Crib Woes

A few days ago, Mirei gained the confidence to start walking.  Unfortunately, she might have gained too much confidence.  Last night, she climbed out of her crib, and as far as we could tell, face-planted from about four feet above the ground.  Yikes.

Mirei's worse than Taisei about sleeping.  Maybe it's her parents' fault for being inconsistent. She doesn't go to sleep very well, and some nights wakes up often.  In the past few days, she's started grabbing the top of the crib and attempting to climb up.  We didn't think she could to it, but unfortunately, she did it.  She just barely started walking, so landing the jump would have been impossible.  Luckily, it seems like she wasn't hurt in the fall.

However, we now need to think of some way to keep her in.  I was thinking about shining up her crib with wood polish.  Wami suggested candle wax.  Maybe we could put socks over the bottom of her PJs to cover up the grippy stuff.  Any ideas anyone?

Mirei's First Steps

Mirei took her first steps this week.  Prior to this week, she has had the balance and motor skills to walk, but it freaked her out.  She's able to push around various wheeled toys on our wood floor that, if she didn't have the ability to move her feet fast enough and keep her balance, she would have face-planted long ago.  She gets around with those toys and even stops, stands up, picks up the toy, and turns them to face the direction she wants to go.  But she's a chicken about not having the crutch.  :)  I remember the first time I watched her take a step with nothing in hand, she started screaming and hooting after she did it.  It frightened her.

This week, I saw her take a couple of those steps again, but this time, she seemed to be processing it in her mind.  Yesterday, she started taking a whole bunch of steps in the kitchen.  Probably four or five.  She had the same delighted squeal and joyous face that Taisei had when he did it.  It's one of the precious moments that you never forget.  :)

Happy Birthday, Mirei!

Today is Mirei's first birthday.  Happy birthday Mirei!

Wami made a monkey cake and Mirei dug in.

It's been a fun first year.  The kids have grown so much.  In the last post, Mirei got her first tooth.  Within the next two weeks, she got 3 more for a total of 2 on top and 2 on the bottom.  Since then, nothing.  But the ones she has are getting amusingly big.

In addition to the growth of her teeth, there's been lots of physical and mental growth as well.  She started standing when Ye-ye and Na-na visited back in early October.  Then a few weeks later, she stopped until just a few days ago.  No walking yet.  She's just more interested in crawling still, I guess.  She still loves food.  Anything we're eating, she wants to know what it tastes like.

The real growth for Mirei has been the mental growth.  Compared to Taisei, she seems closer to him at 18 months.  She understands what's going on and has no problem letting us know her displeasure.  She copies everything Taisei does, to the point that's he's starting to get irritated by it already, particularly when he's engrossed in one of his crafts.  After showers, both kids get a coating of lotion applied.  Now, Mirei likes to get a little squirt on her hand and then proceed to apply it to Taisei's legs and body.  She likes to climb up on a seat by herself, have us push her in, and sit at the kid's table opposite of Taisei.  She'll then pretend to feed herself if she can get a hold of some utensils.  She also like to sit on her big brother's booster seat.  She'll sit there for several minutes just amusing herself.  Funny stuff.

Here are random other things about Mirei's first year that I don't want to forget.

With Mirei, I found that I, papa(!!), have the ability to get her to sleep.  She does this endearing thing where she hugs me as tight as she can with all four limbs and puts her head down on my shoulder.  When she's tired, she'll just stay in the position until she falls asleep and I can just put her in the crib.  Often, it's usually not that simple, but I feel like this little thing has been a little father and daughter bonding thing that I didn't have with Taisei, since he always needed a human pacifier - Mama.

Mirei's also not shy with strangers the way Taisei was.  At about 8 months, he wouldn't let anyone hold him but Mama, Papa, and a few select family members.  Ever since, Taisei's been slow to warm up to most people.  Mirei, although she recognizes and probably prefers her mama and papa, she doesn't object to very many people holding her.  She's friendly and smiles for people unless she missed a nap or something.

Right now she's a handful and it's hard to eat out and things like that, especially since she's so interested in food, but it's such a cute age that I wish we could freeze time and just enjoy her at this age for a few more years before she grows up and starts asking us to how to drive (like Taisei has on several occasions)!

