The weather here was so nice today, 20 degrees, the first really nice warm day this year. So I decided to make it a nice long day out today.  So I loaded Yosei into the stroller, grabbed the diaper bag and snacks and the baby sling ( I like to carry him in the sling and put all the groceries in the stroller after shopping).  So after a trip to the vegetable store, I made a stop at Seiyu.   Seiyu is actually owned by Wal-mart and is basically the Japanese version of a super wal-mart.   Anyhow  headed up to the kid’s clothing floor and low and behold this high end expensive kids clothes shop inside the Seiyu is having a going out of business sale!  I picked up a pair of super sute $30 sneakers for $15 ~ Happy shopping day^^

So now that Yosei had a cool pair of shoes I figured i couldnt hurt to go test them out so we headed to the park.   Yosei can’t stand on his own yet but if you stand behind him and hold his hands he’ll walk like crazy.   He had a great time  on the slide, and the swing and playing with a steering wheel~  Hopefully we’ll get lots of nice days like this from now on so we can get out and play a lot.  It should also help him in learning to walk ^^

Swing!

Pirate in training, Yosei - Captain of the Playground!!

New shoes!!

So thought I’d post a few pics from Yosei’s big day

I made cake ^^

mmmm cake…

at the plum blossom park

lots of plum blossoms

Papa bought Yosei a racecar^^

And finally … A vid of Yosei and his papa at the plum blossom festival
Yosei at the Plum Blossom Festival

So  If you’ve read my blog before you probably know that my son was a preemie, born 3 months early.  Today is his first birthday.  Below is a birthday card I made with his newborn photos and his 1 year old photos.  I can’t believe how tiny he was.  What a difference a year can make huh?

So  one of my main duties being a housewife here is making a bento (box lunch) for my husband each morning.  Now I’m not Japanese and so I’ve not been at this for very long, still learning and still practicing… but if you care to see any of my creations so far I’ll be uploading pics from time to time on my ‘My Bento page’.  Check out the link at the right under ‘pages’

Last night was kinda scary for us as we thought our son might have dislocated is arm at the elbow.  He got it caught in the crib bars while my husband was  going to pick him up, and he heard a *pop* after which much loud crying ensued.  And either he couldn’t move his arm or he refused to I really still don’t know which… 

Now, my husband used to manage a daycare, did so for about 5 years, so he’s pretty knowlegable when it comes to things like this.  He said to give it some time, wait till the shock wears off, etc…  But me of course was really too panicky to listen.  Eventually I got him calmed down,  and got him down for a nap, and waited for about 30 min… When he woke up  still the crying in pain and not moving of the arm, so we took him to the emergency room.

The whole time there crying and screaming,  he could barely grasp anything the nurse tried to give him to hold, and when he did try to grasp things it resluted in more screaming in pain.  So they decided to take x-rays  and since babie’s bones aren fully developed yet they had to take one of each arm to be able to compare. 

The entire time he was in the x-ray room he screamed and cried.  And after it was all over and we went back to the waiting room… he was fine…  He was playing with the cars keys, with both hands, raising his ‘injured’ arm up like nothing had ever happened.  The x-rays were just fine. 

I’m incredibly happy there was nothing wrong with him,  but the timing for him to decide to be magically healed could have been better…  It ended up costing us ï¿¥10,000  (about $100) for the whole thing.

Goes to show there’s never a dull moment when you’ve got kids…

I figure since my parents neither read this blog nor are aware it exsists I can talk about my secret (evil) plans.  Well, not so much evil  but it sounds cooler than just secret plans.

Truth is I haven’t been back to visit my family in close to 2 and a half years,  and while they’ve come to visit me,  only my parents have been able to meet my new family.  So, since next month my husband is going to be back on the job hunt we’ve decided to take a small break and take the opportunity to visit the States.  This will probably be our only chance to visit as a family since vacation time is very different in Japan.  You don’t take them at your leisure,  vacation days are pre-decided by your company and pretty much everyone in the country has the same vacation days (you can imagine the vacation time travel chaos it causes).

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. So we’ve decided to visit my family, I’ve told both of my sisters of the plan and the three of us decided not to tell my parents.  My sister is going to invite them out for dinner the night we arrive, with the promise of a surprise; my hope is that they’ll think she’s going to surprise them with getting engaged, but really my sisters are going to pick us up from the airport and we’re going to surprise them at whatever restaurant we end up going to~  What better surprise for my parents who complain daily about not being able to hold their grandson?

So today the plan is to go get my son and husband their passports.  The nice thing about Japan is that it only takes 6 days to process a passport, as opposed to the 6 weeks I waited for my US passport ><

Also I believe a while ago I promised a Pirate Queen friend of mine that when I started blogging I’d put up some Japan pics…

So first up A pic of Mt Fuji my husband took when we took a day trip up that way and down toward Atami back in November

And of course my lovely munchkin man…