random ramblings

found my keitai. had lost it for about, oh, 4 days. I had it on manner mode, the one that doesn't even vibrate when it rings or emails come in, as I sometimes get 1-giri calls in the middle of the night, or e-mails from donkey hote with their daily specials (signed up for it when we lived across the road from a donkey, and used to do our daily bread and milk shop there....can't remember how to un-subscribe, haha). so the phone was on total silent mode. So I couldnt find it anywhere...until I went to do a fleecy jumper load in the wash, and there is was in the pocket!

we are very lucky we didn't burn the entire apartment block down. when K goes to bed, we use a bed lamp, and turn it off after reading time is over, but before she is asleep. the lamp always gets really hot, so I am pretty careful about it, but somehow the other night it must have gotten moved so that it was facing the curtains. actually, it must have been touching the curtains. because we now have gaping hole in the curtain where the light bulb burnt through. I didn't even realise until the NEXT NIGHT!! we are just SO SO SO lucky that it didn't start a fire. J says its because we bought curtains that are fire-resistant. I am just sick to the stomach thinking about how close we were to a serious disaster.

J is away for work, so I gave myself a designated day off today (I think Monday's are going to become the new Sunday for me!) and slobbed around most of the day. Dinner for me was a quick stir fry of all the left over veges, that turned out a bit champuru like. It was SO nice, and simple! K's dinner was a vege pasta, with pumpkin, carrot and tofu puree for the sauce, with chopped up eggplant, asparagus, zucchini and sweet potato. She lapped it up too.

I realised that lately I have been neglecting R. We haven't had the one-on-one time so much,. So I have decided that we are going to designate at least one time each day for R-chan play. K loves plying with her, so it will be good for both of them, and me too I think.

set myself a few mini-goals of things to do this week, while J is away. K's naps are all over the place at the mo, and it takes an hour to get her settled down (we have started "quiet time" as lead up to her sleeping, but it still takes her an hour to get quiet, before she blows her top, screams for a few mins then falls asleep in sheer exhaustion. this is usually about 2:30pm if we are home. so even if I only let her sleep for an hour, then it means that she is not ready for bed again until after 9pm. tonight it was after 10pm when she finally closed those little eyes. no screaming or anything, just.....awake until then. sigh. so on a normal day. it really means that the only time I have to do things without interruption are the 1hour she is asleep during the day (that is OBVIOUSLY Grey's Anatomy time) or after she goes to sleep, which is the only time I get to see my husband. so while he is away, Ithought I could catch up on some outstanding projects, but it seems I am blogging instead (which is only really to try to stop myself from watching more GA). Now I can't be arsed doing anything of consequence, since Ainori starts toon too....so I eat a piece of cake* and drink a cuppa instead. oh well, will get onto that stuff tomorrow night I guess...

cake, mentioned in * above. I shouldn't be eating any more cake. somehow the 2 or 3 extra kilos that managed to fly back with me from Oz have morphed into another 2 or 3. they must go. they need to go. If only there wasn't all this yummy sweet stuff waiting for me to eat it. but I have taken a small step - I am now drinking my tea SUGARFREE!! I used to take it white with 2 (TWO!!) now I am only white. gotta start somewhere. yay for me.

playgroup tomorrow. this time I have bread in the house (how is THAT for planning) so we can make sandwhiches to take for lunch, rather than the usual last minute buy up at the conbini on the way to the car. yes, am still going by car. We have been on the train, and K has been suprisingly good, but I am enjoying the ease of the car for now. I think that the main thing that is stopping me from training it is that when I change trains, I have to lug the pram up and over the overhead pass to get to the other side of the train line. nope, can't be arsed with that one yet. and I am worried that if I go by train, I will end up shopping before we head home, and buy more crap I don't need, just because K is (should be) asleep in the stroller so I have time to LOOK, haha!

I think I need a "socks" tag on here

lovely day today - supposed to be 22degrees! I know it was definitely hot when I was at K's playgroup at the 児童館 this morning. It was our 2nd time, but last week they had a special guest in who takes the kids through a whole heap of songs and dance and stories. Today was the regular mums doing the "leading". So we started off by singing a hello type song, where everyone sits in a circle, and when it is your turn, you say your kids name, and then the whole group sings "where is so-and-so" and then the kid has to raise their arm and say "HAI" (here I am). We have been practising this with K actually at home. Sometimes she does it, sometimes she also does it when we say to Rosie "beg (欲しい人) for food" which is pretty funny. But she was a bit slow on the uptake this morning, so I quickly raised her hand for her. Feel like a bit of a stage mother (hehe). Then about 15mins of songs and walking round in a big circle and acting like elephants... you know, all the usual stuff that would make you feel so embarrassed until you have a kid of your own, and actually find yourself doing it at all sorts of random places and times anyway (like in public toilets, trying to keep K quiet and calm while mummy has a raz. lol!!)

