mad

July 31st, 2008 | By Kyoko

She HATES commercials on the radio (we listen to radio in the bedroom when Immi wants music because Todd has been borrowing my PINK iPod since his broke) — she throws a mini tantrum every time.

She gets upset when she sees that there is more drink left in her cup but can’t drink it because her straw doesn’t reach.

When Immi sees cats sitting on stools (and our kitties do this often!) she gives them kisses and then pushes them off.

Immi has suddenly gotten very possessive and she seems to not want to “share” me. Yesterday, she spent a lot of effort trying to push off Oskar (he is quite chubby and he was comfy where he was!) who was snuggling next to me. She gets upset even about her dad being near me and would peel his hands off of me.

But Immi is a happy immi even when she is grumpy: )

Doraemon

July 30th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Todd and his colleague/friend came home for dinner (immi loved Daniel especially because he let her wear his bracelet!) and then left again to go back to work to finish up a project. So Immi and I are having snack&movie night watching Draemon (a classic japanese cartoon series featuring the cat shaped robot from the future). Immi seems to enjoy animated movies a lot and I do too.

It’s been a challenge lately taking blog-ly good (descriptive, candid, in focus, ok lighting) photo of immi because she wants to see herself on the camera screen. She rushes over as soon as she sees the camera and I end up with photos that look like this:

monday

July 28th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is transporting a very big book!

Immi loves barley tea (mugi-cha)!

Immi trying to take her daddy’s hat.

more stickers

July 25th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We have a ’3 stickers a day’ rule here (the number is adjusted a bit depending on the cuteness/quality of the stickers…). We are bending this guideline today because it’s Friday and because it feels like it’s been such a long week.

Peeling off and discarding the border from the sticker sheet.

Immi is going OCD with the stickers. You can see her in action HERE.

painting

July 23rd, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi made this doodle today with paint brushes and blueberry juice. I’m not sure where Immi learned to paint but she knew about having to dip the brush in paint (Maybe from watching the movie Miss Potter? Or she saw me use brushes with ModPodge?) I don’t know if immi was finished with this piece but I had to confiscate her brush because she got sleepy — and therefore cranky — and wanted to paint her shirt with it.

tuesday

July 22nd, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi wanted to go outside so here we are. Immi spends about half of her ‘walks’ sitting (…and the other half running!).

Immi is having teatime. She was setting up her tea on her book (she seems to have realized that the tea set is wobbly on a carpet!), so I got out a handkerchief to make her table pretty.

dress-up bear

July 21st, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is enjoying her bear puzzle that has interchangeable parts of 6 head, 6 body, and 6 feet. She doesn’t actually put them together into one coherent bear. She prefers to sort them into parts instead.

Here are the feet lined up on the piano.

The bodies have been shuttled off to the coffee table in the living room.

The heads seem to have been simply tossed off Immi’s table…

contemplating

July 20th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi appears to be thinking, I’m not sure what though. First thing Immi does when she sits at her desk with crayons is to dump out the books in the loaf pan and put her crayons in there. Apparently it’s more creatively convenient. Quite often (though not every time) she does put her crayons back in the stand when she is done.

cards

July 19th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi and her dad are playing with Cat Comfort Cards (a deck of really cute kitty wisdom).

Jordan is visiting us from Charlottesville this weekend. Immi seems to like him a whole lot. She showed him her favorite books and crayons, and shared her favorite beaded necklace.

catnip

July 17th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is handing out catnip!

Immi has been singing to music a lot lately. It sounds distinctly different from her babbles (holds out a pitch in one place for various duration on time before moving to the next, usually in “ahh”s). It’s mostly quite off from the music that she is singing to, but it’s a nice try.

wednesday

July 16th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi grabbed an oven mitten and running away with it!

Immi is wearing the mitten and it is far too big for her…

Watermelon shampoo!!!

Immi didn’t want to be wearing her dress anymore. She demanded I help her take the dress off and put her plaid skirt on with no shirt. Now she is playing with her magnetic acrobats and sticking them on the mirror’s metal frame.

sleeping

July 15th, 2008 | By Kyoko

I woke up with a really strange stomach ache and ended up resting most of the day which was possible only because Immi didn’t mind at all playing quietly in the bedroom (lucky me!). I felt badly about being so boring by the evening and Todd’s work week is completely hectic (and it’s only Tuesday!) so immi went over to her grandparents just for few hours to run around and play. When Immi got tired, they said that she brought over her shoes and waved goodbye.

…and now she is sleeping!

