Fiasco at McDonalds...

We drove Daddy across town this evening for a rehersal time with some musicians he is playing with, and on the way home Hana and Mommy decided to treat ourselves to some Mcy-D's for dinner! We happily made our way over to the restaurant and with giggles and smiles like two little girlfriends on a "ladies night out". We entered the establishment ready to FEAST! Hana ventured out of her normal menu rut and decided to have a Hamburger Happy Meal Set, instead of her normal Chicken McNuggets (way to go Hana-baby!). Mommy ordered her usual Chicken Sandwhich, Salad set. We secured a favorite high chair with Ronald smiling ever so enthusiastically at us, and headed with our feast to a table with a view! We girlies were having fun.

Now, Mommy knows Hana has a tendency to decide she needs to go tee-tee during the meal so I asked her specifically when we entered the restaurant if she'd like to get that little event out of the way, and she adamently said she did NOT need to go. TWICE! So Mommy believed her.

We had just settled in for our scrumptious meal, Hana had her whole spread on the high chair tray in front of her and she was sampling her first bite of Happy Meal Hamburger when suddenly she says, "Mommy, teetee!" Go figure.

So Mommy is on her own right? We have all our food spread out in front of us and there is no way I am going to make her wait until the end of the meal. I decide there is no choice but to just go, and leave our food there. I scoop up my purse and begin getting her out of the high chair when Hana-baby jerks her knees up and POP - off flies the high chair tray, making a 180 degree flip and splat, on the floor goes all Hana's food. All the while Hana-baby is more adamently reminding me that she needs to hit the John, LIKE, NOW MOMMY! Mommy is almost in a panic, what do I do with the mess while I take her? I quickly reported the incident to a staff member and headed to the potty, when we returned, the mess was still on the floor, every patron in the whole restaurant was watching milk slowly make a stream across the entire restaurant with a "poor foreigner" expression on their face, and I was blushing furiously! Finally a staff member appeared with a mop, the mess disappeared, and get this, THEY BROUGHT US A WHOLE NEW MEAL!

OK, most embarrasing moment for Spring '07, out of the way!

By the way, Hana thoroughly enjoyed her new Happy Meal menu. She ate the WHOLE burger. But she so totally takes after Mommy, we had to remove the pickles! Daddy would have laughed, you see Daddy receives a bonus couple of pickles every time we eat hamburgers in our family, FROM MOMMY! Now, he's gonna enjoy even more. We hope Daddy doesn't turn into a pickle!!! Nahhh, we don't eat hamburgers that often, I THINK!?

It's empty!

After dinner this evening I took Hana to the potty. Potty time is a bit difficult to judge these days, sometimes she's done in a sec and wants to go back to play and sometimes she'd like to stay put for a while and play with some books. Mommy sometimes gets frustrated at the unpredictability of such visits, so instead of just leaving her there this evening only to be called back just as I get my hands in my dish gloves, I decided to ask her if she was going to be staying for a while. So I said, "Hana, are you all done or do you need to poopy?" and she goes...

"uuuuummmmphhhhhhhhhh" (a long grunt) and then looks up at me and says "Nope, it's empty!"

and she was all done! She cracks me up!

What a memory!

You will NOT believe this. Hana has an incredible memory (I knew it but she demonstrated something amazing yesterday).

At the breakfast table yesterday morning Daddy was looking at an advertisement. Hana suddenly started saying, "Eiji, Shoko" the names of some friends of ours in Tokyo. We talk about them off and on and have mentioned them recently, plus Rocky has their picture in his cell phone and she regulary makes him go through all his cell phone pictures so she can identify all the people. So Daddy asked her, "Do you want to go see Eiji and Shoko?" and she says, "Yea, Eiji, Shoko!" And we told her that we will get to see them this summer. Then she points to the add he is looking at and repeats, "Eiji Shoko, Eiji Shoko!" Rocky and I looked at the add and there are no pictures of any people on the add, so Rocky asked her, "Where are Eiji and Shoko?" and she just sort of furrowed her brow at him and then pointed again to the paper and said their names. Rocky and I were both confused and we asked if she could see Eiji and Shoko on the paper. She said no, and pointed specifically to some Sushi and said "Eiji, Shoko! Eiji, Shoko!" and Rocky says "OH MY GOSH, do you remember going to eat sushi with Eiji and Shoko?" And Hana says yea, and points and again and says their names. Rocky showed her a picture of them to be sure this is who she was talking about. She said, "yea, eata, Eiji Shoko!" eata = eat

We looked it up and she was only 14 months old when we went to visit them and went out to have sushi together. But she clearly remembers it! I know that she has an incredible memory, she demonstrates that all the time. but I didn't know that children this young had developed a long term memory yet. But she clearly remembers eating sushi with them because there is no way it was a coincidence that she associates them with the sushi she was seeing in the ad by chance. She is now 2 years and 9 months so that means that it was about a year and 7 months ago that this happened!