Mirei's First Tooth

Mirei's first tooth finally popped out today.  She's already started chewing things up since it popped out in the morning.  As usual, we didn't notice that she was sick or any of that stuff.  Lucky.

It seems ironic that a girl who loves food as much as she does had to wait so late for her teeth.  Today, I came home a little late from work and everyone else had eaten.  Mirei was already getting ready for bed, so I tried to sneak in my dinner while helping Wami without disturbing Mirei.  One time, I moved the plate and she heard the fork bump the plate.  Immediately, she wanted to know what was going.  Yes, she knew there might be food in the room.  After that, she wasn't interested in anything else that was going on in the room.  She just wanted to get a taste of whatever was on that plate.  Silly girl.

Four and Ten Months

Quick update on the kids.

Mirei LOVES food and now even drink.  Whenever either is around, she wants some.  It doesn't matter who has it either - mom, dad, brother, stranger... and even, as seen in the following, furry friends.  If she sees something that looks like a bowl/plate, or your mouth is moving, she wants to know what she's missing.

She's a happy and smiley baby, just like Taisei was early on.  Both make people (and especially their parents) happy with their liberal smiles.  Mirei hasn't decided to turn shy yet, like Taisei did around 8 or 9 months.  Mirei's now 10 days from hitting the 10 month mark and she's still as happy and go-lucky as before.  Now, she definitely recognizes her family.  She beams when I come home from work and immediately crawls to my feet so I can pick her up.  Ah, pure bliss for a father.  It's funny to see her chase me around in the mornings when I'm trying to get ready for work.  If I walk away too quickly or fail to pick her up in a timely manner when she's at my feel, she'll fuss and scream.

Sleep has been going well for both kids.  Taisei just needs a book and a prayer, and sometimes Hiro.  Once he's satisfied, he'll just lie down in the dark and go to bed.  And about two weeks ago, he started sleeping in the same room as Mirei.  Somehow, he sleeps through Mirei's fussing once or twice a night.  It's been so great for the entire main floor to open back up for Wami and I again.  It was a pain tiptoeing around both upstairs and downstairs.  Something we've figured out how to do with Mirei that we couldn't do with Taisei is have someone other than mama put her to sleep.  She's definitely not as dependent on the human pacifier (mama's tatas) as Taisei was.  Maybe that's partially because she likes food so much that she actually fills up on solids (not smooth baby food, which she detests).  All this really opens up the possibility for Wami and I to get babysitters and go on dates again.

Since the last time I mentioned it, we haven't seen another tantrum from Taisei.  Phew.  I hope that was just a passing phase that's now completely gone.  Just two and no more would be just fine with me.

For his age, Taisei's getting pretty good at origami.  He loves doing little, meticulous tasks with his hands.  [Video upload failed.  Will try again later...]

Last couple of thing coming to mind.  Taisei had his first official dentist appointment last week.  He did great.  He let them floss and gloss (remove plaque from) his teeth.  Quite an improvement from previous "happy visits" where he would barely open his mouth.  The dentist and dental assistant were great and Taisei was very comfortable.  Lastly, Taisei just started his second year of English Preschool, his, what 3rd year (??) of Japanese preschool, and next week will start an actually Japanese school with the Kurogis.  He'll actually be learning Hiragana, Katakana etc in a school-like environment.  I'm curious to see how that goes.

Ok, that's all for now.  See you next time!

Poor Mirei

There's a reason they say younger siblings are tough.  They get abused by their older siblings!  Taisei has gotten Mirei real good on two occasions now.  The saving grace is that we could tell Taisei felt really bad both times.

The first time, when Mirei was only a month or two old (ie really really small).  She was in her bouncer and mama was in the kitchen.  Taisei wanted to be a big brother pushing his sister in a makeshift stroller (which was really the bouncer at a 45 degree angle).  You can see where this is going.  All we know is when Wami ran back to find out why the hysterical crying, Mirei was face-down on the wood floor.  Yep, she fell straight forward and out of the bouncer onto her face.  Ouch.  Taisei was no where to be seen.  He ran off and was hiding in a corner.  I guess he got a little bit of a break for being 3 at the time.

