tuesday

September 30th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is taking a toy bath! (No, she is not allowed to do that!)

Immi is tired. I can tell because she has dragged her big cat into the hallway — where she can see me in the kitchen — and lounging on it (if she were sensible, she would just go lay down in her bed, but that won’t be very ‘immi’ now would it?).

My mom called me to tell me that my (maternal) grandfather (immi’s Hii-Ojiichan),  has passed away early Monday morning (Japan time). He had a very long and healthy life, but I’m wishing my grandmother well through this time of change, since she has been with him everyday for many many years.

playing

September 29th, 2008 | By Kyoko

I found a faery in a milk-crate!

Immi and I built this castle with legos for her little ponies and Hello Kitty. Immi has gotten very good at collaborative process: the architectural design features both Immi’s and my ideas!

store

September 28th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We’ve been going to the international grocery store that opened recently nearby. We are enjoying all the variety of food and strange veggies and fruits from around the world! Immi loved the Asian-style soy milk, so we are back to get more.

We found immi-size bananas at the store! Now she can have a banana with out getting her hands sticky!

blocks

September 28th, 2008 | By Kyoko

..and just so you know, immi doesn’t just sit in the tub of blocks all day, she also builds things with it. See! — she made this entirely by herself.

Immi Sitting in her New Toy Box Video

September 28th, 2008 | By Todd

Immi’s Grandma got her a new box of toy blocks that are kind of like Legos but a little different.  The Imster has made it a multi-purpose box.

thursday evening

September 25th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is playing with her little ponies and the Fancy Fashions Boutique (“…where ponies go to try and buy the prettiest fashions in PONYVILLE!”). Immi plays with this for hours everyday these days.

Immi’s grandmom, Immi and I had a dinner date. It was rainy out and Immi was a little cranky (aren’t we all on a Thursday?), but look, she got her first ever lollipop! Immi is saying “Hmmmm! Hmmmmmmm!!!”.

cats!

September 25th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi put on a leopard handpuppet and showering Mr. Oskar with hugs and kisses with it!

Immi is taking a nap. And the kitties joined her too. (I’m about to study the booklet for Learner’s Permit, the very same one Allison got for me at DMV in Cville years ago!)

electronic

September 25th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi took over my laptop.

Immi is talking to her dad in Detroit on the phone. Immi got really happy when she heard his voice!

Immi and I were sorting her toys this afternoon. Immi poked around on her non-responsive electronic toy for a bit, and then (correctly!) came to conclusion that it was out of battery. She flipped the toy over, identified the battery compartment and tried to pry it open with her fingers! Of couse it wouldn’t open since it requires a screw driver, but I ended up having to put new batteries in a toy I know Immi won’t play with for much longer than a minute. When did she get so smart?

tuesday

September 23rd, 2008 | By Kyoko

We’ve resumed taking walks this week (we took several week break from walks due to mosquitoes!) and enjoying beautiful weather. Immi suddenly got adventurous and climbed up the play structure!

Immi grabbed this shirt (it’s mine!) while I was putting away laundry and was trying very hard (…and stretching it out of shape!) to put it on, so I helped her out (to minimize the damage…) and now refusing to give it back!

Immi is having a night time snack (carrots, celery, water).

Immi seems to be teething —  again! It would be the 2nd year molars (she has all the other teeth already). I suspected it since she has been a bit more temperamental than usual (threw a tantrum when she couldn’t take shoes off the Little People brand doll since it’s just painted on…). She seems to have a bit of fever. And she started shoving things into back of her mouth (she particularly likes the beaded necklaces and shredded cardboard box) and chewing on it (she hadn’t been mouthing things lately until now). I tried to check with my finger, and I can feel the teeth below the gums but it’s not poking through yet. These ones might take a while.

monday

September 22nd, 2008 | By Kyoko

I was trying to put the black blanket in the laundry (we used while camping) but Immi didn’t want me to put it away. She spread it on the floor, brought over her pink basket, put on her shoes and her hat. She is playing picnic (she must have had such fun camping!)!