I trimmed her hair yesterday, about 1 inch off the back (for the first time ever!) and just a bit off her bangs.

music & dance, tea & shampoo

July 14th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi says only few words with consistency (dada, mama, Meow!, Hi!!, and “I”) but she is very communicative. My favorite is when she wants music: she points at the amp/receiver and dances! She asks for music several times a day.

Immi dances every time she hears her favorite songs (she has many, especially certain ones by Frou Frou, YMCK, Dido, Lullatone, Postal Service…). She also loves to dance to movie soundtracks when we watch them. Immi goes into head banging mode and grooves when she hears 80′s music…

………………

Immi seems to think that every unidentified bottle (lotion, plastic pretend coke bottle, hand sanitizer…) is a shampoo — she pretends to dab a bit into her palm and rubs it into her hair. Last night Immi and I were playing teatime with her pink plastic tea set. In between pouring me fresh cups of imgainary tea, Immi offered me coke bottle shampoo.

sunday

July 13th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We had Todd’s colleague/friend Lauren and Immi’s Aunt Junko over for dinner last night. Immi did get a little cranky towards the end of the night (it was very much past her bed time, and she had too much fun at her grandparents’ earlier!) but she seems to always enjoy having guests (party! party!! party!!!).

We are sending Aunt Junko home in DC today and of course we stopped by Teaism for bubble tea. Aunt Junko offered Immi some of her cold lassi (Immi looked over heated and sweaty because it was really hot outside) while I went to get some ice and Immi loved the yogurt drink so much she didn’t want to give it back.

Immi is sitting on stairs located right by our seat.

Aunt Junko is going on a one month long business trip around Southeast Asia. Safe trip!! We’ll miss you!

glooming

July 12th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi’s Pet Grooming Service! (The black one is a rubber lint brush actually. I was using it to clean the chair. Immi took it from me to brush her hair and then seems to have decided it would be fun to brush kitties!)

Customers get complimentary hugs!

cabbage

July 11th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Todd had a really busy week at work so we are celebrating the weekend with Thai food! We are just having soup and some appetizers: ) …and Immi loved the shredded cabbage (which was garnishing the plate)! She also enjoyed some chicken in the coconut soup (it wasn’t spicy AT ALL, don’t worry!) and rice too.

helpful

July 9th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi (…in her happily silly outfit! She still loves wrist cuffs!) and her magical giraffe. She is grabbing his ear because it triggers a laughing sound. Immi gives him kisses on his muzzle every time she passes by him.

Immi is very interested in being “helpful” these days. Today, she helped me fold all the cleaning towels (they are identical and we wash them all at once) by picking them out one at a time and handing it to me so that I can fold and stack it. It was actually very helpful. It has been less helpful when I get dustpan&brush to clean up Immi’s food off the floor. She would run around picking them up two pieces at a time (…and there are about 20,000 big pieces, let alone dust sized ones…) and put them in the dust pan for me while spreading the mess by tracking the ones stuck to her feet everywhere.

stickers

July 8th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is pasting stickers on to her notebook. They don’t stick very well anymore because Immi enjoyed them over and over again by pasting and then peeling them off the page.

I made for immi a notebook from previously printed (on just one side) pages, cereal box, frosted plastic sheet and 3 links. Oh, and also ribbons just for fun. I’ve been using notebooks bound like this for a while now and I thought to make one for Immi so that I don’t have to go find paper every time Immi wants to doodle or be unnecessarily wasteful. And we can re-fill very easily: )

It looks like this:

Immi slipped on a small puddle of melted ice (I didn’t see that Immi had dropped it), fell backwards and bumped her head very hard. We were all worried since she was crying for a long time (Immi rarely cries when she falls even if she gets scraped!) and then got sleepy. She seems to be fine now.

mopping

July 7th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is mopping! She is really good at it despite the oversized (from immi’s perspective!) mop.

her things

July 7th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is taking a nap. When immi sleeps, all of her things fall into an enchanted sleep and becomes fancifully quiet here.

Piano and the 3 balls on the keyboard.

The bottom depth of the rummaged toy bag.

Scattered toys in ImmiLand.

Immi’s space cleaned up after some doodling fun (…I can’t leave crayons laying around can I??).

Bathtime friends waiting to play their part.

Mr. Big Giraffe lives in the closet now because Immi wants to stand up on his back (She was balancing on his back for few moments when I caught her to prevent falling. Cirque du Immi!)

Butterflies flutter above Immi’s crib. We found them shortly before Immi was born.