Tag Archive for 'playground'

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Shopaholics Anonymous

Published on November 8, 2009 in weekend. 0 Comments Tags: carboard toboggan, Ebina, ice cream, machida, park, playground, shoes, shopping, slide, Starbucks.

To say that this weekend was a bit lazy would be an understatement. In fact, to say that this weekend was a lot lazy would still be an understatement.

Saturday we woke up around 1… in the afternoon. Layla was up until 11 the previous night, but she’d never slept in this late. I would have gladly slept in another hour if I wasn’t worried the poor kid was dead, or worse. Luckily she was still sawing logs, sweating up a storm in the process. I think she might have had a bit of a fever early in the morning and had sweat it out by mid afternoon. It’s why we kept her up late the previous night — score one for forward thinking parenting!

Our plan for the day was to go out and get some shoes. Big plans, to be sure, but we were already behind schedule. After getting cleaned up and having breakfast we were off to Machida for some shopping fun. If there’s one thing I love, it’s shoe shopping. Especially with my two favourite girls…

Surprisingly, we found Tamie’s shoes at the first place we hit. It was amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen before. She didn’t even need to try on more than three pairs of shoes before deciding. Twas’ a sign of things to come, or so I’d hoped, as we headed off to find my shoes…

The last pair of shoes I got here, they didn’t have my size so I had to get it delivered through the mail. I had tried some on for size, and they fit pretty well, so thought the ones coming in the mail would be as comfortable. After a couple days of wearing them, trying to break them in properly, I found they still were a bit small. To this day, they are still one of the most uncomfortable pair of shoes I’ve ever bought. With that in mind, I was determined to find a pair of shoes, in stock, that we could try on and buy… no matter how long it took.

I found a pair that seemed decent, and we asked the salesguy for a size 27, the sizes here being the size of your foot in cm… I’m still not exactly sure what the size 10 I wore in Canada actually represented, as my foot is neither 10 centimeters or 10 inches. He brought them and they were a bit snug, to say the least. We tried a 27.5 and again they were a bit small. Finally the guy looked at my current shoes, which were supposedly size 10 and said that should be a 28… I tried on a 28… and voila – a much better fit. Especially compared to the torturous shoes I’d been wearing. We walked out of that, the first store we hit for my shoes, successful in our search for shoes. Two for two!

To celebrate, we headed off for some ice cream. Layla told me she didn’t want a big ice cream, but she wanted me to have a big ice cream. How could I say no to that? She ended up taking all the parts of my parfait that she wanted, leaving me with her leftovers. Regardless, it was a decent snack and turned out to be most of our dinner. It turned out to be later than we thought and we were a bit stuffed, even after looking around for a while after the ice cream. We ended up at the outback for some steak salad… and some ice cream (for the kid) for dessert.

Today, we headed off for another trip to the park. Layla seems to love it there, and we love to take her. It’s the only grass field for miles, so it’s kind of a special place here… making it kind of a busy place too. One interesting thing about the grass park is the hill, where kids use cardboard as toboggans and slide down it. It sure looks ghetto, but I guess when there’s no snow you have to make do with what you got. One lady even tricked out her cardboard by putting plastic handles on it. Very impressive, indeed.

At the park, we kicked a ball around before heading off to the playground for some slide fun, only to close out with a terrifying steam spray. The same steam spray Layla used to love to run through as a young(er) kid, she’s now deathly afraid of. I ended up carrying her through it, which is more than she let me do last time, so progress is being made, albeit slowly. Maybe someday she’ll be as brave as she was when she was a year old. Maybe.

As we were leaving the park, the chipper youngster chirped up with her suggestion of what to do next. “Starbucks!” The call for the green tea frappuccino was message enough that we go there far too often. Regardless, we went. Some parents mark lines on a wall to watch how their kids grow up — we take pictures at Starbucks. I figure in five years, I’ll send the pictures in to the marketing department and see if I can’t make a few bucks on all the money we spent there. It’s really more of an investment, in that respect.

While we were sucking back our drinks, Layla pointed out that we dress her like a bum. The knee of her pants, already sewn up once, had another hole from her skinning her knee one of any number of times. She was adamant that we buy her new pants, and we were more than happy to oblige. We went to the Gap where a nice saleslady got to practice her English with us. She showed us a great deal on a new line of pants — buy 2 pairs and get 20% off the purchase. Sounded good. The only problem — there’s no way I am going to shell out 9200 yen (100 bucks!) on pants for my kid that she’s either going to outgrow or rip in two months. Even with a 20% discount.

