I love going back to Canada for the holidays, hanging out with family and friends, eating until I can’t possibly eat one more bite… except for maybe just one more cookie. What I don’t love is the process of packing cramming the suitcases with more than they can hold and weighing them, repeating as necessary, until either it all fits or we have to pare it down to fit.
Ah well, a small price to pay for the holiday cheers in Ottawa.
Get ready, family. Only one more sleep. Followed by a 2 hour bus ride. Then a 12 hour flight. Then a 2 hour layover. And another 40 minute flight. Yep, it’s like we’re already there. =)
On Friday, Tamie called me while I was going to work to ask if I had any idea why the carbon monoxide detector in our place would be going off. Surprisingly, I had no idea. The building maintenance guy had heard it going off and called Tamie to come and check it out. By the time she got back to the apartment, the alarm was silent and everything seemed normal. As a precaution, she called the gas company and they set up an appointment on the following day to come and investigate. We spent the night at home and Tamie even cooked with our gas stove, so I suspected it was just a false alarm.
Saturday morning, pre-8am, Tamie’s dad came over to wake us up bright and mostly early. He was going to stick around our place for the gas people coming over while we took Layla to her daycare event. Tamie’s mom joined us for the fun, and what fun it turned out to be. We were scrambling to get ready and made it with seconds to spare. As such, we got stuck in the back of the room, hidden behind the two hundred other parents, and the hundred or so tripods set up. I ended up standing so I could actually see, and record, the action.
Layla did a great job in her performance, obviously not shy to be on stage. Luckily she didn’t end up headbutting anyone with her performance, although I think she did whip herself in the face once or twice. At the end of the event, she was pretty excited and clearly quite pleased with how things turned out. Tamie, as is becoming usual, was so proud she cried.
After the event, we took Layla to a local waffle shop for a fruit covered waffle. She, instead, went after the yogurt that came with Tamie’s soup and sandwich. It wasn’t until after the yogurt was done that she looked at the blueberries, strawberries and bananas that covered the ice-cream topped waffle. I tried to eat my lunch quickly so I might get a sniff of that fruit, but alas, I was too late.
Once lunch was finished, we headed to Isehara to meet up with Tamie’s dad again. Layla seemed tired, probably from going to bed late, getting up early and dancing up a storm. She tried to sleep on me as I held her on the train… unfortunately for her, it was only a ten minute ride and we were in the car with grandpa in no time. He drove us up into the mountains to meet the rest of the family for a day of picking oranges. We cleaned one of the two trees assigned to the family, Layla proudly picking (and eating) several oranges herself. Tamie scooted up the tree to pick oranges off the central top and I, being the tallest, got the dubious honour of picking the oranges that she couldn’t reach around the edges. Teamwork – it’s a wonderful thing.
We were invited for sukiyaki at the grandparents’ house, and never one to turn down a good meal, I quickly said yes. We went back to the house to drop off the oranges and take a bit of a rest. Poor Layla fell asleep in the car, just before we pulled into the driveway. We were planning on going shopping and debated just leaving her in the car to sleep but thought better of it. As soon as I unbuckled her seatbelt, though, her eyes popped open and she was wide awake again. We went inside for some tea and potato chips that Layla found. While eating them, the poor kid told me to come with her and nap on the couch. It was pretty funny… “Take a nap! Take a nap! Please! On the couch!” she pleaded.
I put the exhausted kid down on her futon, the place she usually naps, and she almost fell asleep. When baa-baa suggested buying some cake, she popped up like a jack-in-the-box. She tried to get us all to go for cake, but we told her we were taking the car and going shopping. I could see the wheels turning in her head as she weighed the options. Cake or shopping. Tough choices at such a young age. In the end, she decided to come with us as we headed out to try to do some Christmas/clothes shopping.
We headed to the shopping centre with the biggest baby store to try and find some clothes for Layla. On the way, the poor kid fought the urge to fall asleep, losing the battle just as we pulled up to the store. We sat in the parking lot for a couple minutes as she sawed logs in the back seat. After ten minutes, I picked her up and carried her into the store. When she saw we were shopping, she immediately woke up and got her second (or, more precisely, fourteenth) wind.
As we entered the baby store, Layla wanted to head to the toy department right away but we cut her off and told her after the clothes shopping. It wasn’t until recently that we noticed that all of her pants seem to end just under her knee and her gut sticks out from under her shirt. She’s already a big kid, but wearing clothes that are too small just emphasize the fact that she’s a might bit bigger than the other kids in her age group. We ended up buying her a couple different pairs of pants and shirts, as there was a good sale on. We only lost track of her once in the store, when she disappeared to find the toy section she’d been pleading with us to see.
