Sleepwear for your hip hop baby

Actually this is just a shirt and not pajamas but unfortunately living in small town Kentucky, we can't dress Ren in this when going out so they are only used as sleepwear. I can see the woman behind us at the grocery store now,"Cute baby! And that's a really nice fuckin' shirt he's got isn't it?" maybe it would be more acceptable if it were a tattoo. Or maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Maybe I should see this as a golden opportunity to peak the locals' interest in all things Japanese.

Okay so this is not incoherent and neither are most of the rest of the Engrish discoveries to follow but it doees have that -only something they would make in Japan- smack to it.

Japanese Baby Bibs

Aya just got another care package from home. Because Ren is a champion drooler (teething or not) and needs to constantly have something to catch it before it soaks his shirt we have lots of stylish bibs. After looking at the baby bibs Aya's mom sent us I was convinced (my suspicions confirmed) that what Babies r us in Lexington has to offer are no more than rags compared to what babies in Japan get to wear. Not only do they have designs on both sides, but they even come in the ubiquitous incoherent English variety. Example below:
*Status*
The traditional beauty beyond age

The Tradition is now being reconsidered

Let the incoherent-English-on-Japanese-baby-apparel posting begin...

Two Front Teeth

And here they are, the long awaited upper teeth. Look out shoulder those are sharp! They've actually been there for a bout a week now but getting this picture was not easy. We were tipped off by the strange grinding sound he was making with his mouth. He still does this and it drives me crazy, like finger nails on a chalk board or Styrofoam squeaky crazy. Hopefully the novelty will wear off soon.

Vacuum Monster 掃除機怪物

Pictured here is Ren trying to hide and make light of his insecurities and secret fears of the vacuum Monster. This strikes me as the type of picture that bear hunters might take, posing with the beast that, just moments ago, almost took their lives but is now inanimate and docile. Ren has conquered the Beast for now.

掃除機怪物に対して押さえて隠してる恐怖や不安な心境を頑張って笑ってごまかそうとする蓮の写真。数分前命を奪いそうだったのに今は死んだばっかりの熊の前にポーズする熊狩人のようだ。とりあえず獣に勝ってる。

Chocolate Cake

いつもあやが焼いてくれるガトー・オー・ショコラ。うまいで。
This is the chocolate cake that Aya always makes for me. Delizioso.

大好物 Favorite Food

蓮の大好物は確かにパン。特にパンの硬いみみ、ピザの皮やナンが好きみたい。硬くて口の中で溶かすのが時間がかかっても何よりパクパク、集中して食べる。今日は新鮮なペストウを塗ってるトーストのみみとパスタを食べてた。
Bread is unquestionably Ren's favorite food. He especially likes the crust, pizza crust and nan. Despite the hard to dissolve aspect more than any anything else he munches away at it without getting too sidetracked. Today he had toast crust with fresh pesto and pasta.

Big Red Stables

Went Horse back riding today. I usually ride the horse they named Mason but this time I ended up with Dixon. I'll bet this is not the only southern stable with this play on names. It seems a lot of southerness is being derived from something that originated as a reference for the original boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Pictured here is neither Mason or Dixon but rather Seymour.

The horse riding, as usual was great. We started out around 10am and got back a little before noon with a big thunderstorm following us back to the stable.

Ren's Giant Panda

We got a video about Pandas where Mutsugoro-san himself goes to China and tells us all about giant pandas, ムツゴロウのゆかいなパンダ物語 or Story of Mutsugoro's Delightful Pandas. Ren's reaction to the narrarator saying "Panda" over and over was priceless. He would look at the Pandas on TV and look around for his Panda. When he finds his Panda he always rushes over to it and gives it hugs. Maybe the video drove home the idea that Pandas are real animals for the first time.

Global Stuff

Some nice Infographics brought to us by the INA of Princeton.

Weekend Visitors

Another American husband, Japanese wife couple came to visit us this weekend. Since K. (the wife) is an acquaintance from my Waseda days, the meeting brought back lots of memories of living in Tokyo and Kawagoe almost 10 years ago. Thru some odd twists of fate she ended up married to this guy who was also a Waseda student a couple years after me and also now lives in Kentucky more for the work than the wonderful lifestyle. It impresses me how magnetic Kentucky must be- it must be the"unbridled spirit".

This State slogan (which aptly replaced "It's that friendly") comes to mind and drives me crazy evertime I drive into the county I live in, past the liquor stores that advertise "last chance for liqour for the next 100 miles" and in general with the wave of religoius opprersion I feel when I forget I can't get any alcohol anywhere all day Sundays. There is definitely somebody with a tight grip on the reins!