Today we made fish. It was K's first EVER time to play with crayons (and yes, of course, they went in her mouth straight away!! but obviously they don't taste that nice, coz she only did it once, which is a near miracle!!) so I drew the fish

(not bad if I do say so myself) and cut them out while K scribbled. all over the paper and all over the floor. lucky they crayons wash off in water, so all I had to do was a quick wipe over of the floor with her おしりwipes when we finished. And the crayons are triangular! yes,　三角クレヨン so they are easy to hold for the littlies. what a great invention.

so as I was sitting on the floor, busily making my (ah, I mean K's) fish and fishing rod, I happened to turn around to look at someone else's (trying to copy, probably!!) and as my head turned back, I caught a glimpse of my own feet underneath me... AND THE DIRTY ROTTEN BIG HOLES IN BOTH OF MY SOCKS!!

aaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. major faux pax! if it's not K with no socks on, then it's me with holes in my socks (lol)
I then spent the rest of the time trying not to let anyone see the bottom of my feet, while sitting cross-legged (ah, impossible) or even 正座Japanese style - seiza (just as impossible). I don't think I have done the sock gaffe for a while. Sort of refreshing actually - I guess it means that I haven't turned Japanese yet, hehe!!

oh, and in a timely development, I actually bought 2 new pairs of socks, which arrived yesterday with our teeva collection (bought on-line from REI on sale. Also got a cool orange 3/4 length top. For some reason I am really into orange at the moment! And J got a cool rain jacket. And K got a really cute hat... we bought up big!!) But they are hiking socks, so I might now have to go out and get some "round the house" type socks too. Now I think about it, a lot of my socks are getting a bit 危ない... probably bought them all at about the same time, so the holes are just starting to develop now. So it looks like some sock-shopping coming up soon!

rain and hats

it's not even the rainy season yet, but another day of rain! Enough rain to make the trains delayed, and our playgroup cancelled (*sigh*) I was looking forward to seeing everyone - we haven't been for almost a month. I even made up sandwiches for K's lunch to take with us, when J msged me to say that the rain and wind was pretty bad, the trains were delayed, and maybe I should reconsider going to the playgroup today. Turns out it was cancelled anyway, so I felt better that it was not just me missing out (hehe). And K's just gone down for a nap now, which is when we would be just arriving at playgroup. She is in that stage where sometimes one nap a day is enough, but sometimes she still needs two. It is hard to gage. But this morning she woke up at 7am, when she usually wakes at 8am (or has been the lst week or so) so I figured she might want to take a morning nap too. (yay, Ergo, for putting her to sleep!!)

Anyhoo, I keep on meaning to recount my recent miracle story. We went shopping to a sports/outdoor shop 2 weeks ago, for J's birthday. We haven't really been to an outdoor shop for a while, so J was SO excited, and wanted everything he saw! especially tents (he "collects" tents, as he says. He has about 7 of them! That means that we can either sleep in a different tent 7 days running OR take 14 friends with us camping, lol!)Anyway, he decided what he wanted for his birthday - these chairs (the second set of chairs, with the high back) and we got one of each in green and maroon (the maroon one is mine!) We used them on our GW camp, and they were SO comfy. One of the other guys had one too - his was navy, so it was pretty funny that we all had different colours!

So we left the outdoor shop, and were just getting off the train at our station when J realised that he didn't have his hat.

It was his "Billabong" baseball type cap that I got him a few years ago from Oz. Of course, I got the blame for it - I must have dropped it off the back of K's pram when I was putting the rain cover on when we left the shop. *sigh*. (Well, granted, I DO often lose bits and pieces, K's socks, hats, blankets off the pram) So while J was away for work last week, I went back to the outdoor shop, 2 weeks to the day, and asked on the off chance if they had found a navy blue Billabong hat near the entrance 2 weeks ago....they reckoned it was a slim chance if we lost it near the entrance. But the staff came back a few minutes later and said they had found one near the toilets, and miracle of miracles, it was J's cap!! I was so excited that we got it back (and that it was found near the guy's toilets, hehe!).