I checked a few other places while Layla played, but I couldn’t find anything decent for a decent price. Tamie took a look and found a couple options (I’ll admit, she’s a much better shopper than I am). Layla picked a pair, tried them on, and was so happy with them that she ended up wearing them moments after we bought them.

Not having spent enough money yet, we headed off to buy a new vacuum cleaner. It wasn’t exactly a spur of the moment thing, as every time I vacuumed Tamie would complain about the quality of my work, and I would complain about the quality of the tools I was equipped with. The fact that she complained about the tool whenever she vacuumed too was a clear indicator it was less the blame of the operator as it was the fault of the machine. One new vacuum cleaner later, and I have a happy wife and a cleaner apartment. How’s that for win-win?

The last thing we wanted to buy, a Google phone for Tamie, had to be put on hold because by the time we actually got around to it, the store had closed. It wasn’t a total loss, though, as it will give us something to do next week, if we don’t find something else to do first.

Pictures from the weekend are here:

Saturday
Sunday

Farm Festival and a Day at the Park

Published on October 19, 2009 in Family, Japan and weekend. 2 Comments Tags: ball, bubbles, Ebina, farm festival, isehara, Layla, park, playground, rope bridge, slide, Tamie.

Saturday was a day of a farm festival in Isehara, the city Tamie’s parents live in. They wanted to take Layla and we were more than happy to oblige – Tamie’s always excited to expose Layla to terrifying animals like mice and chicks. Layla seemed excited to go too, talking about how she wanted to see and pet rabbits at the fair.

After what should have been a quick stop at the hospital for Layla’s routine checkup for her asthma, delayed only by a swine flu outbreak in our city and a hospital computer system that went down, we were off to see the farm animals.

The festival was a bit bigger than last year’s, with a lot of people milling about like the livestock they were gawking at. Layla summed up all of her courage and milked a fake cow. Unfortunately with her courage sapped, by the time we got to the petting portion of the festival, she was scared stiff of all the animals running around her. Even the bunny she was so anxious to pet was terrifying.

Tamie’s sister joined us in the petting pen. She tried to get Layla to pet a rabbit to no avail. Even grandma was getting into the act — she promised the cowardly little girl popcorn if she could touch a baby goat just once. Layla, too smart for her own good sometimes, knew grandma would be getting her popcorn regardless and ignored the goat completely. So instead of petting animals, we went and got some festival food. And popcorn.

After the festival we went back to the house to have a deliciously homemade Sukiyaki meal. Twice in two weeks! Sorry Tamie, but I love it. Layla crashed on the way home, ragdolling in my arms before we made it back to the apartment. I bet she dreamed of ferocious bunnies and scary chicks.

Sunday was almost a typical Sunday. A typical Sunday involves waking up late, rollerblading, Tamie jogging at some point and starbucks-ing. We woke up late-ish, Layla waking up around 10.

I rollerbladed 8.34km, hitting a maximum speed of 25km/h and maintaining an average speed of around 12km/h… yep, my google phone is amazing! =) Highlight of the trip was almost running over a praying mantis! I’d never seen one before and wasn’t sure if what I saw was really a praying mantis and not just a green leaf on the sidewalk (it’s hard to make out such small things when you are flying at 12km/h!). When I got home I asked Tamie in disbelief if Japan had such cool bugs and the disgust on her face told me yes.

After I showered, we were getting ready to go out to starbucks. It was such a nice day outside, I suggested we head out somewhere else, and I knew the perfect place. Instead of our regular trip to Vina Walk in search of musicians, magicians, dogs, babies and frappuccinos, we headed out to the park we used to frequent. With Layla being bigger, she was able to use the playground jungle gym with a lot more confidence and independence.

Hours were spent playing with slides and rope bridges, balls and bubbles, running and laughing. It was a good time and great to see Layla having such a good time amongst the thousand or so other kids at the park.

Galleries:
Farm Festival
A Day at the Park

Let me know how slow the loadtimes are for the galleries. I’m trying to work on a new interface and am wondering how fast the current ones are.

Previews for the gallery:

: Checking out the fake cow

: Milking the cow

: Scary Chick(s?)

: Vicious Bunny

: Fishing for Towels

: Delicious?

: Happy Kid

: Tractor

: Playground

: Slide

: Rope Bridge

: Bigger Slide

: Fun Times

: Hammock

: Layla’s Ball!