She has also demonstrated that she sort of remembers some things from our last trip to America but I always thought that was from the pictures that she remebers it and can talk about it. But now that I think about it, she remebers the names of people that we haven't seen for a long time, she remembers the names of stores or locations we haven't been to in a while when she sees them again. She also remembers things that happened months ago and sometimes talks about them. So I should be so amazed. but I thought that surely more than a years time with NO mention or reminder of something would certainly mean it has left her memory. Not in this case.

WOW, I wonder if it is just her or if this is common in children???

How come?

This is her cutest new little expression... "Mommy, how come?" It is so cute to hear such a matter of fact perfect statement come out of that little mouth. And then when we answer her, the response is always, "Oh." or "Oh, I see." So cute!

She is speaking in such long sentences these days to. Today she said to me, "Mommy, what that thing, over there, that blue one?"

She is doing so well with preschool! She is still sad in the morning and doesn't want to go, but she comes home SOOOOOO happy and has such a great time playing. We won't be leaving her all day everyday for the most part but right now, until she gets used to it, we are leaving her until nap time is over. She still doesn't want to sleep there, but for the past two days has napped a little. She comes home everyday chattering about what she did, and it is so fun to see her so happy. It has definitely brought on increased Japanese usage, but she is doing well with switching back to English. And Rocky and I have time to get things done while she's at school, so when she comes home we can interact and play with her more than before! I am glad we made the choice to go ahead and put her in now, instead of wait till later. And I think we made the right choice of which school too!

She's growing up way too fast though. I can't believe how big she is. I'll post pictures soon.

Little Hudini...

Our escape artist! I didn't know we had one, but we do. I was doing some work on the computer this afternoon and Rocky was washing the lunch dishes when I heard him go look out in the garage and say, "Hana, what are you doing?" Let me preface this by saying Hana can't and shouldn't go outside alone where we live. Our front door litterally steps INTO a street, and cars and bicycle riders are not looking for little kids to come popping out there. Well I realized a few minutes later that Rocky had disappeared, and so I went to look for them. They were out in front of the house and Hana was pushing one of her babies around in her stroller. I asked Rocky what they were doing and he said he'd found her outside by herself pushing her baby around! Evidently she went and got her own shoes, put them on and escaped through the screen door into the garage. The weather is beautiful right now so we are keeping doors and windows open. NOW I KNOW that I have to watch her really closely with the doors open. I never dreamed she'd decide to go outside without saying something to either one of us. Little Hudini Hana!

Hana started preschool this week. Two hours in the mornings for now, till she gets used to it. It is a Christian preschool just about a ten minute walk from here, and actually Daddy is a graduate of this preschool as well, so you know it is GOOD!!! The first day she SCREAMED and CRIED when her teacher took her from me. It was so hard for me to hold back the tears but I did well. Rocky went with me to drop her off, how'd he know Mommy needed the moral support!? We were speaking at a Christian college chapel service that morning so we headed off to work, and sometime during chapel they called to say Hana had a fever. Poor dear, Mommy and Daddy abandoned her on a day she doesn't feel well! We rushed back to get her and she fell apart when she saw us again. They said she'd played pretty well while we were gone though, even though she had a fever.

Yesterday her fever was down by morning so she went again, and didn't do so well. On the way over she wouldn't ride in her stroller and I felt compelled to spoil her a little so I carried her THE WHOLE mile walk over there (needless to say my arms are sore today). The closer we got to the school the tighter she clung to me and the higher she climbed. But the time we walked through the gates she was practically clinging to my head with her legs wrapped around my chest! I left her in the arms of her teacher, one UNHAPPY little girl. They said when I left, she discovered the church pastor (the school is attached to a church) and she knows and loves him so she sweet talked him into holding her all morning (imagine that, she has this power over sweet Christian men!) and she cried hard again when we arrived to pick her up.

But today was a little better. She cried when I left her, but when I got back they said she'd been playing happily and she didn't cry when she saw me, she was waving and smiling and chatting about her morning playing outside. So maybe things are getting better already!

