This weekend was (still is =) a long weekend here in Japan. At least, for those of us not working on a very busy project for a car company that shall remain nameless… Tamie had to work on Saturday and she has to work again tomorrow (Monday), so while the rest of the country gets a special 3 day weekend, the employees in her group get a special 1 day weekend. Nice!
So Saturday, I got the opportunity to take care of Layla for the day. I took her to the park because she wanted to go on a big slide, but she never actually went on it. Instead she discovered that she is able to jump across the tires that are set up that she’d been, up until Saturday, afraid to attempt. She was so proud that she made it across that she did it four or five times in a row. On the fifth time, she fell and cried something fierce, but eventually got up and played again… on another part of the playground.
Eventually, the kid got hungry and we were off to grab something to eat. I offered everything from rice to burgers to waffles to pasta but she wanted Starbucks. I’m beginning to think we go there far too often. Regardless, I took her there and we sat and watched people walk by as I took about a million pictures of her eating and sucking back her frappuccino.
When the music started playing from the band downstairs, we bailed on the chilling and went to take a look. It was a band who’d played Ebina before, but for good reason – the crowd seemed to really get into it, singing along, waving towels and dancing! A much livelier crowd than I usually see at the free concerts every weekend.
We met Tamie for dinner later that evening, yakiniku was the meal of choice (ladies’ choice, and a good one at that!). We bbq’d up chowed down on a lot of meat that night. We even a bit of vegetables too — to satisfy Tamie’s momly instincts.
After dinner, we headed home. Climbing a set of stairs, Layla nearly passed out. I don’t know what they put into her orange juice, but the poor kid collapsed as Tamie caught her. It wasn’t until I asked he if she wanted some chocolate and to be carried that she came to and promptly climbed up into her mom’s arms.
Sunday was a day for the family, albeit a lazy one. It wasn’t until the afternoon that we even got mobile and headed out to do some shopping. As Layla is getting older, she is getting into the more advanced stages of daycare — the strict requirements are getting even stricter. We need to get a bunch of supplies, things such as bags of various sizes, play-doe with associated tools, and SIXTEEN different colour crayons. Why sixteen? Because it seems like they only get sold her in packs of 12.
With the daycare shopping out of the way, we let Layla check out the kid’s arcade that houses rides and games for young kids. They must make a killing there as it’s always busy and the games and rides are a minimum of 100 yen and last about a minute. I see some parents in there with there kids for a lot longer than a couple minutes (ie. they are there when we get there and still there when we leave). Luckily Layla isn’t the type of kid to make a fuss after only one ride… at least, not yet. After riding the Thomas the Tank Engine ride for 45 seconds, Layla was happy to go. She was even happier when one of the employees gave her a snack on the way out.
We ended up at Vina Walk shortly after shopping. There were kids playing in the small water pools there, despite the strong, cold winds blowing that day. Of course, seeing those kids, Layla wanted to take a turn. We sat by the pool as she debated whether or not she really wanted to go in. She slowly took off her jacket and socks and rolled up her pants. By the time she got down to the water and touched it, 15 minutes must have passed. Once she was in, though, she had a blast!
Check out the pictures here:
Saturday Pictures
Sunday Pictures
This video was taken Sunday night, after we got a diaper delivery. Layla loves playing in the box and I love playing with her. I got a kick out of the video, I hope you do too. Click on it to go to youtube to see it larger/higher def.