After buying a completely new wardrobe for the little princess, we went next door to Toys R Us to see if there was anything interesting for Christmas presents. It was no surprise that Layla didn’t just find one thing interesting – she found everything interesting. From the stuffed animals in the first corner of the store to the cars and trucks in the middle and the candies and drinks at the cash register. If it were up to her, she’d have every toy in the place. Luckily, it’s not up to her and we left with cash in our wallets and room in the car.
Before heading back home for dinner, we stopped to get groceries and, more importantly, meat. At the meat store, Layla found a package with Thomas the Tank Engine on it – she had no idea what was inside but knew that she wanted it. It turned out to be a package of sausages, which she was more than happy to chow down on.
Back in Isehara, we had a nice meal with the family, and I think everyone ate too much. I know I did. After supper, Hamster and Baa-baa wanted to take Layla to see the Christmas lights on one particular house in the neighbourhood. I went along, camera in hand, to see the sight. It was quite a sight, indeed. Even in Canada, it would stick out. Layla loved it.
Friday night was a night of joviality as the company Bonenkai, aka “end-of-year” party, was held. If you remember last year’s (and I certainly don’t), it ended with a black eye and a missed daycare event. Much to my surprise, I was told that Layla’s big daycare event this year fell on the 5th, coincidentally the day after the party. Again. This year, as difficult as it was, I was determined not to miss Layla’s big event. It was through sheer force of will that I was able to tear myself away and not go to the second bar. I was tempted, as it wasn’t the last train yet, but I knew if I’d gone I never would have left.
So it came as a bit of a shocker to find that the daycare event wasn’t actually on this Saturday. Somehow the lines of communications got crossed somewhere and it is actually next weekend. Hangoverless, shinerless and in my own bed – what an unexpected way to wake up.
We ended up heading down to Harajuku, to check out the Christmas lights… and also another big toy store. 6 floors of toys was time well spent. Unfortunately, 6 floors of crowds as people, strangely, did their Christmas shopping (strangely, because they don’t even celebrate Christmas here!). The weather might have forced more people into the stores than normal, as it was pouring down rain for most of the day and night.
After shopping, we took a brief look outside at the lights before ducking into Omotesando Hills shopping centre to escape the rain. The lights were nice, but not as nice as being dry. Instead of braving the elements, I took my hungry girls to get some grub in their tummies. It was off to Shinjuku for supper, a meal at a restaurant Tamie had been looking forward to all day.
It didn’t take long to get to the restaurant – a Chinese dumpling place at the top of Takashimaya (another huge shopping center… as if there’s any small shopping centers here, but this one is 13 floors of consumer-y goodness!). Unfortunately, it seemed like half of Tokyo also had a hankering for dumplings as the line stretched around not one, but two corners in the hallway. As ridiculous as it sounds, we waited. And waited. and waited. And after more than an hour of waiting, we waited some more. And then, we got a table.
Dinner was actually quite good. Even Layla enjoyed the meaty, soup-filled dumplings. We ate several kinds of dumplings, until our bellies were full and our appetites satiated.
After eating, we looked around Shinjuku a bit – luckily the rain had stopped by then, before taking the 22:00 train home. Layla was in bed before midnight, which meant that we were lucky enough to sleep in on Sunday. Win-win, I’d say.
Sunday, we weren’t so adventurous, deciding to stay more local. Layla opened the laptop and wanted to talk to Nonni and Chinni, so we called Mom and Dad, via Skype. The first time we tried they were out casino-ing, so while we waited for their luck to run out, Tamie went jogging while I showered Layla, did the laundry and cleaned the house. Yep, you read that right. An hour later, we tried Skype again and Layla left a message for them. Of course after Layla calls, they call back almost right away.
After chatting for a while (ie. until Layla got more interested in a puzzle than the webcam), we let the grandparents go to bed and we headed out to Machida for some lunch, some ice cream and, of course, some more shopping. We picked the kid up a new jacket for daycare, one that actually fits. Strangely enough, the store that we bought it from were selling Yogen Fruz candies. I haven’t seen a single Yogen Fruz store in this country, but I’ve never seen candy in Canada. Weird, eh?
Layla got sleepy before we got around to getting ice cream so we ended up in a coffee shop instead while the poor kid snored on my chest. When she finally came to, she’d all but forgotten about ice cream. She got her mom to fix her ponytail, as it got a bit messy as she slept… and then I fixed her hair in the front. Pineapple hair, as it’s affectionately known as, at least in this house.
As the lunch we ate was fairly late and sizeably big, we headed back to Ebina for a nice, quiet(ish) night at home. Tamie prepared salad and then we watched the movie “Up”, which was a decent flick, before putting Layla down for the night.
