My Mouse

So today... I had to go buy a new mouse. No we don't keep rodents and pets if that's what you are thinking right now (we have limited ourselves to goldfish, because even if they did escape their cage they wouldn't get far.)

No it turns out I have been working so hard this year that I have worn out the right click feature on my mouse. Has this ever happened to anyone?

A Month of Words

After a little more than a month, here is Fuzu's Lexical Database:

Frequently Used Expressions (produced without prompting:)

Why?
Where (is it / are you)?
What are you doing?
Come over here?
What's this?
May I have...
Can I see...
Ouch!
No.
Yes.
Sure.
Let's go.
Please.
Thank you.


Requires prompting:

I want to...
Let's play together.
How about you?

This list is incomplete but I have to start it sometime... to be upgraded soon (knock knock)

Educating Fuzu: Part III

Fuzu lives in Japan. He has been attending a Japanese nursery school since the age of 7 months, he is now 2 1/2 years old. End result... he speaks Japanese.

I speak to him in ONLY English. He understands everything I say but almost always replies in Japanese, until recently...

Seeing that Fuzu had reached a stage at which he could communicate verbally (in Japanese) almost anything and everything he wanted to say, and at the same time was able to repeat whole utterances in either language, it seemed to me a good time to push his productive English language ability. How did I do it? By being stubborn I guess you could say. Here are some example conversations below (italics represents Japanese words)

F: doco?
G: Where is it?
F: doco?
G: Where is it?
F: Where is it?
G: Under the table.


F: nani shiteiru?
G: What are you doing?
F: nani shiteiru?
G: What are you doing?
F: What are you doing?
G: Setting the table.

and so on like this... every time he asked me something in Japanese I would repeat it in English until he said it in English, and then I would answer. Now on day one I had to say most things three times before he would repeat them to me. But by day 2 and 3 of this routine I was down to only twice, and by the end of the first week, he would often be reapeating after the first time, and even asking some of the questions in English directly, without going through me. Intersetingly enough he chose only some words to use directly. "Where is it?" and "How do you do it?" came quite easily, but "What's this?" he just didn't want to let go of the Japanese version.

In this first week I also started repeating some of the things he would say in Japanese that weren't questions:

F: purarairu yaritai
G: I wanna play with my trains.
F: I wanna play my trains.

F: isshoni asobou
G: Let's play together.
F: Together.
G: Let's play together.
F: Let's play together.

By the end of the second week some of these common expressions were also coming out directly. One of his favorite and earliest memorized ones was "Daddy, come over here!" So much so that I almost wished I hadn't taught him.

In Japanese you often speak of yourself in the third person.

F: Fuzuki wants to eat it.
G: I wanna eat it.
F: I wanna eat it.

So getting him familiar with the use of 'I' and 'you' has been difficult. Case in point:

F: Fuzuki jusu nomitai
G: You wanna drink juice?
F: You wanna drink juice.
G: I wanna drink juice.
F: No, Fuzuki wanna drink juice! (getting mad!)

But slowly he is coming around to be able to distiguish between a prompt and an actual expression that I am teaching him to use.

It's been a month now and it is truly amazing how much he has picked up!!! He always seems keen to try speaking in English, although sometimes obviously frustrated, it's usually more a of a game, a kind of 'can I say it' challenge.

Last weekend was very rewarding. As a family we got together with 10 other families to go the beach for a sand castle building competition and BBQ. There were a number of other non-Japanese kids and parents in the group. Fuzuki clearly distinguised between the two languages by asking English questions to the 'foreign' dads, and Japanese to the Japanese.

We'll keep you updated on his progress!

Educating Fuzu: Part II

Before I even started writing this post I knocked on wood (knock knock). Before you read it, knock on wood too please!

OK?

Good!

Now then...

Since the beginning of April, and with the creation of the new KIDS room, Fuzu has been sleeping alone in his bed with Rio alone in her crib, the two of them happy 'enough' in the Kids room. Rio has been an absolute charm (knock knock) waking usually only once during the night.

Fuzu has been wonderful as well. Sleeping even through Rio's wakings...

Rio, has been an angel getting herself to sleep. Rio has her bath, gets wrapped in a towel, we put her on her bed, awake, and she's usually asleep in less than 10min, often without even a peep. Fuzuki on the other hand, after he reads his bedtime books will lie in bed awake for 30, 40, or sometime even 50 minutes.

One night 2 weeks ago Fuzu refused to fall into a peaceful abliss and was up for an hour and 15 minutes after the lights went out. That was the final straw in my patience and the very next day his 'sleep education' began. After explaining what the problem was, we explained to him what the new sleep system was going to be. PJs, teeth, book, lights, and then (instead of sitting in the rocking chair on the other side of the room until he fell asleep) we would stay in his room for only 5 minutes, and then we would leave. After 5 minutes we would come back in again and stay for another 5, and so on, in out in out in out.

The first 5 minutes without us was rough... lots of crying, but in only a couple of days he aclimatized, realized we were coming back and is now quietly lying in bed after the lights go out, getting himself to sleep in about 15 - 25 minutes. (knock knock) Equally important, we can use our five minute windows to do the dishes, an other housework instead of waiting for 30-40 minutes before tackling whatever lays in waiting back in the kitchen and living room. For the 5 mintues while I am in his room, I stretch, and because I know I only have to stretch for 5 minutes I do a good job of it... end result... I CAN TOUCH MY TOES!!!! (this is a big thing for those of you who didn't know it)!

We're all very happy and sleeping more as a result!