Anyhow somehow the air mattress is all out of shape, wont deflate and I have no idea what they tried to do with it that left it miserably useless.

The baby sign language book has arrived! I'll be signing with Ren and chatting it up in no time! I can't wait. I can't wait to see him signing "let's not take a bath and go to bed- let's throw balls around till morning".

Agility 軽快さ

蓮の軽快感がどんどん成長する。この技でも出来るようになった。最後は足がちょっと引っかかって「助けて」呼んだけど、それにしても１０ヶ月前自分の頭さえ支えられなかったと思うと大したこと。洗濯物はきれいだったが。。。
Ren's agility has come quiet way. He even managed to pull off this trick. When his back foot got caught on the basket he called for help but still considering 10 months ago he couldn't even hold his own head up this is a big deal. As for the laundry, it was clean..

いきなり日本語

Apologies for the sudden Japanese.
いきなり日本語になってしまうけど。。いいか。たまに書かないと書けなくなるし。
日本語を読めない皆にごめんなさい。

蓮は最近ボールをポイすることが出来てとても楽しい。
後、最近出来ることはバナナを丸ごとあげても一人で上手に食べること、 拍手すること、階段やちょっと高いベッドから足から下りること。

この前あやが蓮の前髪を切り過ぎた。のでちょっとかわいそうな髪型になってる、バナナを食べてる蓮。 蓮はうちでほとんど日本語で話しかけられてるだろうけど、たまに私が英語ででも話しかける。二ヶ国語になったらいいなぁと思うけど、どうなるんだろう。彼みたいな１１ヶ月の子供は言葉を話す能力がまだまだだそうで、それまでコミュニケショーンを取るため手話を教える両親が増えてるみたい。あやによると日本ででも赤ちゃん手話が流行ってるけど日本の手話じゃなくてアメリカの手話をベースにしてる。アメリカから入ってきた考えだからと言って。ちょっと面白い。蓮は伝えたいことが伝わらない時めちゃくちゃイライラして怒るし、早くうまくコミュニケショーンを取れるのなら私たちも手話で話そうと。と言うことで蓮は二ヶ国語に手話も駆使するようになるのかなぁ。ただの親バカ？

Stool Sample?

Wow, no time to write. I've been pretty well occupied at work and home recently. I wanted to try and catch up by writing back issues starting from our vacation to NY. Aya seems to be able log in what happened a couple of days ago and have it go in that day on the blog but I haven't figured out how to do that yet with this yet.

Looking forward to a weekend of more experimental Indian cooking. What to make?
I've got a taste for this Dal Masoor recipe that is not as spicy as I like but I think a little red chili could change that. I add the Hing to this though it is not on the list of ingredients. It provides a garlic like richness lacking in the original recipe.

For places to go, there is the annual crafts fair at Shaker Village this weekend. Last week we missed going to the Annual Harrodsburg Festival Aya had been looking forward to going to. It was sad.

I have figured out how to add links in the My Links part- It seems so complicated. I need to learn how to make hotspot links with words instead of pasting the whole link address. Haven't figured that out yet either. Any how there is a link there one of the blogs I like to read.

Since Ren has been waking up at the slightest shift of positioning sound in the early morning
I went to sleep in the other room after going to bathroom instead of risking waking him up.
When I got down stairs I was greeting with a big smile and a diaper of #2.

This is very good news because we have been looking for the opportunity to take a stool sample to the hospital for the last couple of days.

He seems to be having loose stools on and off for the last two weeks (since we got back form NY) and the doctor said that to make sure it is not a bacterial infection they would need a sample. He said he suspects it is a viral infection in which case there would be not antibiotics just a wait till his immune system kills it. So they gave us two containers in which to collect samples. One had a green fluid in it already and needed to be filled till the fluid was displaced level to a line on the side of the container, "then shaken up really good". The other one was just big container that they said needed to be submitted an hour within it's collection. We thought these were pretty silly instructions for a parents of a baby with watery stool. Think about it - if the poop is like water to begin with, it's going to be almost completely absorbed into the diaper and scooping it up to put in a bottle to displace fluid is all but impossible without following the baby around with out a diaper on hoping you'll catch the poop as it makes its exit! You have to wait till the poop is hard again which if the condition worsens could be a while. There was a good amount of poop yesterday but it was just as I got to work and with the hospital about 20 minutes away it wasn't going to get there in time. So this morning's #2 was welcome.

I went to the hospital and dropped it off with the person in the lab room after being registered. Apparently the results will be ready in 48 hours.