sunday

June 29th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Happy birthday Aunt Junko! You are immi’s favorite aunt!! We just finished dinner and are about to have tea and cookies.

Immi is drinking soy-milk (not coffee!!). Immi likes her drinks much better when they come in containers that look like mine!

Immi’s hair looks wet but it’s actually really crunchy. This is because she plastered it with concoction of pasta salad and stewed apple. If she was trying to go for her daddy’s gelled up hairdo, she seems to have gotten the recipe right…

colors

June 29th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Aunt Junko is here! They are doodling at immi’s desk. We just installed the rack for immi’s art-supplies (so that it’s out of immi’s reach for now, but easy to access, and won’t get mixed up with my less-non-toxic stuff).

Immi loves her crayons so much that she is giving them hugs.

Saturday

June 28th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We are waiting to for our car inspection to finish…

We keep having to go back to Ikea for few little things (not complaining, I wanted more cookies anyways!). Immi wants lots of bears!!

doodle!

June 26th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi made this doodle this morning with non-toxic (according to the box…) color pencils. She picked colors on her own from the pencil stand (she is good about putting them back in there too). According to multiple sources, I am suppose to give beginning doodlers no more than 3 colors to avoid overwhelming, but clearly they weren’t talking about immi. She demands all 12 colors (she KNOWS I have more when I give her only 3!) so I put them all in a pencil stand.

Immi ate her entire lunch today with a spoon!! She had rice cereal with strawberry and banana and also some peach yogurt. She hasn’t had either of these in a while since she disliked being spoon fed when she got proficient at eating finger foods. She enjoyed having these a lot now that she can feed herself!

weekday

June 25th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Having a typical day here. Immi playing with her rocking giraffe. She figured out how to rock back and forth on it! She is wearing a skirt that I made during her naptime yesterday.

Immi is setting up her sandwich shop.

Immi cleared her desk (dropped all her books she was reading from the desk onto the floor…) to make room for her snack and Mr. Oskar. The “desk” was a sadly substandard shoe rack in the closet until recently, I think that it’s happier as an Immi Desk!

spoon and bubbles

June 23rd, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi knows how to eat with a spoon!

I served up some cheesy mashed potato on Immi’s plate and, even though I expected her to eat it with her hand, gave her a little spoon simply because I thought it cruel to serve mushy food without utensils. To my surprise, she dipped the spoon into the mashed potato and shoveled it into her mouth! She also managed to eat her green beans with her spoon too!

Immi is holding the spoon with her left hand, but this is only because she is done with her dinner (…and looking grumpy because she doesn’t want to be in her highchair anymore). Anyway, Immi seems to be right-handed: she eats and draws with her right hand.

Immi is having a bath because eating with a spoon made her very messy (she wanted to brush her hair with a mashed potato spoon!). Immi is wearing a bubble hat and a matching dress.

coffee

June 23rd, 2008 | By Kyoko

Last night, with just a bit of trial&error I figured out that what immi wanted was a mug and a spoon. When immi got her plastic mug and a baby spoon, she played with them by stirring and pretending to drink from it with the spoon still in the mug. …And I thought how weird, if she had wanted a spoon, why isn’t she pretending to eat instead?? But Immi kept happily slurrping away — making pretend drinking noises! — and walking around the room with her mug with the spoon. Then it finally occurred to me: immi is copying me drink coffee for which I keep the demitasse spoon in my mug after I stir in cream and sugar (it’s just how I drink my coffee…)!

shoes

June 21st, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is putting on my shoes. When Immi breaks free into No-Immi Zone (entrance, hallway, kitchen), she dashes to the shoe rack and grabs my shoes, usually this particular pair. She has gotten quite good at walking in them.

breadsticks

June 20th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Almost every week for over a year now I have been having “Me Nights” in which Todd sends me off to wherever I want to go for couple hours to relax on my own. I don’t usually have plans for this, but I try to do things that would probably make Immi a bit grumpy if she were to accompany me, like very slowly browse through every aisle of the craft supply store, touch every fabric for sale at Jo-Ann’s, read random books at various book stores etc.

There hasn’t been immi posts about these nights since I’m not where immi is. But last night Todd took a picture showing off how much fun they have while I’m away and wanted me to post it here: )

…so here’s a very happy immi waving around and munching on an entire breadstick (her thoughtful daddy gave her little pieces but she didn’t want those, she wanted the whole thing!). They ordered pizza and breadsticks, apparently.

cats

June 19th, 2008 | By Kyoko

DOs: Pet gently!

DON’Ts: Pull on their tails!!

As you can see, Mr. Seagal isn’t running away from Immi anymore (he has been a bit shy with immi since the day he bit her months back and felt — as far as I can decipher cat emotions — remorseful about it). He is patient with immi when she is a bit rough and he would purrrr when she pets him.

nap

June 16th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi fell a sleep playing.

sunday

June 15th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is having cheddar bunnies for snack on top of her dad.

Happy Father’s day! …and Otosan itsumo arigato!!

shopping

June 14th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Bear chairs for sale at Ikea. Immies not included: )

Immi testing the product for cuddliness. (no, we are not going to take him home.)

We are trying to have lunch at the ikea cafeteria. Immi is being temperamental because of her tooth and don’t want any food, not even mac&cheese! All she wants to do is to sit on the red chair in the play area and play with the magnetic train set!

where is…?

June 13th, 2008 | By Kyoko

This morning, Immi was still asleep when her dad left for work (she is usually up by then). When she woke up, she didn’t know where he had gone. She looked around for him everywhere. Then she pulled off the heap of blanket on the bed to see if he was still there! …And when she didn’t find him there, she picked up my cell phone which was next to the bed, opened it and said “Hi!!”.

pool

June 12th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We are at grandmom’s. She got for Immi an immi-size pool! She had fun in the pool while Todd and I ran an errand at Target. When we came back, she wanted to play with the pool again, but since her swim suit was still wet, she is playing in her dress.

Immi and her dad on the couch waiting for immi’s dress to come out of the dryer.

bat

June 11th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi and her bat sitting on the chair. She figured out how to climb in and out of this chair!

Some stuff immi learned to do recently:

1) Re-insert straw back into the tiny hole in the juice box

2) Unscrew and bottle caps and screw it back on

3) She has been able to open boxes with latches, but more recently, she can open ones that are a bit stiff or differently designed

4) She can work a faucet to run a bath (both knobs and lever shapes)

5) Open/close doors and drawers in a way that definitely won’t get her fingers pinched

walk

June 11th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is taking an evening walk. It’s somewhat hot out still, but she doesn’t seem to mind at all.

broccoli

June 11th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is having steamed broccoli for snack. She loves broccoli (I can tell because not much of them end up on the floor). She shreds them into really small pieces with her fingers before eating them.

evening dress

June 10th, 2008 | By Kyoko

I’m putting away laundry and Immi is playing dress-up. She is wearing my shirt which is perfect size for her as an evening dress!

Princess Immi and her mess.

Resting for a bit.

making soup

June 8th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is making soup. It has corn, tomato, cucumber, and mustard green (mustard green!! I had to look it up, I had no idea what it was…). You know, it doesn’t sound so bad — it’s would be a nice gazpacho recipe for hot summer days?

Every great chef tastes her creations (I don’t, but I heard them say it on FoodTV)!

Immi also makes sandwiches! and I got a video of it HERE!!!