Taisei's a rough-and-tumble kind of kid.  Definitely a boy-boy.  Some other parents can't stand it and probably think we're bad parents.  He definitely plays better with bigger, older BOYS.  Girls can't stand him when he gets into his boy mode.  (He's smart enough to do origami or draw with the girls.)  Yesterday, Taisei was running wild through the house with a 4" long, die-cast metal toy semi-truck in his hand.  We're still not sure how it happened, but we know he was running towards her and either he swung it and it went loose, or he threw it.  It hit Mirei right in the face.  When I got home from work, she had several large welts on her face.  Needless to say, I was not happy.  I'll just leave it at that, but I think he's learned his lesson on playing rough around Mirei, ...until he forgets again, that is.

In general, Mirei makes a big deal about some things, but not about getting knocked around.  Taisei will sit on her, fall on her, mess with her, and often times, she laughs!  It's amazing, and definitely not like most of the girls that Taisei is friends with (all of whom are oldest siblings).  We'll see if Mirei turns into a Barbie girl, or a tom boy in a few more years.

Speaking Japanese

Taisei had a epiphany during dinner yesterday.  With his eyebrows furled, he proclaimed (in Japanese):

Mama!  You say you don't speak English, but Baba only speaks English and you speak to him!
That means you can speak English!  I'm going to speak English at home too!

Wami tried to explain that she wanted to speak her native tongue.  That didn't really work.  She explained that he needed to speak Japanese if he wanted to go to Disney Tokyo.  To that, he asked:

T: Why?  I've already been to Disneyland!  
W: Because there's one in Japan.  You can even ask Rachel!
T: Why do I need Japanese?
W: Because if I have to go somewhere, then you need to be able to speak Japanese for Baba.
T: Oooh.  I see.  (A-so ka?)

Phew - disaster averted!  And, all for the sake of dad (whom he always feels bad for because Dad can't speak Japanese)!

Anecdotes

Even having seen it before, it's mind-boggling to see these kids grow.  In about two week's time, Mirei's desires and cognitive abilities have changed dramatically.  For a while, it was the most amusing thing to see her go crazy about noodles and food in general.  That was what she lived for.  Since that time, she's become aware of many more things, such as our presence - we can't just walk away and expect her not to notice anymore.  She goes crazy when she hears the shower and wants to get in immediately!  She still loves noodles and anything that other people are eating.  Now, she definitely recognizes everyone.  She LOVES Taisei.  Everything he does is funny to her, no matter how rough he's being.  She's suddenly a daddy's girl.  All it took was for me to rock her to sleep in my arms one evening about a week ago.  Ever since then, she's all smiles when I get home.  It's a nice feeling.  I guess the bottom line is that she lets us know what she wants now.

A few times, she's tried to get our attention from behind by grabbing Wami's pants or something, and then just looking at us longingly.  She's obviously trying to get our attention.  It's scary - this little baby isn't really a baby-baby anymore.  When she's sitting in her high chair, she looks over to see if Hiro's there.  If he is, she giggles and starts to feed him food.  When he takes it, lots more giggles.  Crazy!  I really don't think Taisei was this advanced at this age.  She's getting faster and faster at crawling - definitely getting places way before we expect her to.  She loves Hiro's bowls, unfortunately.  She even ate his food the other day.  Ugh.  Also, her "babababa" and "mamama" tend to sound intended sometimes. She hasn't stopped doing her zombie baby act, which I love.

Anyway, this post was just trying to get some memories down on paper.  No good pictures to share lately.  Will post if I get some.

9 Month Stats

Today is Mirei's 9 month mark.  At the doctor's today, she measured out at 17.8 pounds (~40%), 27 inches tall (~35%), and 43.6 cm head circumference (~45%).  She's still in a higher percentile than Taisei ever was at this age.  She was also a "yes" for every developmental milestone they asked us about.  Some of these included eating solid foods, mumbling "mama dada", pulling herself up, crawling, drinking from a cup, etc.  I remember when Taisei was this age, we thought they were crazy to think he could do all these things.  A small part of that was probably his parents' tentativeness to introduce too much too quickly.  On the other hand, Mirei does have a big brother to learn quickly from, and most definitely parents who are a lot less worried about every little thing.

She had her first shower the other day.  She loved it.  Couldn't get enough.  I was afraid she would make a big deal when we tried to get her back out.

Here's Taisei enjoying an ice cream cone.  This is the reason that we go outside.

