We had a great day although Noah literally fell over and split is top lip 1 minute before our 30 minute session was supposed to start. Luckily he calmed relatively quickly and the swelling didn`t come up until later in the afternoon. Noah loved the camera and both Dee & Tracey.

We had the session outside at Icho Namaki Dori in Tokyo near Omotesando. The leaves had started yellow {Icho= Gingko} and while it was really busy we had no problems.

Here are the photos we choose from our shoot. We are super happy with the results!

I was so busy though I didn`t get many photos of the decorations etc but we had yellow/red balloons and streamers and decorations, wiggles plates and cups, a wiggles mat playing music that my mum sent and signs for the food which related back to a lot of The Wiggles songs. Invitations, while not home made this year, were also Wiggles themed! Also Wiggly party bags with wiggles themed snacks, balloons and party horns.

Both boys had a great time- Noah running around the park and Shion devouring everything in site. Lots of lovely people came to help us celebrate too!

Some shots from the day….

Hard to believe my boys are almost 2 & 1 though!

By the way my MIL is also a “granny K” and so is grandma in law. So they might reach the same gaijinwife fame as the original granny K just yet!

I see MIL, FIL, GIL most days. Noah can now say “Jiji” which is Japanese for grandfather. Or more like “grandpa” or “poppy” perhaps. He can say the sound for baba which is grandma but doesn`t usually say it to mean her yet. He likes to go to our downstairs window and put his nose up against it and shout “Jiji go go go go” – In other words he wants to go play in their garden.

On Friday MIL came to take Noah out for a couple of hours so I could rest my back. I am still in quite a bit of pain but not as bad as it was on Thursday and I can definitely move a bit easier, thankfully.

Grandma noticed me eating the raspberries off her bush and so she made me some raspberry jam. Well at least I think it is raspberry jam- she talks so fast and doesn`t stop for breath so I am not sure if she was saying she had added sugar to it to make it jam or if it was like jam but without the sugar and at the time I was trying to stop Noah from running on the road and had Shion on my hip so I couldn`t stick around to ask questions. So far I have eaten it out of the jar with a spoon to see if it would be good in iceblocks. I think it will be so I added some in the apple ice blocks I made tonight. Some have raspberry jam and some have grapes. Kind of just a random mix of stuff we had in the fridge.

We get food packages, help with the kids, free reign of the garden and use of the cars whenever we like. Kind of a nice deal I think! Plus Shun`s mum adores Noah and playing with him- if we go play in the garden I always tell her to just ignore us and get on with what she wants to do but instead she always comes out to coo over Shion and throw the ball with Noah or fill the buckets with water. It is cute to watch!

Noah is finally starting to understand some Japanese too since he is hearing it a lot more now- English is still what he understand more though and Shun`s parents both copy English phrases they hear me say so that Noah understands them. It is not really necessary but nice all the same. Like when he opens the door and runs through their house with his shoes on my MIL runs after him yelling “Noah, shoes shoes shoes” and FIL likes to say “Noah, give Shion hug” because Noah will always run to Shion and give him a quick hug which FIL thinks is hilarious.

For Shun though I think he likes the food packages best- I like it when it is fruit because fruit is ridiculously expensive but for example today MIL must of dropped off 3 peaches while I was at work. They will be great for Noah and me! Shun however prefers the pickled cucumbers or Okara. And I like them as I hate making all the sides that go with Japanese dishes.

So far so good. Fingers crossed hey?!

Fast forward two years and we are now a family of four!

No Tot School post this week since last week was Golden Week here. We are back into it again this week and focusing on shapes which is great as I think Noah has been trying to say “star” the last week. Have pulled out the tupperware shape sorter, shape books and have some other activities organized!

Both boys are napping now- Noah went down about 30 minutes ago and Shion has just fallen asleep in the bouncer next to me about 10 minutes ago.

