Tofu-bunny Barf-O-Rama

Don't let Maggie get too upset.  She'll barf everywhere.  Seriously, just like the scene in Pitch Perfect.  The last time this happened was when I tried to give her medicine against her will almost a year ago.  

Well, our friend Jack came to spend the night while his parents hiked Mt Fuji.  Jack and Maggie played so nicely together and were having so much fun.  Eventually, it was clear from both of their demeanors that bedtime had come.  Lots of yawning, lounging and rubbing of eyes.

I was thinking of putting Maggie in her crib in the same room with Jack in his pack 'n play.  Poor spoiled Maggie hasn't had to sleep by herself in an enclosure since before we went to Singapore (that's nearly 3 months ago), however and didn't take it very well.  She cried so hard she started coughing.  She coughed so hard she barfed.  She barfed everywhere, as if to ensure she would not be sleeping in her crib this particular evening.  I took her out of there, stripped her, stripped the bed, and separated the barfed-on animals from those spared such humiliation.  

Poorest Jack!  All of this was very upsetting.  As if he wasn't upset enough to be going to bed without his own Mommy to tuck him in.  

To make the situation all the easier, Arthur hadn't gone to sleep yet either.  I couldn't do all of this fast enough to get Maggie in the bathroom before she made it to the tatami mat room (和室) we have been sleeping in as a family while Matt is away. I found her a few minutes later laid out in the bed, her vomit-crusted ear on the pillow.  Oy.

After bathing Maggie and wrangling her and Arthur to bed, I started the load of unbarfed-on laundry that was already waiting.  I went back upstairs armed with wipes and a flashlight and wiped up the splatters of barf on and around the stripped crib, doing my best not to disturb now-sleeping Jack.  From the diaper-changing table, Buttercup watched peacefully with her best air of tofu-kitty nonchalance as I went through wipe after wipe on the corner of the rug and snipped off chunks of barf-laden tuile from the bedskirt.  

I had to run the barfed-on load twice and will have to run a couple of items a third time. Really glad I fed Maggie raspberries and rice and broccoli.  I was going to try a new smoothie after the kids went to bed, but settled for a bowl of cereal instead.  I really had no desire to see anything blended after that episode!

Anyone want to babysit Maggie?  Whoa, don't speak all at once.  Everyone can have a shot at tofu-bunny barf-o-rama!

**update** I drafted this post at the end of August.  Since then, Papa has returned.  This morning, when he had to go to work, Maggie let the whole neighborhood know how opposed she was to this.  It was quite the scene at nearly 6am, and while it didn't end up a barf-o-rama, she did spit up part of her bottle between sobs.  Glad we were outside this time!

If only I had known we were going to see this dinner again later...

Gentleman Jack, he's so gentle with both Buttercup and Arthur.

Not-quite-so-gentle Maggie

Getting sleepy...

Watching Peter Pan together in Matt's big comfy la-z-boy

Getting our shoes on in the morning

That's the 8 o'clock bell... time to head to school!

How to Potty Train a Tofu-bunny?

So this month Maggie got a potty.  It's a little red one, very simple, from Ikea.  Says it was made in Latvia!  So far, she's pooped on it twice and peed a number of times.  At the good suggestion of a friend, she has been receiving little rewards every time she uses it successfully.  I have a grab bag with small trinkets (mostly little Japanese animal- and Hello Kitty-shaped erasers and a few other things), but some how a bag of animal crackers ended up in my cart last time I went to the commissary, so these have been used to reward Maggie, as well.  Plus, she's not always so good at just taking one thing out of the grab bag... A tofubunny can fit more than you think into that little chubby paw!

And how is it going?  The first day was STELLAR!  She used it twice, once to pee and once to poop with very little prompting from me.   Then she picked it up and brought it to the big toilet, dumped it, put a wad of toilet paper in (just like Mommy!  Well, almost.  She failed to wipe herself with it first. Also, she likes to put the potty paper ALL the way in the potty rather than just dropping it in and trusting that it will make it into the flushable part of the bowl... *sigh*) and flushed! She loves to flush.  She also loves to wash her hands, thank goodness!  

