along the back of the parking area at the top of the river wall. She had not followed the road like a person with a brain would, she had just gone straight toward the people and noise, brought to halt at the wall, sheer instinct stopping her from trying to go across. She was at that point in time, calling out to Amy and Lena, who she could see across the river. They had seen her only seconds before, and got very frightened and started to yell and scream just as I left the house.

The whole event must have taken only a minute or two, it's amazing how fast they can move!

Amy's Kitchen

Amy got the idea just before the winter holidays began that she'd like to run a restaurant at our house for all her friends to come to, while she cooked. She started drawing up free tickets (she insisted it must be free) to hand out to her friends at school.

I managed to convince her that she should choose one or two days only to be 'open' and not just hang around at home all holidays! And I was saved by her own procrastination as she never did finish the tickets.

But I had promised her we would do it, so we did, with a few modifications - we did it at Jiichan and Baachan's house (so I wouldn't have to tidy up here!), have it only on one day, for one meal, and just ask a few relatives and a few of my friends to come. I only issued invitations on the morning of the lunch so not so many turned up, but just enough people came to keep Amy busy enough to realize that it was a bigger job than she had anticipated.


Menu: sausages, salad and an egg made to your specifications (fried, scrambled or Japanese omelet); rice and miso soup; fruit salad and ginger cookie for dessert; coffee


Dessert course

She made the cookies the night before, I only helped with the measuring and I put them in and took them out of the oven. She made the salad and the fruit salad by herself in the morning at home, I put the rice cooker on, and she made the miso soup herself, including the cutting of the vegetables.

She held up her end of the bargain and made most of the eggs - she can do fried eggs, scrambled eggs and Japanese-style omelets, so the idea was we'd have a set menu and the guest would choose which type of egg they'd like, which she would then cook up. I say 'most of' because Jiichan took over at one stage, much to Amy's chagrin. Nothing we could say could convince him that she can indeed fry an egg, because he saw her mess one up. She only messed that one because she was not used to using a non-non-stick pan, and he annoyed me too actually by just not listening when even I explained that she CAN fry an egg, she's just not used to that pan. On the other hand, he did teach her a neat new trick - to add a teaspoon of water and put a rice bowl upside-down over the egg to cook the white on the top. We were relieve Baachan wasn't there, we knew she would have just taken over completely. Why can't they just play along???




Lena was the waitress, which she got sick of, and I had to help out, but she kept going until the end too. All in all, both girls did a really excellent job.

The guests were very happy with their meals, and I think it looks like a very nice menu. I ate mine first actually, to give them a practice round before the first guest arrived. In the end there was me, my friend Keiko, one of the gasoline stand staff, Aunty Mie and Uncle Masamitsu, my friend Mari and her baby, and two 'obento' or take-out meals for Aunty Toyoko and her Daddy.

Several others who couldn't come expressed regret, and said they'll come next time! 'Next time' will be at home, to minimize grandparental interference. If they can't appreciate the charm of the situation and just think it's all a huge inconvenince to them, they can just miss out. Next time also, I think I'll charge 500yen, as it looks like quite a few people might come!

Blog Day

It's snowing. Perfect weather to sit in front of the computer all day and update the blog! Amy and Lena went to stay at Maia's house last night. Lena has been waiting and wishing and wanting to go there for ages, so she was out of her mind happy last night when Maia's Mum said "Yes!". Amy went too, not wanting to feel left out. They promised not to fight and god I hope they didn't!!! Actually they haven't been fighting as much lately, they've been trying really hard.

Erica is sitting at the window watching the snow. She'd love to go out and play, but it's just icy/watery snow, quickly melting. It doesn't seem worth the effort to pile on hats and coats and scarfs and gloves just to get wet and cold and come back inside after five minutes.

I'm going to blog about her baby signs, and Amy's Kitchen and the Big Red Car. And her and Lena's box house, and how they're doing at school. I also have to check flights, and back-up my files now that I've got my CD writer working. Busy screen day, I'll have a headache by the time it's over.