Mother`s Day yesterday was a bit of a bust- I doubt my husband will ever understand what a more Western Mother`s Day is like (the only one in Australia he experienced was the day after our wedding and while we all had breakfast together for Mother`s Day and gave mum gifts we then went off to Australia Zoo with a lot of the international wedding guests so I guess it wasn`t a very good example!). My husband didn`t remember (until he asked why I was calling my mum so early on a Sunday!), but then he bought a card while we were out and wrote a message from him and the boys and he gave me a 45 minute massage last night.

Oh and as for our anniversary- I made him a card (with some wedding photos!) and we had a nice steak dinner last night and had a glass of wine each after the boys were asleep but we decided not to do presents this year or anything since we are getting new phones at the end of the month!! No big grand gestures here!!! For our first anniversary last year we went away to Shizuoka to stay in a ryokan (Japanese style inn) up a mountain. No trips away this year- bit hard with BOTH boys! Maybe next year though!

We are still undecided whether we will get iphones (and change to Softbank) or go for an android phone from docomo. We might switch to softbank anyway and I will get an iphone and my husband would still probably get an android. I don`t really mind either way- just want to get a new phone as my current one is falling apart.

For more information on what an omiyamairi is you can read about Noah`s here.. Basically it is the first official Shinto Shrine visit though for babies.

Shun`s brother and family would usually have joined us but they all had colds and the boys great grandmother couldn`t come either (but she came over that night for dinner to see both the boys)- compared to when we did Noah`s the Shrine was so quiet. We were the only family getting blessed at the time that we went in (probably a good thing as Noah did NOT enjoy having to sit still).

Here are some photos of the day…

Trying to get a photo of all of us that looked okay was near impossible!!!

We also went for a walk near the in-laws house along the river (creek?) to see the cherry blossoms. Shun had changed out of his suit and into old clothes that were laying around at his parents place- can`t you tell?!? haha

We did no official “hanami” this year. And it wasn`t even the same near Shun`s parents house as usually there are lanterns strung up for night hanami and little stalls selling food but this year things are very different. People are tying to conserve energy (so no lanterns) and getting out to celebrate the blossoms and start of spring just seems so sad when you think of the devastation Japan has faced over the last month. I hope that year Japan will be well on its way to recovery but of course as the death toll continues to rise as more and more bodies are found it will never be something we forget.

Here are some photos of my family.

I wrote about what Okuizome (or Okuihajime) was here. Also has photos from when we did it for Noah.

Mum has been asking me for photos of Rina so here goes…

First a couple from Okuizome on Saturday…

Rina is now just over 3 months old (Her official 100 day birthday was Sunday)

Now a couple from recent months…

I love watching Noah and Rina together to see how he reacts with a younger baby- I honestly think he thinks she is just a toy and we have to be pretty strict with him because in the space of five minutes he will have tried to pull her hair, bite or pinch her and of course doing any of those things makes her cry which surprises him and makes him cry. Sometimes he just ignores her (or makes a big fuss and noise if people STOP paying him attention like they did on Saturday because OBVIOUSLY the day was for Rina) and other times he will stare at her and pat her nicely but yeah, usually he just tries to attack her.

Some recent snaps of Noah- because well, he is cute too!

He LOVED it. At first he kept picking up the sand and then looking a bit shocked that it slipped through his fingers. I snapped some pictures on my phone. He only tried to eat it twice and I managed to stop him both times!

He is down for a nap at the moment. His night sleeping is a bit all over the place meaning I am getting very little sleep. I fed him twice last night (7:30pm then to bed then fed at 12:30 and 5am then up for the day at 6am) But he woke up two or three times before the first feed and needed to be re-settled (which luckily doesn`t usually take long) and I resettled him at least once between 12 and 5 too. He has decided 6am is his time to wake up now- much to my dismay. Actually I wouldn`t mind much if he wasn`t up so often….I am hoping it is just a sleep phase.

He had his 3rd DPT shot today and didn`t cry- in fact when the doctor took the needle out Noah gave the dr a big smile as if to say “thanks for taking that out”…. His eczema is flaring up a little bit again- I think it might be the weather but am not sure. I don`t think it is a particular food but it is hard to know. We have introduced yogurt about a week ago…he has only had it twice though. It could be dairy related though I guess- will have to monitor it.