And the next day?  Oh, she changed her mind and wanted very little to do with the potty.  She decided the floor was a better place to relieve herself.  I had been encouraged to buy her cute little panties because of the day before, but all that did was create laundry.  I have had to be more proactive, putting her on the potty every ten minutes or so.  If that means she can't keep playing what she was playing with, I let her watch a video on my iPad or play a silly iPad game.  Maggie now loves PokoPang and Birzzle.  I hope she gets good at Birzzle, so we can download the cute stickers for free for our fun new messaging app called LINE... Anyone with a smartphone who loves to use emoticons (ahem, T-Bone) should download this app straight away and friend us!  Our user ID is mimispyce!  LINE makes it very easy to share multiple pictures and videos, and they have the cutest stickers!  (Like emoticons, but cuter, funnier and more expressive).  Back to the story...

The conclusion?  Well, after a couple weeks of several morning and evenings a week without a diaper, her diaper rash is a lot better.  She's still not potty trained fully, however, and hardly uses the potty without a lot of input from me.  It keeps me very busy.  We would probably have more success if I didn't have also to meet Arthur's needs and could focus my attention on helping Maggie to appreciate the potty and want to use the potty.  Right now it's all I can do to get her to sit on it and be regular about it every 10 minutes when we are at home.  I don't think a cuter potty with more whistles and bells would help.  If I were able to be more consistent and not stop the training every time we go somewhere or have guests stop by because I don't have a big enough attention span to deal with my charges here, the outside world, and the possibility of an accident, we might be more successful, too.  Perhaps a potty story in French and one of those pants-wetting dolls I've read about might help... Next time, I suppose.

Some friends living in Hawaii took their daughter to Maui and sent her to a lady's house for the day who potty trains kids, professionally.  She likes to have a group of them and she potty trains them all in one day... Oh wouldn't that be nice?  If anyone knows of such a service here in Japan, please, tell me!

In the mean time, less or no diaper rash is worth the trouble.

How long do I have to sit here?

August 5, 2013: POOPY IN THE POTTY!!! 

YAY!!! Hello Kitty eraser for our efforts!

Back in the 'Pan

The month of July went by without a post.  The same will not be true for August, though.  We've had such a big summer that writing about it is a little overwhelming.  Listen up, Maggie and Arthur.  Take a cue from your father and learn to do a little bit of something that is important to you but not urgent everyday.  Don't take up Mommy's perfectionist tendencies and wait until you have a chunk of time to devote to it... It will never happen!  Not after you have kids anyway.  Learn to make the most of 5 minutes.  All right, enough moral tales.

We are sick today.  We made it through all our travels healthy, so we can be thankful for that. Maggie's at home sick yesterday and today with a fever from Wednesday night and a cough from a while ago that got worse.  We went to the pediatrician's office (Dr. Suzuki 鈴木先生) at the hospital.  He gave me 3 different things for her, but you know Maggie and medicine.  She is wearing her chest sticker, though.  I'm not really clear about how that works, but I followed the instructions. At least no one tried to give me an enema this time!

Arthur's had a cough that sneaks up randomly, but seems pretty healthy otherwise.  Some nights he gets congested and has a hard time.  I got a hearty がんばてくださいね (gambate kudasai... I.e. hang in there) from the doc, but not much you can do for an infant.  He prescribed a couple of things, but I haven't needed them.  No cool chest stickers like Maggie-chan, anyway.

Arthur, Maggie and I got so used to sleeping in the same room during our travels, that we've continued the practice here at the Tanaka House.  Saves on air conditioning, anyway!

Here's Arthur sitting on our friend Akemi's lap while Mommy enjoys an iced tea and some Japanese conversation!

Maggie, hard at work on her Tervis Tumbler... We LOVE these, by the way!

Morning at the Tanaka House

Sick Maggie

Maggie with her medicated chest sticker

Feeling better this morning, though.

What's up, doc?

Nap time for Tofubunnies!

Anyone need a diaper change?  Buttercup can handle it.

A little of what Papa has been up to down under...

Doesn't Nemo live there?

Look at the postcard we got in the mail today!  Maggie will be so excited...

They took her stroller!

It was early... no, I mean EARLY when I had to roust two sleeping tofu-bunnies out of their crib and criblet to catch our 06:25 flight out of Narita.  We had a long flight ahead of us to get to Singapore to see Daddy.  Only for Daddy!