Mommy on the other hand wonders if I can handle preschool. There are so many things to remember! I also have to always keep in her backpack or at the school two changes of clothing, a hand towel, a wash cloth, a bib (that I had to make according to instructions), shoes, a back pack, two record books, and more! I have to write down how she's been doing eating, sleeping etc in a booklet. I have to write or iron on her name in or on EVERYTHING she takes to school (all the washclothes, underwear, towels, socks, EVERYTHING!). It's going to be quite a chore making sure her name is all her clothes, writing all that down IN JAPANESE all the time and keeping up with what's at school, what needs to be taken, what needs to be washed, etc! All you veteran moms out there are chuckling at me right now saying, "girl it is just the beginning" aren't ya?! Just wait till sport uniforms, text books and club activities are thrown into the mix right!? OH BOY, being a Mommy sure is a blessing but sometimes it comes with surprises and more than I bargained for! Especially doing this in another country. I was scared to death I wasn't putting her name in the right places on her clothes or that I'd get reprimanded for what type of towels I bought or something! I've heard horror stories of preschool from other international Moms! But so far I guess I'm being a good girl. I wonder if I get a grade at the end of the semester?!

I'll have to try to get some pictures of Hana at preschool once she is happy about going. Her backpack is the CUTEST!

Golden Week...

The first week in May is a long holiday, and we always get a chance to take some time for family during this week. Hana's cousins always come from Osaka to visit and she LOVES it!

Here are some pics!!!

There were some kangaroos at one park we went to and Hana just LOVED them. She was especially excited about the Momma kangaroos with babies in their pockets!


This is little Tomoki (who is not so little anymore). He's 1 1/2 and weighs MORE than Hana does! He's a happy guy!


We got to do a pony carriage ride too!


One more time around with Daddy too!


Here I am with my big cousin Daiki! We were worn out from the long day at the park.

Listen...

Every night before bed, we read a Bible story with Hana. Then after it has been read to her, she takes her little Bible from me and begins to flip through the pages and pretend to read as well. Tonight Daddy and I were sitting on the couch together listening to her read to us, and we were noticing some of the things she was saying and whispering to each other about it. Hana stopped reading and turned to us and said, "Listen!" and then went back to reading. We both thought that was funny (it sounds exactly like what we say to her when she isn't paying attention during Bible story time) and we giggled about it. At that point Hana stopped again and turned to us and said, "Listen!" So funny!

She said it in a kind voice but it was still funny that she has learned the clear meaning of that word, and she used it so perfectly.

Bye bye, bow-wow

Well Hana had her first death in the family tonight. For Christmas Baba gave Hana a little ceramic dog that barks when it detects motion. I wondered how long he would last. He was supposed to be perched in our entryway to announce visitors, but there was no way I was going to put him there where he would also wake up a little girl all the time. And Hana also would not have stood for bow-wow living in the entryway. For weeks she has carried this puppy around as a toy, feeding him, putting him to bed, giving him baths (in available card board boxes) and just generally loving on him like she does all her favorite dolls and stuffed toys. I was amazed that a ceramic dog was so appealing to a two year old, but she loved him. Probably partially because he was a gift from one of her favorite people. Well tonight while preparing herself and bow-wow for bed, Hana was carrying him and she tripped and fell on top of him. Mommy was at the gym, so Daddy was on hand to witness the event, and unfortunately bow-wow broke! Daddy says she was really upset that bow-wow met with the end of his life as her toy. We could glue him back together, but I think he would just meet the same fate again soon, and I would rather her not keep playing with a cermaic toy (although sturdy it was) so we are going to bury bow-wow tomorrow. Or maybe just let bow-wow disappear overnight.

Gagas and Bam...

Hana LOVES her Gagas and Bam (Gram and Gramps) and we called them this morning. It was so cute. She told them "yubs shuuuu" several times, and talked about what she's been doing, then she took off and I thought she was going to play. I was just chating with Mom and Tracy when Hana comes back YELLING, "MOMMY, GAGAS, GAGAS, GAGAS!!!!!!!!" and I look to see her carrying her family photo album that I made for her. I laminated pictures of as many of her family members as I could from our last trip to America, and tied it into a book for her. She hasn't looked at that book in a while, but she went to find it so she could see Gagas and Bam! I thought that was so cute! Then she proceeds to say, "See Gagas, See Bam!" Rocky and I were like, oh boy we're in trouble now! She wants to go see them! We weren't planning a trip back to the states until early 2008, but I sort of agree with Hana, I want to see Gagas and Bam! hmmmmmmmmm (as Hana would say when she is deep in tought)

Homemade Easter basket...

