sleeping

July 30th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi fell a sleep on the hardwood floor with a pillow while watching Doraemon.

puzzle

July 27th, 2009 | By Kyoko

I got this alphabet puzzle because it was $1 even though I thought that it would be too difficult. To my surprise, immi enjoys it a lot. She fits the shapes in by trial and error, and then she seems to remember where the pieces go. She is getting quite fast at it. Her favorite pieces are “I” for “ice-cream” and “C” for “cat”.

cooking

July 25th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Auntie Junko is visiting this weekend to meet her new nephew. We are at immi’s grandmom’s because Todd had an idea that immi might enjoy being out for a bit (she has been a bit high-maintenance probably because she was away from us for a few days). At the moment, immi is playing with water in the little inflatable pool.  She like to put water in her watering can, and then pour it out.

Here’s our very happy tomato plant on our balcony:

We were able to harvest quite many of them (and 2 peppers) today! We are going to put some in lasagna and chile.

Todd and Junko are cooking for me a large pot of chile and a pan of lasagna for me to put in freezer. Immi’s brother is sleeping in the travel crib, I’m figureing out the recipe, and immi is eating cucumbers. She only takes a bite out of every halved slices. She lines them up when she is ‘done’.

home

July 24th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are home from the hospital. And immi came home from her grandmom’s too. It seems that immi is warming up to her brother a little already. She’s been standing on pillows and peeking into the crib. You can’t hear it in the photo, but she is talking to him, I wish I could understand what she is saying!

A short while after this, immi pulled up a stool closer to the crib, climbed onto it with her book and read to him!

little brother

July 23rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are at Inova Fairfax Hospital. Immi’s little brother was born last night at 9:34 pm. We really wanted immi to meet him so Todd went back to Reston to bring her back from her grandparents just for few hours.

Hospital food here is completely DISGUSTING (far worse than airplaine food!!) Todd brought me back very tasty grilled chicken and rice from a Vietnamese restaurant. Immi is enjoying some rice and cucumber garnish.

There’s no photo of immi and ashland together because only thing she wanted to do with him was to ignor him! …and she ignored anyone who was holding him too. I’m sure she’ll warm up to him and in the meanwhile I’m glad she isn’t trying to bite his head off.

coffee time

July 18th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are having Saturday morning coffee time (ok, it’s more like past noon…) at Greenberry’s. Immi really wanted my coffee drink (not allowed for another many many years!) and it seemed so unfair that she shouldn’t get any treat so we got her the organic vanilla flavored milk. Immi shared it with her pink cat.

swing and camping

July 17th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is helping me assemble the portable baby swing for her brother on the way. …That is until she decided it’s more fun to suspend her butterfly friends from the unfinished swing’s side bar.

…and swing the two of them by pushing the bars manually.

Todd lit a very bright camping glow stick for immi (she loves glow sticks!) and she is camping in her Hello Kitty tent tonight with her toys and some popcorn.

blueraspberry

July 14th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Today is one of those days that can be much improved with a yummy bowl of phở, so that’s what we are doing. Immi fell asleep on the drive here and when the food came to the table, her dad sat her in the highchair. …But she fell back asleep in less than half a second!

After 20 minutes or so of snooooze, she did wake up a good appetite and had some phở and spring rolls. When she was done eating her dinner, she got out her lollipop she stashed at the doctor’s office earlier.

Our weekly appointment with the OB went fine. Everything is normal and good. I’m still at 2.5 cm-ish, so I guess the baby decided to stick around for a little while longer. The big quetion is weather he’ll be a Cancer (“grumpy, secretive, passive-agressive grudge-hoarder, with bipolar mood swings and a positive genius for pointless worrying”) or a Leo (“vain, arrogant, condescending sopipsist with imperial longings and an all-pervasive addiction to unconditional sycophancy”)! [ATTN: If you think that these descriptions are mean and unfair, complain to Stella Hyde of the Darkside Zodiac!]

shelf

July 14th, 2009 | By Kyoko

I moved out the shelf from the bathroom into the kitchen just for now while the ceiling is being drywalled and sanded around the new fan. Immi thinks that it’s a four story mansion for her friends!

Electrical work is almost done. It just needs a bit more drywall and sanding now. I’m really greatful that it will [probably!] be done before the baby is born because the process is really DUSTY! We are glad that our amp in the living room doesn’t fluctuate anymore, using various electrical appliances don’t dim lights, TV won’t turn itself on&off, and microwave sounds very happy (I’m serious, it sounds different!) with it’s on dedicated circuit:)

poker night

July 11th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are having few friends (and Auntie Junko!) over for BBQ and to watch UFC 100 on pay-per-view. Disappointingly, Comcast couldn’t make the pay-per-view happen on our screen for no good reason at all so we are having poker night instead. Booo:( Immi of couse doesn’t mind. She is happily stacking poker chips into neat little piles.

It’s almost 2 am and after a long evening of playing and running around, she just fell a sleep on the floor!

utensils

July 10th, 2009 | By Kyoko

It’s day 2 of getting electrical things fixed here. Immi has been really good about keeping herself busy in confined areas (there’s dust, pieces of wires and tools everywhere!) all day but seems to have gotten a little bored. She really wanted to re-organize the utensil rack, so I let her. Whatever keeps her happy at this point!

thursday

July 9th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are having some electrical work done and immi and I are trying to stay our of his way. She is keeping her self busy doing the usual stuff. …One of which is stuffing her little toys into various things (toy toaster and toy mug!) that they can be stuffed into.

…And the other is doodling. I offered her a clipboard for her paper, but she didn’t want it, immi seems to have decided it’s fun to poke through the paper.

I got immi a pencil case the other day for her color pencils, but the only thing she wants to do with it is to take her pencils out and stuff them with her little toys!

The baby No.2 and I had a weekly appointment yesterday. I had few hours of contractions for several hours (about 1 minute long and 4–5 minutes apart) very early Monday morning and we considered calling the doctor since that’s exactly how immi happened. But I decided against calling in since we weren’t ready to have him yet! Anyway, it all worked out fine and the baby is staying put for the time being. The workout on Monday morning did get me 2–3 cm dilated so I guess i’m 25% of the way there. Everything else looks good, my belly measures on target, the baby has good heartbeat, and I didn’t gain any weight since last week (which the doctor said is fine).

Immi has been extra cuddly lately. She definitely suspects something is on the way. I finally set up crib with new crib bedding (pastel-green/tan safari) and immi’s been on her tiptoes looking in. She KNOWS it’s not for her because it’s not pink.

doodle

July 5th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is doodling. She seems to really like color pencils now. …and I’m sewing. Immi thinks that my sewing machine is her’s because it has Hello Kitty on it.

parcel

July 3rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

We got a parcel from immi’s grandmom in Japan today (thank you!!)! In it were Doraemon zigsaw puzzle, and lots of Hello Kitty stuffed animals and bags for immi.

Here she is about to open the puzzle box.

And here she is walking around with the pink Hello kitty wearing my gardening shoes (presumably because it matched her kitty…).

doodle

July 3rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

immi is sitting at my desk and doodling with color pencils. She develped a new technique.

Here is her doodle.

lego

July 1st, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi’s been really into legos lately. She seems to enjoy making really tall structures.

…but when she runs out of the blocks to stack, she works on the details (adding the swing, picnic table and flowers and such) on the ground floor.