Maggie's stroller was a comfort to her, though.  We are out of the house so much (usually by Maggie's own preference), that it has become a second home.  She eats, sleeps and observes the world from her red stroller.  It had become so full of ground up snacks and bits of rice and spilled juices, in fact, that while Maggie was at school Arthur and I gave it two scrub-downs and a day in the sun before starting out on our adventure.

So there we were all dreary-eyed at the check-in counter for Jetstar Airways checking our barely-in-weight-limits 25 kg suitcase on the scale (that we had paid for ahead of time), when the impeccably coiffed and made-up attendant asked me "And how about the stroller?" What about the stroller?  It's going with us.  "You cannot take your stroller to the gate.  We have to check it." 

Oh, no way.  Having air-traveled via Haneda where you can't take a personal stroller through the gate, I had foreseen this possibility and chatted online with Jetstar staff the day before on the subject of strollers at Narita.  'Michael' of jetstar.com had said we could take our stroller to the gate.  'Megumi' dutifully nodded her head and stepped into the back.  I'm sure she spoke to no one behind the door, probably just checked her hair and watched a viral video someone shared with her.  She knew the drill, though.  When she came back, she had on her best bowed head and defeated pout.  "So sorry.  Call-center misinformation.  So sorry. So sorry."

I knew the drill, too.  We had already paid for 25 kg of checked luggage, and I had carefully packed all three of us for the next month and a half... (They say all it takes is diapers and love.  Well, that's a whole lotta love.)  Anyway, we weren't about to pay for more.  I feigned horror.  What do you want me to do?  Are you going to give me a stroller to use at the airport?  (They gave me an airport stroller at Haneda.)  You're not going to make me pay for this, too?  "I'm sorry.  It's Narita rule.  No strollers.  So sorry!  No, you don't have to pay."  And all of this carry-on luggage attached to the stroller?  "It's okay." 

Maggie, however, did not know this drill.  Nor did she have to 'feign' upset as I took her out of the stroller and folded it up.  She made quite the scene as poor Megumi tried as peacefully as possible to place the stroller on the scale.  Binky in mouth and bottle in hand, Maggie threw all 25 pounds of her bed-headed, pink stripey pajama clad existence into rescuing her stroller from the clutches of the airline.  Even though she failed to get her stroller back, at least she succeeded in making the airline and airport own up to its cruelty.

Well, we are in Singapore now with Daddy who put us up at the nicest, most family-friendly resort in Singapore.  Maggie seems to have forgotten the stroller incident for now.  Sorry there are no pics, but I accidentally left my iPhone.  We are working hard to rectify this situation, but for now thousands of words will have to do!

田中家の朝 (Morning at the Tanaka House)

 "田中" (Tanaka), the name of the owner of this house we live in, is etched in stone above the mail slot at the top of the steps.  I often wonder what Tanaka-san is up to at 5AM when his house becomes a hive of Tofu-bunny activity.

 Maggie likes to come downstairs and greet her baby brother Arthur FIRST THING.

 Her bottle is a close second, though.  Maggie has also discovered Mommy's little helper.  Lately she uses it to step up and remove all of the CD's from the CD rack.  Good thing we don't bother keeping them in any particular order.

Maggie has a few cartoons she likes to watch in the morning.  They are about as wholesome as it gets.  Her favorite character in the series is Sophia.  She likes to watch the Sophia episodes over and over again.  Good thing they are only a couple of minutes long each!  Sometimes I think the only reason she lets me do her hair is so that it can be in pigtails just like Sophia.  Here's Maggie readying her bag, just like Sophia.  You can click here to see the series online.  You can select your language in the upper right corner.  We watch them in French, of course! 

Maggie discovered the whale on the back of this magazine.  She is thrilled by sea creatures.  The points to it, looks up at me, and tries to imitate "baleine" (whale, in French).  Do my best not to giggle when she says "Blahblah" back at me very emphatically.  She also tries to say Arthur, Nemo (whom we watch some evening, albeit in Spanish), and "biberon" (bottle, in French).

Arthur likes to look out of the sliding glass doors onto the scene in the backyard or look up at me from his Boppy and coo adorably.

 Sunday mornings there is a lot of activity in the kitchen because that's when Daddy makes us pancakes.  Pancakes are quite an evolution.  Thank goodness Maggie is on the scene to help out.

