babble babble

Just me babbling.

thanks for the comments re the group b strep situation and my fears for impending "second motherhood" haha.

A quick check online, and it seems that indeed, the Daikuma down the road (the predecessor to "Donkey", and subsidery of Yamada denki) may well be the cheapest nappies around. I am still gonna have to check out a few drug stores around too, but so far the price seems good, and is current until March 24th, so I have a bit of time before I need to buy. I am not sure how many newborn nappies to buy....K was tiny, so even the "smaller than shinseiji" were being used on her, and the shinseiji for several months. But I have no idea how big TJ-baby will be, and don't want to overbuy newborn nappies. Also don't want to have to be out buying them every other day. I might even stock up on some S size nappies while I am at it.
I remember with K though, that some brands fitted her better than others, and at certain times/ages, some were more prone to give her nappy rash, or cause leakage etc. I am pretty sure we used Merries most of the time, then Pampers for s size when we could. But this time I am gonna maybe try out the "Goon" nappies just because of the great name.

Feeling a bit blah today. Didn't sleep so well (basically off and on until 2am, but think I did pass out for a while after that.) In any case I woke up with a super puffy face and it hasn't really improved yet, so I will be staying out of sight of others today I think. I had a list of things to do today, but am gonna flag the morning stuff, in the hope that I pick up after lunch. If not, there is always tomorrow, right...? Was already feeling yucky after dinner last night (tired and cranky) so figure it is better for everyone's happiness if I take it easy today and rest ;)

K has a bit of a cough and runny nose, so we may have to skip playgroup tomorrow, bummer. It has been lingering since the weekend, no fever thank goodness.

Today is mum's birthday - happy birthday mum!! I had a time of trying to order online flowers, using a site that I had used before. They state several things on their website, including delivery charges in Aus at 9.90, and that they will get back to you via email within 12hours if you have any questions etc, and if you sign in you get 5% discount...well, when I went to the checkout, th delivery charge came up at 12.95, so I tried to email them about it, but over 50hours later and I still haven't heard back from them. Also there was no where to actually sign in to be able to get the discount. I sent them 3 emails in the end, still waiting to hear back from them. I know, it is not a lot of money involved, but it is really the principle of the thing - they say one thing on their site, but don't follow through with it. I almost gave up and went through another site to order the flowers, but ttytt, they are super cheap for the exact same bunch of flowers, and when I did order them last night at 10pm or so, they got delivered to mum's this morning at 9am!! now that IS good service!!!!! And the lilies were buds, so she gets to enjoy them longer. Mum seemed happy with them, so that is all that counts.

Today is also 17years since my granny was buried (yep, on mum's birthday). She passed away 17years ago on Sunday. It really doesn't feel like that long. I had a lot to do with Granny growing up, as she spent half of most years at our house (the winter months). We used to play card games like Euka, and after we had been out in the car, as we drove into the driveway she always used to say "We're home because we're home".

there have been helicopters flying overhead all day today, from about 7:30am this morning. I think we must be in the american base flight path (we are under the path as the crow flies between 2 base now I think about it). It is getting annoying though. This is not a daily occurance by any means, but it has been happening more recently. I wonder if I could put in an order for some foreign goodies to be dropped off next time they fly over in exchange for putting up with the annoying helicopter sound all day??

I am yawning as I write this, so gonna stop babbling and just relax for a bit.

birthday cards

I have been searching for 3 days now for a b'day card for my nephew. He will turn 13 in 10 days, and I have to get the card off to him soon or else it will be arriving with the Xmas post. But I am having a lot of trouble actually finding a card. Just a simple happy birthday card, even. I have had troubles in the past with this too, and even went through a stage of buying up when back in Aus, but this time I am cardless. I know that places like Loft and proper stationary stores have cards, but I haven't been near any of those sort of shops in the last few days - I have been supermarket and 100yen and don-quiote type shopping. Even that takes up all my mornings, and by the time I get home it is nap time, then dinner prep time.....

To get to a store that will possibly have a card involves a trip most likely by train to the big department stores. Not my idea of fun! So I was hoping to find somehting suitable along the way, but nope. Even the 100yen shop(s) have been hopelessly card-less (unless I want to send him a Xmas card instead, lol) So I am wondering if we just make our own card to send. K has done some drawings for him, maybe we could print off a card. I just wish it was as easy as stopping by the paper shop and picking up a card, like it is at home.

