Today was Tamie’s mom’s birthday and we celebrated in style. We all went out to lunch at one of her favourite restaurants… the restaurant is up in the mountains and hamster and papa-san took the second car (the GPS-less Celica) while the rest of us all crammed into the Prius. Along the way, we saw the Celica drive past us going in the opposite direction – turns out they stopped to pick up a dozen roses. The birthday girl’s eyes lit up when she saw the flowers – mission accomplished!
Lunch was good and beefy with a bit of wine and a bit more beer. Even the birthday girl went with a glass of wine after debating which kind of juice to drink.
For whatever reason, Layla decided she wanted to sit on my lap for most of the lunch, helping to eat the good parts of my meal. She’s really learning the word ‘share’ these days… she uses it a lot, although the definition is a bit off in her mind. To her, sharing means “you have something I want”. To be honest, it was initially a one-way street, but these days she is getting better at actual sharing too, not just asking to share.
After lunch, Jiji wanted to buy Layla a piano. At least, that was my uneducated interpretation of what I heard is. We headed to Toys R Us of all places, where Layla ran up and down the aisles taking it all in. In the end, she picked out some books and a kid karaoke machine with a bunch of Japanese kids’ songs. There was a 7.1 megapixel camera there for 2500 yen that I almost bought for her, but thought better of it… she plays with my camera enough – if she breaks it, I’ll just have to buy a new one… something I wouldn’t be loathe to do.
We headed back to the grandparents’ house for some karaoke fun. Multiple renditions of several of the 32 songs were sung by at least Tamie and Layla, with the occasional vocal backings of the aunt and/or grandparents. Seems like that little machine is a good investment so far! We’ll see how much they like those 32 songs in a year.
We came back home after doing a bit of grocery shopping, Tamie prepared supper while I played with Layla. We ended up watching the princess and the frog… Tamie nearly burst into tears at the end because of the … well, I won’t ruin the ending for anyone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures from the lunch, the shopping, the karaoke, or the movie… but I did snap a few of running in the rain.
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