Immi spent the entire afternoon and evening playing with her Hello Kitty Dream House and the more recent addition, Ponyville’s Boutique (it’s a miniature version of My Little Ponies and compatibly sized with her HK stuff). So, I dragged her out of the bedroom to encourage her to play with other things. Here’s Immi making the animal trains move along.

Immi is now playing with the stacking toys. She appears to be methodically experimenting different ways to stack and nest.

Todd is in Detroit again until Thursday. We miss you!!

keys

September 21st, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi has a new obsession (…after shoes, wrist cuffs, purses, necklaces…). This time it’s keys. But any set of keys won’t do: it has to have a long chain for attaching it to the belt-loop just like her dad’s. Apparently my set of keys are boring and anyway we don’t want to loose our keys so I made a set just for immi from old keys that won’t open anything and a surplus wallet chain that I found in the bottom of the drawer. Immi demanded that I attach it to her somehow (luckily it hooked on to her skirt just fine even without the belt-loop) and proudly dragging it around (she doesn’t seem to mind that she has no pocket to stuff the keys into).

Immi is taking her keys for a walk…

We drove back home from the camp really late last night (we got home around 3:30am!). We were going to come back this morning, but Immi started flipping out around midnight (she never does this!) and we started packing just in case she was ill or something. By the time we finished packing she calmed down, as it turns out, I think that she was just constipated and she was all better once she got it out of her (It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then!!). Anyhow, we already packed and we had a lot to do today, so we decided to drive back. We did have plenty of time to enjoy beautiful starry sky, camp fire and friends before immi found herself in discomfort so everything is all good: )

camping

September 20th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We are camping in the GW National Forest area. Jordan invited us (and 8 of his other friends!) to stay in his family friend’s hunting lodge located on a spacious grassy flat land surrounded by the forest. We drove down here last night (about 2.5 hour drive) and now enjoying the gorgeous day out.

Immi is running around and playing in the tall and fluffy grass.

Jordan is making for us a tub of homemade strawberry ice cream!! Immi is spectating.

Immi is setting up her toy picnic.

Immi and I.

washing machine

September 19th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi and I are finishing up laundry to get ready for a camping trip!

grumpy!

September 17th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immiblog is full of happy posts about immi’s outings because she really is happy when we go out. Well, not this evening!

Immi and I went to get some diapers and play for a bit at Toysrus in Fairfax while Todd spent some time with his friend from work who is leaving town permanently tomorrow. First of all, Immi didn’t want to sit in the shopping cart at all (I don’t blame her, it wasn’t a very nice cart). And then we found a whole aisle of Hello Kitty stuff. Immi doesn’t usually want all of everything, she is actually quite picky — this time what she wanted me to take off the shelf was (…and took me several tries, which increasingly frustrated immi) a metallic pink Hello Kitty purse (duh! it should have been completely obvious!). I wasn’t about to buy it since her Grandmom recently got her a really nice Hello Kitty purse but I didn’t mind her looking at it so I got it down. And then she got REALLY upset when she found that it was stuffed with crumpled paper and nothing pretty inside! After this she was inconsolable. We still had a bit more time left so we walked around a bit (while she grumbled) and then checked out. Then we went to a clothing store next door where only thing immi wanted to do was to open up everything in the Toysrus bag and take off her shoes. And here we are waiting out side for immi’s dad to come get us. She is vocalizing her grumpiness and almost crying.

We picked up an order of sushi before coming back home. Immi loves the avocado roll and miso soup!

daybed

September 17th, 2008 | By Kyoko

I converted the crib last night into a toddler-bed because immi doesn’t really like being stuck in the crib much and, while we haven’t seen her do it, we think that immi can climb out of it if she wanted to (she has very good upper body strength!). These days when she gets tired, she like to play quietly until she is sleepy and then roll herself on to a near by pillow. This way she has an option to climb into her own bed by herself.