Well I'm sort of limited on my Easter supplies here in Japan and waited too long to order anything (which would have been outrageously expensive anyways) so we got creative for her Easter eggs and basket! I found a little pattern for making a basket online, and used our old milk cartons to hand make the basket. I printed out some stickers to decorate the outside of the basket. But then came the challenge of coloring the eggs. Well, I found Japanese food coloring but it is all "natural" and not very potent. The red, yellow and green did OK with coloring, but the blue and purple would NOT color the eggs at all! Oh well, we got some pretty pastels. Except for one egg that I left sitting in the green coloring for a couple of hours. It got REALLY green!

Happy Easter to my sweet baby.

Cherry Blossoms!

Our little flower girl enjoying cherry blossoms!!! (Hana's name means flower so we try to get her picture with flowers as much as possible!)


Here is Hana's very first Cherry Blossom season, she was 7 months old!!!


And here is last year!


And again this year... she has grown so much!

Just some stuff before I forget...

I am trying to keep a running log of the things she is learning and happenings, so today I have time during her nap to type and I'm just gonna try to remember all the stuff she has been doing lately.

I am trying to get her to begin to learn phonics but she is completely uninterested. She has a poster on the wall in the bath with the ABC's on it and she has them all memorized, so I thought maybe it was getting boring just identifying the letters so we can start learning what the letters say. She looks at me like I am a complete idiot when I try to get her to repeat that "B says buh". I guess it hasn't sunk in that B is more than just a B, it stands for a sound. Oh well, I'll keep trying!

Our car can seat three in the front and three in the back and the middle seats will adjust on a sliding rail, so that they can be pushed back. This means that Hana can sit in the front with us, and her seat is just slid back for safety (so the airbags won't get in case of a crash). Until now we've always had her in the back but recently we took a short day trip with friends and we put Hana up front with us so our friends could be in the back with their child. She loved it and we were surprised to enjoy having her up front with us in the middle. So we've left her there, and it is amazing to see how much she observes as we drive around and how much she knows. We didn't know that she knew the names of so many shops or could identify so many letters and numbers, etc. This girl is one smart little cookie.

She is speaking English almost exclusively with us and other English speakers and switching to Japanese with Japanese speakers. I am trying to figure out if this is just a learned/conditioned response or if she knows the difference between the two langauges. I don't think she knows that they are two totally different languages yet, although she does know that most everything in her world has two names. It's kind of hard to explain why I think she doesn't totally understand the difference yet, but it is still amazing what her mind is doing with the two languages. I have read that they don't consciously know the difference until the age of four. I am just soooo relieved that I have been able to condition her to respond to me in English most of the time. Many of her words that were automatically coming out in Japanese EVERYTIME, are now coming out in English OR both. Like she'll say, "Mommy, mite, look look" or something like that. Now we'll throw another kink in the formula when she starts going to preschool three days a week in May! UGH!

When either Rocky and I turn on the "oh boy your in trouble" tone, her response has become so cute. She'll immediately look up at us and in the sweet voice say, "Ok Mommy!" And stop what she is doing. That little "OK" sounds so sweet.

We borrowed a Little Einstein DVD from friends and she LOVES this show. I downloaded a season of Dora on iTunes but I'll probably be downloading Little Einstein sometime soon too. This show is so educational, in Art, Music and Science. I am amazed that she loves it so much, and it teaches majorly big words, like metamorphosis and metropolitan and stuff. She's gonna sound like a 40 year old at 4! No wonder kids these days blow me away with their vocabulary. They learn it from CARTOONS!

Right now in Japan is election season and one of the ways they campaign is to drive around in vans with big signs on them, and a loud speaker. They wave at everyone and yell their name a million times a minute through that speaker. Talk about distrurbing the peace. Anyways, she always asks "What's that?" when she sees them and Mommy always tells her, "Those are politicians, they are campaigning." So today we were driving around and saw one of those vans and she said "Mommy, ticians!" I've been teaching her to wave at them cause if you do the person yelling on the loud speaker gets all excited and thanks you for your support and everyone riding along waving gets so excited too and they wave real big and smile! It's funny to watch and it must make their day after so many people ignore them all day long. She won't wave with me yet, maybe tomorrow!

She is GREAT at saying, "Thank you" "You're welcome" "please" and other polite little things. She is so polite and we didn't really work hard to make her say these things, she just does it.

I'm sure there has to be more but that is all I can think of right now!

OH wow!!!

This is a gorgeous picture, our friend took this weekend at the wedding. WOW, it is so precious!!!!!!!!!

Our little comedian...