I haven`t uploaded the photos yet but we went to meet our niece for the first time yesterday- Noah`s 1st cousin. Shun`s brother and his wife gave birth to their little girl on Saturday, 2 weeks early and she weighed in 2.6kg (5 pound something- so TINY!) – she was so small and cute with quite a bit of hair. I sadly didn`t get to hold her (which is a story for another time) but hopefully I will get a cuddle sometime soon. Oh and they named her Rina! So yes, I am now officially and aunt!

We went to Musashigawa-beya which was about a 10 minute walk from Uguisudani station on the Yamanote line. I rang the day before and they explained all the rules so that I could relay them to Paul & Gem. We walked there in the morning (after stopping at the koban to ask for directions), arriving just before 8:30am.

They thought it was brilliant!!! I saw the last bit of the practice when I came back with Noah and then we had our photo taken with one of the stables top sumo`s (whose name I do not know!)

The rest of the day was spent in Ueno and Akihabara before having a super early (granny time) dinner just after 5pm at a local izakaya.

It was so nice having my brother and Gem in Japan- I really miss them already. I think Noah misses the attention too (especially after the weekend where he had daddy on call all the time!) because he has been super clingy these last couple of days. Not sure if it is a stage or not…

One of my favourite photos of my brother and Noah while they were in Japan

Several weeks ago my MIL bought over a set of plates for Noah to use for this special day- they were more “modern” than the usual I imagine and his have little buses, trains and cars on them with blue trim. Quite quite actually but they are made from porcelain so we won`t be using them much since they could break but I guess they are more of a keepsake anyway. I was going to do the ceremony here at our house but in the end my brother and Gemma were going to be in town so MIL/FIL invited us there to do it and Shun`s brother, and his wife and grandma all joined us.

When a baby turns 100 days old (I have heard sometimes it is when they are 120 days old as well) you celebrate “okui- hajime” which means first food, or begin eating. Of course Noah is not quite ready for solid foods yet but we pretend fed him the special food which included baked sea bream (Tai) and rice steamed with beans (sekihan, common celebratory rice often prepared and eaten before starting a new stage in ones life like elementary school, university etc). MIL told me that often there would be pickled plum as well (umeboshi) but that she didn`t have any in the fridge even though she thought she had. HAHA.

A bit of research online showed that the fish represents happiness (hope the baby finds happiness), the pickled plum represents the hope that the baby will grow old and full of wrinkles and have a long life (like the pickled plum!) and the rice, as previously mentioned is often used at celebrations.. Apparently they also usually have a pebble served with the food (?) in the hope that the babies teeth will get strong so that they can eat anything including pebbles if need be.

Noah was in a good mood Sunday and while the photos don`t necessarily show it but he did try to “lick” the food when we tried to feed it to him. I used the special chopsticks that were given to us at him omiyamairi (first shrine visit) which are made from wood and a bit smaller than usual chopsticks.

More photos are in the set here.

Still to come in blog catch-up- Our trip to Hakone!

I wish I had remembered to hold the camera the right way so that the video would be up the right way but oh well…Oh and when I looked at this I was like “God, my hands look HUGE in comparison to his head” – Noah likes been sung too and I guess he doesn`t care how my voice sounds it seems!

As you know Clare, a highschool friend from Australia stayed with us for a couple of days and it was sad to see her go yesterday. It was great having her around and she is just so easy going all the time.

I only managed to get a couple of photos with her and Noah- a couple when she was reading to him and another of the three of us the morning she left!

Noah is not looking at the camera at all though

Look at the slobber

Noah loves to just stare at Shun…

Shun was proud to see im in this outfit too (which came from Noah`s Nan, my mum)

Oh and for some reason in the last week Noah has been obsessed with his left hand- literally can stare at it for ages. I kind of wonder what is going through his head as he just sits and stares as it- maybe he is trying to figure out how to use it? (Although he is grabbing toys now so he knows how to use it) or whether he is just like “mmm, what does this do?”