Immi is getting really good with stairs. With a bit of help, she can walk (instead of climbing on all fours) up and down!

playing

September 16th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi is playing with the skinny and bendy doll with super long plastic hair. She enjoys putting the little shoes, purse and skirt on and off and on…

Immi is playing with the Hello Kitty Dream House. Now she can arrange dolls and furniture in various rooms with most things standing right-side-up instead of haphazardly stuffing a room with as much object as it would fit. When I suggested that Mr. Bear might like to take a bath, she stuck him in the tub for me.

nap and colors

September 15th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi fell a sleep in the car on the way back from the shopping mall (her dad was getting a hair cut and we tagged along for fun), and slept through getting out of the seat, walking upstairs and all that. This is the first nap in a couple of days — I was starting to think that she quit napping! Mr. Seagal is napping too.

I discovered yesterday that Immi knows colors. It’s not easy to find out exactly what Immi knows because she won’t do anything if she thinks that she is being tested. I happen to ask her if she wanted me to put the green hair clip in her hair (because it would have matched her outfit) and she pretended to put the green hair clip (there were about 10 other colors and about 25 clips, mostly black) before handing it to me. And then today, I asked her to get her box, she didn’t seem to know which of the many boxes in the room —  until I said “the sparkly pink box” . The sparkly pink box is a new item in the room, and I hadn’t ever referred to it as that until this point.

Speaking of colors, I have been getting the impression that Immi color coordinates her accessories (hats and jewelry and such) but I figured that I must be imagining it. Well, now I’m quite sure she picks them quite consciously. She usually puts on pink-ish necklaces when she puts on her pink hat, for an example. When we went shoe shopping the other day, she looked at every purse until she found one that matched her black/leopard print color scheme, and carried it around the rest of the time at the store.

foody sunday

September 14th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi woke up feeling GRUMPY!! Nothing made her feel better, not even bracelets, or cards, or a set of Dominos (she found it the other day and she loves them!). Until I filled up her Hello Kitty PEZ! She knows how to dispense candies properly too.

Immi insisted on sitting at the table (probably because her favorite aunt is here!) and not in her high chair so I experimentally sat her in a regular chair (her little chairs are too short for the table). She sat here without bobbling around — though I had be be watching very carefully — and ate her slightly sweetened azuki bean treat that we made: )

You know, Immi doesn’t just eat sweets all day. I discovered today that she LOVES celery! (She chews on the ends and leaves the stringy bits).

…I even got a video of celery eating immi!

[youtube]B2Z722s4ufc[/youtube]

saturday

September 13th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi just took a bath (she hates bath these days! She won’t even sit in the tub…) and waiting for Auntie Junko to arrive while watching Doraemon with a bowl of snack (cereal and banana).

We are at immi’s grandparents house because it’s her grandmom Karen’s BIG birthday party. Despite having no nap (who wants to be sleeping when Aunt Junko is visiting!?) immi had a great time socializing the entire afternoon and evening. When Immi wasn’t running around eating treats at various tables, we sat here on the stairs by the front door and greeted people coming and going.

Immi is rummaging her purse with Aunt Junko. It has all sorts of goodies like necklaces and plastic keys (she kept wanting to unlock the door with it) and bracelets!

rings and tea party

September 12th, 2008 | By Kyoko

Immi has been really into rummaging through my jewelry boxes lately. Here she is looking at all the rings in the ring box and trying them on. (She was wearing the blue chunky resin ring on her left hand finger, but it fell off when she was showing it off!)

Immi also enjoys sharpening her color pencils. It’s definitely not my pick for immi activity (nor is playing with rings, they both require complete supervision!) but she saw me do it once and now she is hooked.

…and of course Immi still enjoys doing tea! Here is a video of Immi having a tea party.

httpv://www.youtube.com/v/j0YTTN-GBzc