It starts...

Ela's been working on this for awhile... we finally got it on film:

The Forgotten Baby

This year, I almost forgot about Dory's birthday (She's six now). It isn't the first time she's been ignored on her birthday. She's spent two of them in kennels for various reasons. So it's not like I throw a party every year, but I still felt kind of bad. The day after, I went out and got her a present. Luckily, she's a dog, so she really didn't care a bit.
All in all, Dory has adapted well to the changes in her life that have resulted from Ela. She's loved Ela from the moment she came home, so that was good. Of course, there's still some confusion for her. Mostly, this has to do with the fact that Dory believes she should lay in the softest available spot, or in a lap. So if I set down a blanket and leave it for a few minutes before trying to get tummy time in with Ela, this is the result:

Note the toy sitting there. That's Dory's too. She thinks that anyone on the floor should be playing with her. She can't figure out why we spend time on the floor not throwing balls for her. She also tries to play with Ela.

She drops her toys near Ela's arms and waits, not so patiently, for Ela to pick them up. Eventually, she'll give up and just chew them, as pictured above.
Naptime is good for both of them, though. Dory totally understands that:

And I still occasionally get a picture of my older daughter being cute all by herself:

So we're getting along pretty well. :-)

Cinco de Mayo with ILC

While Dad was here visiting, it was the American's turn to host an ILC event. So I saved up a bunch of milk and boldly left the house without the baby! It was quite a big step for everyone involved since I had never been away from her for more than half an hour and she had never taken more than one or two ounces of milk in a bottle. All in all, though, it was a successful experience.
The theme the Americans chose for this event was Cinco de Mayo. It turned out to be a really fun theme to run with. First, we had a marachi group from the high school come to perform with us. I didn't get video, but they sounded great!

We also had a giant pinata that the ladies took turns banging away at. It was really fun to watch them, and they're all so supportive, the cheers every time someone made contact were also a lot of fun to listen to. However, when it finally broke, I guess they missed the part about running up to get the candy, so there was more cheering, but no mad rush for candy. We passed it out in a far more orderly manner after the fact...

The food was, of course, Mexican, and I took this picture because I was amazed that anyone would try to eat a taco with chopsticks, but there they are (sorry they're a bit hard to see). The woman eating from this plate was in a lovely kimono and I shudder to think about what salsa would do to it if it dripped...

Finally, we got a dance instructor to come teach us some salsa, chacha and tango moves. It was highly entertaining to watch the lovely ladies strutting their stuff on the dance floor!

So we all had a really great time. When I got home, Ela and her grandpa were out walking doing some shopping on the Ginza. She had milk to spare, and it sounded like their day was just as fun. We'll both be ready next time we get a chance to have a babysitter.

Golden Week Begins

Golden Week is a week of holidays in Japan, starting on April 29th. For the average Japanese person, it means a whole week of vacation. For the average American in Sasebo, it means lots of pottery sales. I've blogged before about the insane pottery sales in the area and how overwhelming all that pottery can be. This year, my dad was here to witness the insanity. So yesterday, armed with a stroller, diapers, wipes, and all the usual baby stuff, we set out to find some good deals on pretty things:

We walked through Arita for between four and five hours and didn't find the end of the shops, nor did we really pick through most of them. My find for the day was a cute fountain. The kind salesman went into great detail about how to put it together when I got home...

... of course he was speaking Japanese so... we'll see how that goes..

We worked out that we went about 3 and a half kilometers by the time our walk was done. Dad described it as Disney World of Pottery. I think that might catch the feeling of the thing. Ela was not in the best mood, but she did pretty good. I think she got tired of being in the carseat. So at the end, we put our purchases (which were many) in the stroller and I carried her. She liked this a lot better...

The Japanese people, who had been trying to see her in the stroller all day, liked it better, too. One of the salemen chatted with us and a few Japanese girls about her. He said she looked older than 2 months (his first guess was four months), and that she looked like her grandpa (which made us laugh).
When we got home, Ela worked off some steam by learning to roll over! She went from her tummy to her back... twice! Granted, she was on a chair so she had a little bit of incline to help her out, and she was not successful in repeating the achievement this morning, but she has the basic idea now, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time... Little girl is going to be mobile before we know it!

Ela's First Easter

I swear I'll stop titling evering "Ela's first..." soon... may be...
Anyway, on Saturday, the base threw a very exciting event that they do around Easter every year called "Kidzfest," which is always attended by the Easter Bunny. Kidzfest takes place in Nimitz Park so that Japanese people can easily come, too. I've only ever walked through before, not having the requisite kids to make it interesting, but this year, we got Ela dressed up in the one shirt that she owns with a bunny on it, and we went to get some pictures. So here she is:

Sunday, we had to get up early for choir practice before church. I didn't trust her to stay clean until after the service, so I snapped a few quick shots before we left:

And after church we went to not one, but two picnics back in the park. The weather couldn't have been better; it was sunny with a nice breeze that showered us in cherry blossoms as we ate. Ela chilled out in the grass and got some fresh air.


All in all, it's been a lovely day.

Hanami with ILC

The cherry blossoms are here again! They always kind of sneak up on me, like one minute the trees are all wintery and brown, then the next the whole world is full of blossoms flying around. That's what happened the last week or so. It's enough to make anyone want to spend some time outside, even if it's not really super warm yet.
To celebrate, ILC took us to Omura to a park to see the blossoms. Ela decided that eating was more important than walking in the cherry trees, but we did manage to see a little bit:


And of course, the Japanese ladies wanted to get in on the picture action:

Then we went to a very nice hotel for a very nice lunch. Another reason I love Japan: the staff there found out there were two infants (Ela and a 6 month old) in the group, and produced a crib for each of them:

So a good time was had by all, and in a few weeks, we get to do it again with OSC. In the mean time, I see a good bit of walking in our future...

Things I Like

Babies "need" a lot of stuff, or more accurately, Mom's need a lot of stuff to help them with babies. I agonized over the long list of things that people told me I HAD to have to help us with our new baby. One thing I'm really glad we got: the swing. It's one of the few places she'll sit that isn't on me. So I thought I'd upload a video of the swing just to see how the uploading video process works...