Little Things

Mirei recently started climbing up small steps and onto the low futon bed that's in her room.  Today, she climbed onto our platform bed!  So now she crawls into our bedroom and gets herself onto our bed.  Even though you think it's lame I wrote about this, to us, it's very amusing.  Now that school's done, I'm finally able to enjoy those little things again.  I have to make a note to do this as much as possible.  Enjoy the little things.

I finally caught Mirei being zombie-baby on video.  I couldn't edit out all the dead time b/c my editor can't recognize .3gp files.  What a drag.  It's dark because it's nighttime and she's supposed to be sleeping.  I couldn't help but let her zombie out for a while before putting her back in the crib.  Check it out here, yo.  Make sure you wait for it...

Today, Taisei's girlfriend came over and they had a happy reunion.  They drew pictures, folded origami, cut out shapes, and played mommy/daddy with stuffed animals.  It's quite interesting that he plays differently with her than with his boy-buddies.  They usually run around, tackle, and shoot guns at each other.  With his girlfriend, it's definitely gentler on the house and easier to supervise.

Taisei finally started learning and memorizing songs.  Here's one of the first ones I've seen him just spontaneously sing without the music playing (although it's playing here).  Ok, it's more of chanting than singing. This is on a recent drive back from Vegas.

Far From Ideal

Why can't everyone be happy when they're awake and go to bed when they're supposed to?

A quick follow up to last week's post.  Unfortunately, the behavior fix for Taisei was only temporary.  The smiley faces don't mean as much to him when there isn't a tangible goal in sight, such as going out to see a movie.  This weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, he had his first and second temper tantrums ever.  It was a sight to behold.  Full on screaming, balling, writhing and kicking on the floor.  The first one was something about Dad's supposed behavior that he didn't like.  We have no idea what that was about.  The second one was about wanting to have everyone eat breakfast in front of the TV.  We had a very limited time because I had to leave for meetings, and everything had already been set up in the kitchen.  So we said no and he went totally bonkers, especially when we started eating without him.  After the first tantrum, we thought maybe it had something to do with lack of sleep.  But then the next morning, when he's normally in a good mood, he had another one.  It's extremely disheartening, especially when you think you're making progress.  Hopefully this is a short phase and not the start of a bad stretch.  As parents, we're trying to unravel the mystery of where this sudden spat of bad behavior is coming from.

As for Mirei, she's getting to be more and more of a handful herself.  She's crawling faster and constantly on the move. We used to be able to put her in the crib when she was very tired and she would go to sleep eventually.  Last week when my aunt and uncle visited from Chicago, we spent the day out in the town and Mirei missed her naps.  Ever since that day, she has never been the same.  It's a struggle to get her to her crib.  One bit of good news is that I was able to get her to sleep without Wami's help - a big first.  I knew she was extremely tired.  I'm not sure if I could substitute for Wami during the regular bedtime routine.

Anyway, not a happy post for us, but not  everything about parenting is roses, eh?

Four and Eight Months

That's Taisei's age and Mirei's age at the moment, respectively.

I hope one day Mirei doesn't read all the blogs are realize that there lots of posts missing about her every sneeze and poopie.  I have lots of excuses - school, work, 2 kids, etc.  Really, blogging has just been much harder to do, especially with Taisei now sleeping in the computer room and Mirei sleeping upstairs in Taisei's old room.  Tonight, we're attempting to let them both sleep in the same room.  When we go on vacations, it seems to work, so I don't see why it wouldn't at home.  We'll see how it goes.

Mirei is now in her eighth month already.  She's highly mobile now.  Her crawling doesn't seem to be quite as fast as Taisei's was, but at the same time, she would rather be standing then crawling around.  I'm trying to keep her on the ground because I've heard it's good for hand-eye coordination and it seemed to work for Taisei.  Alas, kids do what they want.  Anything that's higher than about 1 foot, she'll try to use it to stand up.  Her legs are pretty strong that way.  NO problem standing up and almost balancing.  At this rate, she may be a pretty early walker, even though I'm trying to prevent her from being one.

Mirei LOVES food.  When there's food around, she wants it.  She doesn't care what it is.  She wants it in her mouth.  Especially noodles.  She gets mad if we don't give her noodles.  As a result, she's stayed over the 50% mark and has super chunky legs, face, etc.  It's amusing to us, since Taisei is the complete opposite.  He doesn't care about food unless he tries it and it's just amazingly delicious or he's amazingly hungry (and that's rare).  Otherwise, he has better things to do than eat.

