'Dis n 'dat

Just a few pics from the last couple of days:

Arthur, hanging out in his pink bouncy buzzy seat. I would put a blanket of another color over it, but here in Asia pink is a manly color. At the hospital nursery "minna pinku de gozaimasu" (everyone's in pink) the nurse said of the babies.

Maggie found her way into the fridge. She's showing off a new taste combo of Parmesan and strawberries. Bet you never thought of that, huh?

Here's Maggie rearranging the drawers in the kitchen.

Dad's ready for work. Maggie's ready to pull off every one of his patches.

Never fear for these Tofu-bunnies! A fearless Tofu-kitty is on the watch.

Arthur, sleeping through tummy time.

Arthur, ready for his baby massage.

Arthur, ready for his bath.  He LOVES the bath.  He'd float around in there all day.  If he's in a good mood, he'll hang out and Mommy takes a bath after him, so we get a two'fer!

Would you look at this little gentleman?

Maggie discovered Mommy's little helper!   Like a little mountain goat, she always has to be at the highest point she can climb to...

... Too bad she doesn't have the balance of a mountain goat!  Maybe in another post, you'll hear about the fall she took yesterday.  Two can get kinda crazy!

Hanging out on the sofa with Tofu-san.

Maggie's little helper helped her reach Daddy's wallet.  She's learning early where her bread is coconut-buttered.

A Tofu-kitty has to take refuge somewhere.

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.

Here's Maggie, keeping calm and charioting on.

Do these shoes make her bum look big?

A tofu-kitty, looking pretty content.

Arthur, hanging out in the front yard.
And now he's getting a little crazy...