Tag Archive for 'baba'

Happy Birthday, Baba!

Published on March 8, 2010 in weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

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.


2010-03-07 Image Gallery

It’s a Zoo Out There

Published on November 4, 2009 in Family, Japan and weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Culture Day is here at last! I’d been waiting for this day to come, ever since I found out about the surprise holiday two days ago. We planned on using the tickets Tamie’s Mom got us and going to the zoo. So long as the weather held out, Tamie’s illness held off, and Layla’s lack of a fever held strong, we’d be good to go.

The weather, luckily, co-operated after blowing and raining the night before. The wind was still fiercely cold but the sun was out and shining strong. Perfect weather for a jacket and sandals.

Tamie seemed much better than Monday night, when she called me at work to tell me she wasn’t feeling well. It’s never good when there’s a phone call to complain. Layla, too, was under the weather. She’s always something on the go, though, so she takes it all in stride. Fortunately, come Culture Day, both were raring to go.

We go to the zoo just after noon, right around the time Layla wanted to lay down and take a nap. I carried her for the first hour, worried she’d fall asleep at every step. It wasn’t until I started taking too long looking at monkeys she wasn’t interested in that she started getting more assertive. By the time we got some food in her for lunch, she was leading Tamie around by the arm, freeing me to take pictures and look at animals. Tamie had a blast running around with Layla too, quite happy to chase and be chased by the little ball of energy. It’s amazing how much of a second wind Layla can get when she gets excited about something. I wish my first wind was that strong.

Over the course of the day, we explored the zoo. A lot of the animals were active – the tiger was pacing hungrily in the window, much to the kids’ delight. One of the lions came over and smiled at Layla before roaring and then leaving to get some sun. Despite all that, the only thing that scared her was the grouse that ran beside her in the bird sanctuary. It’s amazing how fast she can move when motivated by fear. I guess I need to scare her more in the mornings to get her out of bed.

Nearing the end of the day, we headed for the okapi cage, which was closing at 4:30pm. On the way, we found a playground with a big okapi slide. Unsurprisingly, Layla made a mad dash for the playground, claiming that this was the okapi we’d come to see. Other than falling off the zip-line and wanting to go up a ladder she couldn’t climb, she had a great time going up and down the slides. She wanted to try the zip-line by herself, pushing me away when I tried to lift her up to get a good grip, but she couldn’t hold onto the rope so fell to the ground. Her cries were heard throughout the park – I think some of the monkeys even cried back.

We did, eventually, find the okapi — apparently they have 6 okapi there. One of them was named Layla, much to Tamie’s surprise. She was excited to see Layla’s name up on a poster — Layla, not so much. By this point, the poor kid’s second wind was gone, and her third one was fading fast. She was back on my chest, sucking her thumb and trying to sleep. Not even sitting on statues or other playgrounds would wake her up. She got a spurt of energy as we were leaving when she saw a couple more statues, touching the giraffe and riding on the baby elephant. That didn’t last long, though – one trip over a tree stump and she was crying and back in my arms in no time.

Layla seems to love animals, knowing what each one was and what sound they made (from the good coaching by her chinni, no doubt). So long as they are behind glass or cage, she’s quite happy to watch them and even pretends to want to pet them. Statues, too, she’s quite comfortable around – she got mad when I wouldn’t put her on top of the giant elephant statue – the fact it was twice as tall as me didn’t seem like a good enough reason for her.

As we waited for the bus, Layla turned off. She clutched the okapi toy she’d gotten from the gift shop closely, before drifting off. One bus and one train later and we were in Yokohama for dinner. After a quick, if not good, Indian curry dinner, a balloon from a Panasonic booth babe and some ice cream at a gelato shop, we headed home.

御祖母さんありがとうございます！
Thanks, Baba (Layla’s name for her Japanese Grandma), for a great day!

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Sick and Tired… But Mostly Sick.

Published on October 1, 2009 in Japan and Layla's sick days. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I woke up this morning to the sounds of a crying baby… before sunrise — it’s always a bad sign when Layla is awake before we are on a weekday. I went and grabbed her and brought her back into our bed in the hopes she’d get some sleep and allow us to do the same. Unfortunately the sweaty, feverish baby also had a bug bite on her leg that she insisted on scratching so despite her silence there was constant movement as she was determined to stop that itch. Eventually, after several warnings and Tamie grabbing her leg, Layla finally slept.

Hours later, we all woke up and scrambled to get ready as we got up later than expected, as usual. I wonder, if one always gets up later than one expects, shouldn’t one’s expectations eventually change? I’ll let you know if/when mine do. It was with little surprise that I found Layla had a fever and, as a result, could not go to daycare. Thankfully, Tamie’s mom was available to take care of her so we were able to go to work.

Since I didn’t have to drop Layla at daycare, I had the wonderful opportunity to get in an even more crowded train than usual (ie. an earlier one). The general strategy I employ when getting on such trains is to find an old lady or a young student sitting on a seat and stand in front of them. They are usually the ones that get off the earliest leaving me with a place to sit down and sleep for 45 minutes. Luckily for me, I found a plum old lady sitting alone watching the time closely on her cell phone. Unluckily for me, her apparent eagerness to get off was not a sign of her impending departure and I was forced to stand for the whole trip.

Stinky salary men on my flanks and at least two elbows in my back, I was having a great time on my commute. The only bright side was the train was running late due to a fierce drizzling of rain meaning even more people tried to cram their ways onto the coach at every stop. At one stop a guy got literally stuck in the door. These aren’t your friendly elevator doors that reopen if they bump into someone – he was seriously stuck. It took two train employees to open the door enough so that he could cram himself into the sardine can with the rest of us. The funny thing is, I’m sure that in the time it took to dislodge him from the door and get the train moving again, the next train would have come.

A busy workday later, I got a phone call from Tamie. Her mom is concerned about Layla and thinks she might have swine flu so she’s taking her to a clinic. Say what? It was during this phone call that I found out that one of the daycare staff had caught the virus. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

I told Tamie I’d go and meet her and Layla in Ebina, and at just after 9 we met up. Layla, hopped up on drugs, seemed absolutely fine, although she hadn’t eaten anything and was still boiling. On the way home, I grabbed a light double quarter-pounder meal at McDonald’s and we got Layla some bread to go with her water, at her request. We shared the food which, looking back, might not have been the smartest thing to do given her high fever and my not wanting to get sick.

It wasn’t long after we got home that Tamie started feeling a bit sick. And then a bit more sick. She went to lay down while I stayed up with Layla, who refused to go to bed but instead laid on me trying not to fall asleep. It was a losing battle that she eventually gave up — I put her to bed with little trouble, thankfully. At this point, Tamie emerged from the bedroom looking ready to keel over. She was planning on working at home but those plans obviously changed to planning on not dying. I told her to her to get back to bed and rest but she refused and instead laid on me trying not to fall asleep. It was a losing battle that she eventually gave up… it’s sometimes scary how similar my two girls are…

… and then there’s me. The pillar of health, tapping out this blog entry in my vain attempt of not going to bed and exposing myself to whatever it is that those two might have caught. Is it swine flu? Who knows — not the doctor, that’s for sure… turns out you (or at least he) can’t properly diagnose swine flu in the early stages so Layla needs to go see a doctor again tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.,