Tofu-bunnies!: Day 2 of being a blogger

Am I really going to keep this up? I just have a feeling one day Maggie and Arthur are going to want to know what their childhood in Japan was like, and I might not be able to decipher the little daily notes from the nursery school anymore.

So why do we call them tofu-bunnies? I think the term originated with us here in Japan, but several years ago, when we were taking a Japanese class in Sapporo. We had gone to the movies and unfortunately, there was only one in English. And it was a scary one. Afterwards, I remarked that we need to go see something ridiculously cute with "tofu-bunnies" hopping around. I guess I just envisioned some really cute Japanese cartoon character that would help me avoid nightmares. Then somehow this term came to mean babies and small children. They are all soft and squishy from the time they are born and usually for a few years thereafter. And they are cute and sweet like little bunnies.

Today I took Arthur to the doctor to get his right eye checked out. I took him back to the pediatrician at the same Japanese hospital where he was born and had his subsequent 4-week check up. Since he was born, his right eye puts out a lot of gunk which dries and gums up his eyelid. We have to periodically clean it with a damp cloth throughout the day. After I filled out all the silly paperwork, one of the administrators asked me when I had last weighed him. I guess she didn't believe me that he was 5 kilos. I told her it was the 4-week check. She indicated that I needed to weigh him again without his diaper. Ugh. He was peacefully asleep in the Bjorn. But I woke him up, removed his sleeper, pulled out a clean diaper to have at the ready, and slipped him out of his dirty one onto the scale. The read out said he weighed 5.5 kilos. Before we could get him off the scale, he sprayed it and the adjacent administrative station down, if you know what I mean. I did what I could to shield everyone with the clean diaper, but he definitely sprayed a printer or two. Serves them right for putting the baby scale next to the office equipment. Serves them right for waking him up and making him get naked in the middle of the waiting room.

This morning, Maggie made me take her for a ride in the snap n go. She likes to ride around in the bottom of the carriage, as if she's in some sort of chariot. She also insisted on wearing her daddy's Adidas slip ons that he puts on to run out and get the paper in the morning. She undoes the velcro (or has me help her undo the velcro) as if they won't fit properly unless she velcros them over her miniscule paw, rather than just slipping it in. Could anything be cuter?

We also have a tofu-kitty, by the way. Her name is Buttercup. As I am typing, she is curled up in her daddy's recliner, lightly snoring.