Whenever he does it now (and when Clare was here) we would both go “Noah, left hand” whenever he did it. Even when he is in his pram he will pop it in the air to have a good stare! hehe

Shun has been working some crazy hours lately- he leaves every morning about 9am to start work at 10am and hasn`t been getting him most nights til after 12am, sometimes not until after 1am…The project he is working on is coming to an end and will be launched in less than 2 weeks now and I am looking forward to when it will be over (so is he!) although over the next two weekends he will also have work. This Saturday he will go in and then the following week he will be at work from Sunday night til Tuesday night- they will book him a business hotel in the same street as his work so that he can maybe catch a couple hours sleep and have a shower. I think it is a bit ridiculous and personally think that if the project had been better managed then this kind of thing wouldn`t happen but oh well.

I know this is the life of a Japanese salary man and I knew this when I married him- I knew there would be the occasional weekend work and late nights since it was like this on occasion in the years we lived together before we married. It is hard though because it means he sees Noah even less than usual and it means that it is just me and Noah most of the time. Not that he would get home in time to help with dinner or bathtime and sleeptime even if he did finish earlier but still it would mean I might be awake when he gets home so that I could have some adult conversation. I miss him.

Luckily this project has just another couple of weeks left and while Shun is scheduled to move on to another project after that it probably won`t get busy for a couple months meaning we will have a couple of months were we can spend the weekends together and also some nights were he will be home before I go to bed (although not before Noah does)…

Today, since the sun came out a little around lunch time, Noah and I headed out to a closeby 親子カフェ (parent/child cafe)…I have wanted to check it out since I walked past once when I was still pregnant. It is also where Noah & I are scheduled to go for our baby sign class next month (and if we like it then we can sign up for a six month course which would have a lesson once a month)…

I couldn`t believe how packed it was! I am glad I rang and asked whether there would be space because I doubt there would of been otherwise. It is not a very big place but it is a lovely little set up! Lots of kiddie chairs, kid friendly foods for those starting solids (like pureed fruit and tofu/cheese patties) and for older kids like mild curry rice. Plus the lunch sets for the mama`s were nice too! One of the waitresses was really lovely and I told her I was looking to make some Japanese mama friends that lived in the area and she introduced me to a couple of the other mums that were there. Everyone`s bubs were older than Noah but she suggested I try a baby massage class next month or in May because the babies would be a similar age to Noah…

After lunch Noah and I sat on the playmat and had a bit of a play- he enjoyed the interaction I think and the other kids enjoyed handing him things (well handing me things) and saying “hai doozo noah” (Here you go Noah)…kind of cute really! I will definitely be going back! It is nice to have somewhere like that so close by too- it is on my street about 1km away so an easy walk!

Since I am also hoping to pick up some private lessons OR possibly teaching a mama/baby english class I am going to ask next time whether they would be interested. They do an English book reading time once a month but I asked and it is not a native speaker that does it…I am looking for work where I can take Noah with me though of course and somewhere like that would be perfect!

I missed doing “Two for Tuesday” yesterday but I made an awesome beef stew today in the slow cooker (had a bit of a taste when I got home since it was already done. YUMMO! When I got off our floor when coming home I smelt something really nice and thought our neighbours must have been cooking but when I opened our door I realized it was coming from OUR apartment!) – I tweaked the recipe a little and added mushrooms instead of celery and carrot (since I didn`t have any in the fridge) and also I added a pack of gravox (approx 2 tablespoons I guess) and it turned out great. The recipe (apart from what I tweaked) is this one which I found here. I didn`t use as much meat either (it was like 1kg worth for 6 people, i used about half of that but I kept the vegetable amounts the same) but I kept the spices the same since we like flavoursome stew- the beef turned out so tender!

Well enough of my mid week ramblings I guess- Noah is about to stir from is nap anyway!