My life in Legos

Uta's Sensei will receive this special gift today!

Baby, Its Cold Outside!

Stripes

Happy Boy

I think this is the happiest I've ever seen Uta. Or maybe its just a certain kind of happy that is totally new to him. It starts deep inside him like a glow, slowly lifting up every cell in his being like a million brightly colored helium balloons, until it escapes out his mouth in a sigh of pride and self satisfaction. He is walking taller this morning. Basking in orange.

Dekita!

(He did it!)

In the night kitchen

I can only vaguely remember a time when the night felt eternally long, when staying up until midnight felt like a feat insurmountable, and waking up before dawn to get an early start on a childhood trip felt like stepping out into a foreign land of vaguely familiar shadows. Now the wee hours of the night are as ordinary as the day. I'm up most nights, creaking the floor boards, and startling the cockroaches out of their happy hour. Our neighbors across the hall are single friends. I'm not sure exactly of the head count, who is living there, who is just crashing on the sofa. I hear them coming home. Their voices lifted up by the drama of alcohol as their night collides with mine. Only a thin wall separating us. On my side I am quiet, swaying with my baby, heavy on the edge of sleep. I'm conducting invisible orchestras for an audience of one, hoping to get the rhythms in time with the lull of the sea, the melody as mesmerising as the stars. And then maybe back to bed. A cross section of our building would tell six very different tales, strangers living atop each other, all of us just being human through the night.

Orange belt...

The official results will not be announced until after Wednesday. But from what me and Pop could observe, Uta did brilliantly.

Love note

Dear Uta

I know you have girlfriends and all but I wanted to say I love you.

love Phoebe

(in this envelop there is a secret of love)

This is not the first confession of love that Uta has received, nor will it be the last. When I picked him up yesterday he handed me the note and said, "Read this in your head". After I finished he said, "I don't get it. Why would she write that?"

Fingers crossed

Tomorrow Uta will take his first Karate promotion test. If he passes he will shed his white belt in exchange for the much coveted orange belt. Good luck Uta!

Sleeping like a baby

I am tired. I'm bumping into walls, leaving burners on, staring blankly into faces I ought to recognize, tired. I didn't know I had it so good (waking every three hours to nurse Kiki back to sleep), until it got a whole lot worse. Lately Kizuki is waking hourly. And not just in need of resettling, she is wide awake and ready for the diversions of day; eyes open, arms flapping, legs kicking, screeching with delight. On top of all that, she has landed her first cold. So even when she wants to sleep her stuffy nose, coughing, and general drippy state pose more than a few challenges. My trusty baby book says that at four months teething can begin, night-waking resumes, and the honeymoon is over. I wasn't aware I was on a honeymoon. But, yes, it is certainly over. Sleeping like a baby? No, not quite.

Go!

One fish, two fish

Kizuki is four months (16 weeks) old today!

Scones!

With a baby everything takes longer. Getting out the door is an orchestration of diaper changes, bag packing, and last minute nursing. Sometimes we don't even make it out the door. Sometimes even going to the corner for milk feels way too ambitious. But most of the time, things just happen slower. My to do list is long and neglected. It gets reshuffled daily, and often the little things, like sending a note of thanks, fall to the bottom.

On Christmas Eve, after a full day of work, and with exhaustion accompanying them at the starting line, Uncle J and Shanta drove six hours through the thick of night (crossing paths with Santa) to be with us on Christmas morning. I don't know why they willingly sacrificed their one day off to be woken up at the crack of dawn by a present crazed kid, but they did, and we were delighted. Though we did next to nothing (lounging all day in our pajamas, cat napping on and off, and playing with Uta), having them with us made it feel like Christmas. What made the day even more special was that Shanta baked. She made an old fashioned coffee cake, cheese cake, and cranberry walnut scones that were so good I am still mourning my last bite (eleven days later) and wondering when, if ever, I will eat a scone that good again.

Thank you! (A little belated but none the less heartfelt.)

New Years Day

From what I gather, Christmas in Japan is no big deal. Its like valentines day. There may be a small gift, perhaps a shared sweet, but none of the customary excess that we have come to love and dread here in America. Papa H will probably never get used to the gobs and gobs of presents that spill forth from beneath the tree on Christmas morning. Isn't one present enough? Yes. But that is besides the point. Its the frenzy of unwrapping, the confetti of ribbon and torn paper, and the complete and utter delirium of having way too much all at once! That's not what Christmas is all about, of course, we all know, but when you are a kid, its a definite perk.

In Japan, the holiday that everyone comes home for is New Year's. Food preparations for this special day are elaborate, to say the least. Countless dishes, exquisitely beautiful and symbolic, are prepared ahead of time and presented in stacked lacquer boxes. The New Year's holiday lasts for three days. Nobody works, nobody cooks, families come together and eat. We are always a little sad on New Year's Day when we can't be in Japan with H's family. This year we did iChat with them, and tried to share, just a little of their New Year's warmth. But it was not the same. Computer screens are flat and cold and lousy substitutes for the real thing, they only accentuate the impossible distance between us.

So we did the next best thing to spending the holidays with family, we spent it with friends. Papa organized a wonderful New Year's celebration with lots of friends and lots a food. Uta was a maniac, a very happy one, the entire time. Luckily there were plenty of people (and space) to diffuse his boundless excitement. Eventually he crashed, but only after everyone else had gone home. He was the last man standing. Except for Papa. Papa had to carry Uta home.

Happy New Year Everyone!