*sigh* Must be having a "wishing I was home" moment.

Happy Birthday to K

Thursday was K's 2nd birthday.
On Wed afternoon, a package arrived from my sister, and K was so excited I let her open it which was hilarious - my sister had wrapped up about 6 different presents and put them in one of those aust post bubble wrap packs. K was pulling it to pieces to get the presents out. She got some very cute summer clothes - singlets, boardies, summer dress, a picture of her cousins in an Australia photo frame (complete with Kangaroo, Koala, Platypus and Kookaburra on the side of the frame) and a book. One of the singlets has wings on the back - sooo cute, and K loves it - she put it on straight away, and I had visions of her wearing it to bed, but I managed to hide it while she was in the bath, phew.

Thursday, K turns 2!! We had playgroup in the morning, so K wore her winged singlet (with long sleeve shirt underneath, very fashionable), and her "2 today" badge. The kids all sang happy birthday to her at playgroup during song time, and I read "Spot's Birthday Surprise" as I was story leader.

After playgroup, we stopped by the Anpanman Museum, as K seems to be might anpanman obsessed recently. She has never seen the cartoon, but it doesnt matter - Anpanman is EVERYWHERE in Japan. It is on her nappies, on all the family restaurant menus, on rice crackers, the song was sung at jidokan.....whenever K has crayons and paper, she asks me or J to draw anpanman, she loves it! We didn't go into the actual museum (which is more like a play area) as it was already encroaching on K's nap time, but there are heaps of shops outside that you can walk around and get a few good photo ops. Splurged (!?!) and got an Anpanman AND a Baikinman stuffed toy for her birthday.

Got home to a box from my parents with more presents - fantastic wooden jig-saw puzzles (one animal theme which had K singing Old MacDonalds farm for the rest of the night), and some more summer dresses. I managed to skype my parents just as K was opening the presents, so that was lots of fun.

In keeping with the self-appointed anpanman theme, I made up a, you guessed it, anpanman cake. Followed this recipe for the cake (simple, standard cake, but very yummy fresh out of the oven!) and "iced" it in whipped cream. the only downfall came because J was home while I was decorating it, and told me to cut it in half and fill with cream and strawberries....we obviously had different ideas about what is a birthday cake (bloody japanese and their strawberry shortcake obsession). The cake I had made was a very Aussie recipe, so it did not go well with the cream/strawberry mix. But it was more about the presentation really, ahem, so a few thoughtfully placed peaches, strawberry and raisins and some chocolate decoration pen, and voila, Anpanman cake was born!!



K blew out the candles then pushed it around on her plate for a while, so I guess she had fun with it.

Sunday April 5th we had a family birthday party at the PIL's, which included 赤飯 (for K) and 毛蟹 (I am guessing that was for our benefit!) as well as some other yummy stuff. K was spoilt again with more presents - a cute white (I know, how that hell am I gonna keep it that way?) summer dress and a mini keyboard that plays all her favourite songs. oh, and a money envelope which will go into her account....when I get around to opening it(the account, I mean...the envelope was opened as soon as we got outside the house, lol.)

Riding high on the success on the anpanman cake, I decided to do an encore with a number "2" shape cake to take to the PIL's for K's family birthday dinner. But this was gonna be with real icing. Small catastrophe when I attempted orange flavoured icing and the butter curdled, but second time around a vanilla flavoured icing was born! Got a bit artsy and decided to make the "2" shape into a giraffe, which is one of K's favourite animals. At least K realised it was a giraffe, so that is all that matters. Oh, and the iced cake was much yummier than the cream decorated cake, so there you go! Just goes to show I shouldn't mix my sponges with my icing or my western cakes with cream, or something like that.

and here is the masterpiece...wrapped in plaaaa-stic:

All in all, I was pretty proud of my very first ever attempts at baking a cake (other than carrot cake etc) and of decorating it. I am sure next year I am going to be fine with the 3 story princess castle design........lol.

As for K, she loved singing Happy Birthday, but still answers １才 when asked how old she is, despite several days of practising ２才. I thought it would be nice to do the "things I love" meme about 2 yo K for my next post, which is also my 200th, to remember what our darling daughter is into at 2yo. My goodness they grow so quickly......Happy Birthday K - love you to bits!