Educating Fuzu: Part I

Last week Fuzu had his first 'wee!' How exciting! We all gathered around gave him applause and he stuck a big ol' sticker on his jungle poster next to the toilet. Since then we have added 5 more stickers, at a rate of about once a day, just before bath time.

Obviously there is still a long way to go, but he can tell us and knows what to do!

Wedding

It's been a while since we dared a wedding... but with great cause, a great friend... we decided to give it a shot. For a view of what happend follow the link below.

http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/Gdoggystink/SachiWedding#

Since google hasn't figured a way to let me put comments on this alblum easily the commentary goes here... sorry if you don't have two windows.

Play by play

Step 1: Stay up till 2 am making the cutest wedding outfits ever seen... by hand.
Step 2: Sleep deprived, hop on the shinkansen and try to control two little people. We even went Green Car on the way up!
Step 3: Walk around Tokyo a lot with 13Kg monkey on your shoulders... to look cool.
Step 4: Forget step 3 and make such monkey ride shotgun behind his sister.
Step 5: Show up LATE... (like while the bride is walking in with her father) and find the wedding hall is dark...
Step 6: Lose the monkey
Step 7: Enjoy a beautiful ceremony in a beautiful "sans-monkey" atmosphere.
Step 8: Find two gullable baby sitters
Step 9: Lose the angel
Step 10: The new couple arrives
Step 11: The monkey is back... and ready to party!!!
Step 12: Happy couple cuts cake... Monkey sees ENORMOUS cake... goes balastic!!!!
Step 13: Angel is woken by monkey.
Step 14: Happy family realizes they better make an early exit otherwise their day will end with screaming on the 3.5 hours of trains to come.
Step 15: Get to Tokyo station
Step 16: Monkey sees shinkansen.
Step 17: Monkey points at shinkansen. Monkey LOVES shinkansen...
Steps 18-79: Are not-rated for audiences and so we can't actually happened on the train ride back to Toyota, but you all know those annoying kids on airplanes... who make noise, bang the seatback tray tables... decided they want to go for a walk 100 times (when we don't have an aisle seat)... and so on... yeah you get the idea... leaving early didn't make a difference.

But it was worth it. .. the wedding that is!

Flip Ya Like a Pancake!

Have you ever seen someone do a backflip off a swing?



No....?

I have. Just the other week in fact. The 'someone' in question... yes you guessed it... Fuzu.

His new found love of swings has had us going from park to park for the last month or so, everytime he gains more and more confidence on the swing and says "push harder push harder"... well I thought we had an understanding ... one that goes "when the swing is moving you DONT let go with your hands"... you say "stop" if you want to get off.

The details are hard to explain.. they are better diagramed... but without such resources I will make do... at the bottom of his forward swing he (for some reason I still don't know) decided to let go with both hands. As the swing carried forward his bum went up with it but the rest of his body started falling backwards until the swing reached the peak of its forward swing at which point his momentum took over and his body completed the downwards flip... well kind of...



End result

add a Bandaid and...


Good as new. Tuff guy actually. After spitting the sand out of his mouth at the water fountain he hit the swings again!

We call him "pancake" now.

The Best Time of Year...

Well, my favorite time of year is here... April! No... not because I go back to work (although the first day of classes was great!) and no not becuase I can pull my sandals out of the closet, although I do love that as well... The start of April meansCherry Blossoms, by far the most gorgeous time of year in Japan

We strapped the kids into their seats and onto our backs before taking off on our bikes for an hour long ride the other day. Go take a look!

http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/Gdoggystink/CherryBlossoms#

The Kid's Room!

Hi everyone! We've been away in the north of Japan (Itsuki's hometown of Kooriyama) for a month.... but more on that later.

Right now I'm so excited about our new Kid's room that I just had to get this post out first! Click on the link below for more photos that follow along with this story. (If it doesn't click for some reason... copy and paste)

http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/Gdoggystink/TheKidSRoom#

So anyway. Until last night... sleeping arrangements in this house had been, Fuzu and me in one room, and Rio and Itsuki in another. This was advantageous (FOR ME)... especially in the first month when Rio had no concept of day and night.

Now she's much better and can usually get through the night with only one or two wakings. Well we thought it would be good to train her from a MUCH earlier age to sleep without her mom and dad in the same room. Fuzu was a good fallback option and so he got the job. Now while we're not expecting him to get up in the middle of the night to feed her (just yet) we are hoping that he will give Rio some company, and more importantly, Rio will give him some company... enough so that he can sleep in a different room than mom and dad.

We initially had planned to put the two of them in the guest room (previously known as Fuzuki 's room but he was never actually able to sleep by himself there) because our bed would not fit in there with the built in shelving... but as we started to poke and pry... we realized that we could break the shelving down and move it out making room for our bed.

The next step was to move some of that shelving (and a desk) into the new Kid's room... along with Rio's crib.

Now the two of them have the biggest bedroom in the house... so they can play with their toys (read: Fuzu can play with his toys while Rio, with no choice in the matter watches on) and we can keep the rest of our house a little bit cleaner.

As for Ituski and I, we have the smaller bedroom but as she pointed out.. we only go in there to close our eyes... and that's it.

Foreign Invasion!

For the past month, the Taylors in Japan have been taken care of by a number of foreign invaders... namely... my parents. They came to get a peak at Rio, and to help out around the house, by cooking, cleaning, washing dishes and laundry, shopping, and holding babies.

That was VERY VERY helpful. Follow this link:

http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/Gdoggystink/VisitFromCanada#

for a little slideshow of what happened.