We also have to decide what we are going to wear in the morning.  Maggie has quite the flair for picking out her outfits.  And she loves to accessorize.  Here she is in an increasingly unseasonable ensemble of her choosing.

I wish I could have gotten her to wear those a couple of months ago.  And this is what happens when Daddy picks out our outfit...

 We just love that Daddy!  Maggie just loves to select her own shoes, too.  Here she is pairing boots with a maxi... Move over Miley Cyrus!

Once Arthur is satisfied with the scene outside, he likes to sit up in someone's lap and survey the scene in the living room.

These days, it doesn't take very long before Maggie is done with the Tanaka House for the morning and ready to move on.  Here she is at 7AM trying to open the sliding glass door.  Good thing she hasn't figured out the locking mechanism on this one!

 And here it is, 7:15AM and we are on our way out the gate.  No outfit would be complete without an appropriate handbag.  Maggie has carefully selected hers from the offerings of our yard, evicted whatever arthropods were nesting in it, and carries on as if Coco Chanel had bequeathed it to her.  You go girl!

 Uh oh! Don't forget to shut that gate!

 Let's go!  On y va! Vamos! 行きましょね！

 Since nursery school isn't open until 8AM, we went to the playground.  One day you will be able to Click here to see some footage of the cutest thing ever to happen to a playground, but I'm having trouble with my movie editor, so I'll have to update the post or put it in another post.  I wish I could take more pictures on the playground, but my little mountain goat often requires both of my hands to keep her safe as she climbs to such great heights... And here we are on the yellow brick road to nursery school.

What could be cuter?  Two of them, I guess!

Maggie's Day

Clearly, I filled in the left hand side of the note.  The right hand side was written by Maggie's teacher named Okutsuki (?) Mariko (her first name) and begins with Maggie's body temperature (under her armpit).  They did not leave the nursery school room today.  She pooped 0 times and was happy.  She napped from 12:35 to 15:00.  At 09:30 she had a snack of baby biscuit and barley tea (mugicha). She ate nearly all of her lunch (pictured below), which consisted of rice, Japanese meatballs, macaroni salad, boiled sausage, and a choco-marshmallow.  At 15:30, she had a vegetable snack and more mugicha.  Her note reads:  "Today because it was raining, we stayed in the room and played with clay.  Maggie-chan made balls out of the clay, heap them up and then stab (?) them.  It looked like she was making dango*! Afterwards, with her favorite baby toys she played in very good spirits.  Recently, Maggie has gotten good at sitting in her seat and waiting!"

*Japanese round hollow doughnuts made with something glutinous, usually covered in sesame seeds and often filled with adzuki bean paste) 

Jealous!

Her lunch had 385 calories, 10.6 grams of protein, 8.8 grams of fat, and 900milligrams of sodium or salt.  Look, a marshmallow in the shape of the Shinkansen (bullet train)!

Growing, growing!

This is just a short post for all those who keep asking... Maggie, at 18.5 months, is just over 80cm and 11kg. (You can have Siri convert that to English units if you have an iPhone.) she mostly wears 18 month clothing with a few 12 month things she just won't let go of and the occasional 24 month article. Her feet are 13cm by Japanese measurement. They are also growing quickly.  I found a few summer sandals in14, but she was in a funk that day and refused everything I showed her, so we couldn't try them on.

Arthur, at 2.5 months is definitely out of newborn and even some 0 to 3 month stuff.  He fits 3 month stuff pretty well, but will soon be moving into 3 to 6 month and beyond.  I think he's pushing 60cm and 6kg.  No idea what size his feet are.  We're still working on sitting up here.

I can feel everyone rolling their eyes at the metric, but you're just going to have to google it or ask Siri, because I am embracing it.

It's getting hot here. Where we are going this summer, Singapore and Taiwan (and hopefully back to the States for a spell), it is likely to be even hotter!

It's about 5:30AM and Maggie's all ready to play outside

We were all up by 5AM... **yawn** Yay.

This guy got up around 4:45 this morning!

Went to Tokyo to get a SOFA stamp in his passport at the Embassy.  Now we can get him a visa so we can leave the country and re-enter as necessary!  Here we are riding the Romancecar, a special Odakyu Line train that goes from Shinjuku (Tokyo) to Machida (a few stops up the line from us).