Hana has a Veggie Tales DVD she got for Christmas that is a sing-along. She loves watching and one of our favorite songs on it is Pizza Angel. For all you out there who don't do Veggie Tales or don't know this song, basically Larry is lamenting over the fact that the pizza he ordered is late, very late, and he's craving it. The chorus goes like this...

Pizza Angel please come to me
Tomato sauce and cheese so gooey.
Pizza Angel I'm on my knees...

and so forth! Hana loves it. Well the other night we were going to treat ourselves to dinner out and Hana immediately started yelling "Pizza! Pizza!" as we were headed out the door. Daddy and I had already chosen the restaurant and we knew they had a little pizza on the menu, but it was not our normal pizza restaurant. So we told her she could have pizza and she must have assumed we were going to that restaurant. When we pulled into the parking lot of a different restaurant, from the back seat we heard this lament...

OH NO! Pizza Angel!!!!!!!!!

What a nut!

Then last night we got personal entertainment at dinner. We had Afureru worship and the staff always goes out to eat together afterwards. After Hana finished eating she was playing around the table with everyone and she grabbed the two little menu stands on the table and propped them up on the water pitcher. She proceeded to stand behind it and begin to babble away. We soon realized she was pretending to read a Bible story like we do for children's time at church. We always have the picture posters with the story on the back. She was even switching out the two menus as she read the story, pretending to move to the next poster and next portion of the store. It was so cute! Here is a picture...



She had the whole table entertained. Before it was over she was actually calling out menu items as a part of her story. What a riot!

Note to self...

When teaching your daughter how to say "gas station" be sure to emphasize the "G"!!!

Video

I got some video of Hana tonight. She was telling me a HUGE story and speaking mostly in Japanese in one video. There are only a few recognizable words, but she is telling me some story about putting something inside of something small. The other video is of her speaking some English, she was mostly protesting to Daddy singing anything which she does sometimes these days! She's funny, sometimes she wants us to sing and sometimes she doesn't and when she doesn't want us to she REALLY doesn't want us to! Anyways, here is the link to snapfish.com. You have to join to see them but it is free...

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=19941173014034459/l=245608412/g=9950766/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

She LOVES to be wrapped up inside our coats, and she puts her babies inside her clothes and carries them around the same way. You'll see that in the video.

The little character that poots...

In our city, there is a city bus system and they have a little character painted on the side of their bus. He looks like this...



As we drive around town, every time Hana sees him she giggles and says "Mommy, boy pooting!!!" She must thing the little shadow below him represents gas! I think it is incredibly smart that she came up with that on her own but also hilarious!

What a riot!

Excuse my shadow Mr. Treetrunk

Hana recently discovered her shadow. She loves watching it. Today on our sunny day outing to the park she had a blast following her shadow around. But she did the funniest thing. Once when her shadow hit a tree trunk, she turned to the tree and said "Gomen!" Which is like "excuse me". It was so cute! She does this when she is trying to get past us and has to push us or if she bumps into us while walking. So her shadow bumped into the tree and she felt compelled to appologize to it! So funny!

Bright, sunny day

Just some pictures to enjoy...


brushing teeth!


She loves climbing steps and running around outside, she did not want to be carried or ride in her stroller! Such a cutie!


Is it just me or could she be a fashion model!? Minus the belly maybe?


A soccer star in the making! She is so agile, she walked all over the park, climbed hills and flights of stairs, all by herself and only fell down once!

I one two...

I have been having the HARDEST time getting Hana to say certain things in English. She has her things she always says in English like, "hello" "mine" "eat" etc. She knows her ABC's and 1,2,3's in English only, and some other things. But most of the rest of the time (it seems to me) she speaks a lot of Japanese. It is driving me NUTS! I have been doing my best to make her say things in English before I will respond appropriately. My biggest project right now is to get her to say "I want to ___." instead of saying the thing she wants and following it with the Japanese "shitai" which means I want. So EVERY DAY a MILLION times a day for example, she says... "Teetee shitai" and I say, "SAY - I want to teetee", and she says "want to teetee" and then we go.

FINALLY today, a couple of times she has said "I want to ____." on her own OR at just a stern look from me, she says it OR if I say "how do you say that?" she'll say it in English. And at dinner tonight she was asking for more toast with butter and she said, "more butter shitai" and I just looked at her and she goes...

"I one two three... I one two butter!"

Rocky and I both died laughing! No wonder she won't say "I want to..." she thinks I am asking her to count or something! It was soooooooooo hilarious!

Rocky was like, "she must think we are always asking her to count and say ABC's, just think about it, we make her say 'I want to see ____' when she asks for a video. She must be thinking we are making her say 'I one two C _____'!"

What a riot!