: Huggy Mom

: Happy Kid

: Streeeeetch

: What a pair

: Bubbles

: Bubbles ][

: Running

: Sliding Again

: Independence

No One Rains on Layla’s Parade

Published on October 5, 2009 in Family, Japan, Parenting and weekend. 0 Comments Tags: bubbles, daycare, gymnastics day, Layla, playground, raining, video, wedding.

Weekends are supposed to be times of a little R&R and a lot of sleeping in. This weekend was a little bit different.

Saturday started like any other weekday, the alarm buzzing at a too early hour in the morning and the snooze button being overused in an attempt to gain ten more minutes of well-deserved rest. We had to get up early because there was a daycare event taking place that we needed to attend.

Thinking back to last year’s daycare day, the one with the race that I had to carry Layla from the start to the end as she cried throughout, made me all the more anxious to turn off the alarm and resume my dreams of lollipops and hand grenades (don’t ask…). Unfortunately, or fortunately, Tamie was more eager to go and got us all out of our beds and ready to go. Her parents were on their way to pick us up in their brand spanking new Prius (go Nissan).

After Tamie called the daycare to find out where the thing was actually taking place, we were all on our way. Interestingly, they had two different locations picked out, one for a rainy day and one for a sunny day. As we pulled up to the sunny day location, of course it started to rain. If only they’d had some way to forecast the weather and know that after a full week of rain that there’d be one more day of it. Ah, well.

The actual event turned out to be a bit of an eye opener. Layla, our shy, little, afraid-of-her-shadow daughter turned into a confident leader among babies. I guess standing a head taller than everyone else does something to boost her confidence. It was a huge difference from the year before, enough to make me happy we went and enough to make Tamie cry tears of joy as she espoused how proud she was to see Layla jump around rambunctiously.

We watched as kids of all ages danced and raced, but the most (or only, depending on who you ask) interesting times were when Layla was actively participating. The opening ceremonies had everyone dancing around and Layla killed. She had a race that I wish I could say she won, but I don’t really think there was a winner. Everyone who actually makes it to the finish line without help from a parent or daycare staff is considered a winner in my book.

Then the rain came. Not just any rain, a torrential downpour of typhoon-like proportions. The kids all huddled in a corner while the parents all crowded under a tree. The daycare staff scrambled desperately to get everything under cover but were too proud to accept our help when we offered it. Eventually, they moved everything and then everyone into the school’s gym where we continued to watch the kids put on a show.

More races, including one with Tamie and Layla collecting balls in a box and another with Tamie running around the gym with a ping-pong ball on a spoon, ensued until it finally closed up shop. Layla got a Mickey Mouse plate out of the deal and Tamie got some dish soap, so it wasn’t a total loss. Me? I got the satisfaction of seeing my daughter not only actively participate but seemingly enjoy herself at the same time.

Following the event, we took Tamie’s folks out for lunch to a local kushiyagi place (random pieces of deep fried food on sticks) to celebrate Layla’s success. When lunch was finished I took the girls home where they both crashed, Tamie on the bed and Layla on me. I let them sleep until 3:30, the time Tamie told me to wake her up as we were to meet up with some of her friends by 4.

At 4:30 we finally met up with Tamie’s friends. One of them was getting married the next day and they all wanted to do some shopping for costumes. Because the wedding was on October 4th, it was close enough to Halloween that they were having a costume party following the actual wedding ceremony. With cosplay so popular in this country, I was sadly disappointed with their choice of costumes – three matching headpieces that looked like takoyaki (octopus balls).

After the long, arduous shopping adventure, we headed for a restaurant for a quick bite to eat and a mug or two of beer. I didn’t realize how tired I was until after we got home and I fell asleep on Layla’s floor when putting her to bed… and then on the couch after Tamie woke me up and brought me to the living room. Looking back, I should have taken a siesta with the girls in the afternoon… nothing a couple beer didn’t fix =)

Sunday, the day of the wedding, and Tamie was up and gone by 10:30. Layla and I were together again for another adventure in Ebina. I took her to Vina Walk (as usual) to see dogs and babies (as usual), but this time she wasn’t feeling all that well so we came home after not too long. She slept for three hours while I watched the latest Star Trek. (cool movie). When she woke up, I took her to the park where she proceeded to climb up ladders and slide down slides, run from dogs and blow bubbles in the wind.

The laughter and joy came to a sudden, screeching halt when Layla was running and fell, scraping her hands and her knees on the pavement. Considering how often she does it, either she’s going to toughen up, get better balance or we’re going to have to get her some knee pads and wrist guards. I carried her home, stopping only to get the poor kid some ice cream at the grocery store. We had dinner, played and eventually she went to bed.

And, that, mon amis, is that.