After all that procrastinating, it's so nice to finally have a blog up. Most of it will be dedicated to reporting on Minori... well that can really be helped, can it, since I'm just preoccupied with her day in and day out at least for now. But there will be other stuff every once a while, I promise.
Minori celebrated her 8 month birthday a little over a week ago. This is going to sound like bragging but she seems to be ahead of all her milestones. The truth is, we're not terribly ecstatic... Minori is growing up so fast and for selfish reasons we just want her to remain our baby girl! She is fiercely independent. Besides crawling to corners of the apartment where the sun never shines, she's also been trying to stand WITHOUT support since a couple of days ago. She does that for a few seconds and then fall on her butt.
Minori is adventurous with her food. She eats anything that is fed to her, and NOT fed to her, like daddy's chicken curry. Just a few days ago, daddy was eating a pretty sour yokan (a citrus fruit that resembles the orange) and she wanted it too. She chomps down some, makes that face cos it's sour, and then grabs more from daddy's hand.
She continues to smile at all the stranger aunties and uncles from her stroller wherever we are... in the supermarket, department store, train station, cafe, vegie stall, etc. The smile usually sparks off a conversation in basic Japanese ("nan kagetsu desu ka?" = how many months is she?) leading into more difficult Japanese that I just "so desu ne" (meaning oh yes or that is so) to without really understanding anything. And then I would quickly get Minori to wave bye bye -- thankfully she can do this now -- and off we go. I have to admit that since having Minori, my spoken japanese has inevitably improved a little.
What an unusually warm day for winter today! Our thermometer says it's about 20.5 degrees in the apartment. It's probably just a degree or two lower outdoors. A perfect day for a stroll once Minori gets up from her nap.
The last two days were pretty fun! We recorded the "live" women's figure-skating events and I found myself excited to wake up earlier than usual (but not that early as to catch it "live") to watch it first thing in the morning before I hear it on the news. My fingers were crossed for all the Japanese skaters, particularly Shizuka Arakawa - I like looking at her when she concentrates - and Fumio Suguri - her spins are spell-binding! And Shizuka did it! Likely the only gold for Japan this Olympics but a historical one. Apparently she's the first Asian to ever strike gold for this event. Omedetou! Fumio did a beautiful and clean free-skate routine and the judges should have rewarded her better than her 4th position though. What on earth were they thinking! (Photo from Yahoo! Sports of Shizuka doing her trademark Ina Bauer)