New Year

The Osechi Ryori. Traditional Japanese New Year food. The idea is that the housewife cooks up these dishes during the last few days of the year, to be stored in these pretty boxes and eaten during the first few days of the new year, thereby saving her from having to cook. In reality, several other dishes are cooked and eaten as well, like ozoni (see below), soba noodles, and the housewife gets no rest serving them and the osechi ryori up. Although I have heard of households where indeed, just these cold meats, seafoods and vegetables were served up for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

My MIL buys her osechi ryori, hence we have a really nice one. It just would not be feasible to make all of these dishes yourself, homemade osechi tends to have a much more limited range of dishes. The osechi is being called oretchi on some forums, some foreigners (and Japanese too) hate it so much, and it would get sickening I suppose if this was all you were served for two days, with no hot food, but such is not the case with us.

We had sukiyaki on New Year's day, and ate out at Baskin Robbins, McDonald's and sushi as well over the New Year period. But I really like the osechi, probably because it's all over for us by the end of the first day, and because it's a bought set, cooked nicely with a lot of variety.



Vinegared vegetables inside the grapefruit; mushrooms stuffed with fish paste and next to them the long yellow things are kazenoko, another special New Year food, a kind of fish eggs, very rubbery and grainy, an aquired taste and one I haven't yet acquired; barbecued chicken; dried fish with soy sauce and sesame seeds, this is also a traditional New Year food, as are the next two, prawns and sweet black beans. Next line konyaku (a jelly-like substance made from arum root), and squid; vinegared lotus root and kelp seaweed tied in knots; simmered fern root and rolled pork.



Kamaboko, a kind of fish paste sausage and another kind of minced fish wrapped in bacon; battered deep-fried shrimp in chilli sauce; chicken on sticks with barbecue sauce; a kind of sushi, wrapped in a thin egg omelet and gobo (burdock root) wrapped in eel; peppered rare roast beef and a New Year special sweet; simmered vegetables - taro, beans and cherry-blossom cut carrots; abalone in their shells with boiled bamboo shoots underneath; rolled eggy fishpaste stuff, I'm not really sure what it is but I like it and we ate it in the ozoni too, and New Year sweet mochi (pounded rice) balls on a skewer with granulated sugar coating. I ate all of that one! And finally baby octopuses, I think Kanji at all of those, and scallops.



Some more Japanese New Year traditional foods - on the left, ozoni, which is at its simplest a fish-based broth with pounded rice cakes. Baachan adds white/Chinese cabbage and the big Japanese spring onions that are more like leeks. Then the next day, she made it out of leftover miso soup, so it can have a miso flavoring as well. I really love it. On the right are the sweet black beans. I like these too, though not as much as chocolate of course. Accompanying the beans is another hallowed Japanese tradition, although they would probably deny it - the TV remote. From the famous Red and White song contest (team colors, not song themes) on New Year's Eve, to multiple New Year's special programming, a lack of official activities apart from a visit to a shrine, and no feasting or partying but just special foods eaten at home, a LOT of television gets watched over the New Year holiday



At the kotatsu. The heated table in the centre of the living room where all the action, or rather conspicuous lack of action, takes place at New Year. Kanji guzzling ozoni, Erica trying to get the camera. Another noted New Year activity is the Nap. Here Kanji teaches Erica how it's done.



This particular activity would go down better during a NZ New Year, I think! Here we are eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Zoom in to my fabulous sundae, it was superb. The shop was crowded, what does that tell you about the lasting appeal of osechi ryori?





Finally it snowed! On the evening of the first, a beautiful flurry, just when I was venturing out to get some supplies from home for another over-nighter at Baachan's. So here's my little car in the snow, Jiichan's garden, my dwarf gnome looking romantically ghostly and a bush by my front door.