We thought Mirei would be a pretty demanding baby because of her quick-to-squeal attitude.  That hasn't gone away, but as long as she gets her two naps and early bedtime, she's happy.  She still lets us know immediately if she doesn't like something (see picture on right), but it's not quite life and death anymore.  Phew!  :)  This girl knows what she wants, but she's definitely more tough than what we've seen with some of Taisei's girlfriends -- in large part thanks to not being the first-born.  Taisei does crazy things with her and she actually laughs more than cries.  She doesn't like Taisei to grab her from behind and roll onto his back.  But it seems like almost anything else goes.  He sits on her, pokes her face, pulls her appendages, etc, and most of the time she just laughs.  What a mystery.

Mirei lights up when Taisei walks into the room.  She loves to see him and laughs at everything he does.  I can be trying my best to entertain her, and she'll just be trying to get away to do something else.  Then, Taisei walks in and she just beams.  It's nice to see.  Hopefully we can nurture the sibling bond and prevent it from turning into rivalry when they have to start sharing (fighting over) things.

Taisei wouldn't go on to level 2 swimming class.  :(  He said he enjoyed level 1, but wasn't keen on meeting new friends and a new teacher.  He said to us "Mary-sensei is good."  In other words, he's familiar with his pre-school at the U of U and prefers to stick with that.  I'm sometimes afraid that he has talents that won't be fostered if we don't get him out of his shell.  I know, I know.  He's 4.  :)  All parents have high hopes and want their kids to achieve their potential, no?

Taisei's really not a toddler anymore.  It's weird to make that realization.  We can reason with him, and when he really wants something that we disagree with, he has the self-discipline to say "OK, kondo" which means "OK, next time."  This happens often when we go out and he sees those 25c capsule toy vending machines.  Another time he says this is when we want him to do something but he's either scared or shy.  Like when I tried to get him to go talk to someone or something.  He'll say "Kondo, OK?"

For a month or two with Taisei, I think we started to lose control (and our minds) a little bit.  It maybe had something to do with trying to get mom and dad's attention, or something else.  He was getting rebellious and pushing the limits constantly.  It was driving us nuts.  I even started reading discipline books (such as 1-2-3 Magic!) to try to figure out what we're doing wrong.  I got some good ideas, and learned some new things.  For example, that there are Stop behaviors and Start behaviors.  That's obvious, but they both frustrate you the same way and you have to approach them very differently.  Overall, I think we were on the right track.  We just needed to back up and calm down a little.  Obviously, the fight is not over, but everyone is back in a good state of mind now and we can all talk things out again.  Probably the main thing we did was conscientiously back away from "1-2-3 you're busted!" back to the positive reinforcement.  We started the happy-face routine again, using the Doug and Melissa Responsibility Chart.  For Taisei, the key is to have a tangible goal and reward.  We've tried different things with the chart.  Last week, it was "If you get x number smiley faces, then we can go see a movie Saturday."  The one going right now is "if you can get more this week then last week, you can have this toy."  (It happens to be McDonald's Happy Meal toy from the movie we saw last week, How to Train Your Dragon - nice to have a theme going on to keep it connected.)  It seems to be working.  He's been happy, Mom's been happy, and there's a lot less stress and unhappiness all around.  And one of the biggest outcomes - he pays attention to his behavior!  If you have more than one kid... then I guess you'll have to be extra creative.  I can't imagine that situation yet.  We'll have it in a few years... YIKES!  Bottom line - the key for Taisei has been to keep it fresh, positive, and rewarding.

Hopefully the kids will keep going to bed on time, and I'll be able to put more updates on here.

Mobile Mayhem

Now that both kids are mobile, we find ourselves running back and forth, making sure Mirei's not putting something dangerous in her mouth, and appeasing Taisei as he calls for us every 2 minutes.

Here's the first day Mirei discovered that her legs are useful propellants.  June 8, 2010

And this is what she does when she's in the crib and she doesn't want to sleep.  It makes it so hard for us to leave her alone in there!

We ended up having a party instead of putting her back to sleep.  :|

Taisei just started swimming lessons.  We were so afraid that he would hate them, since he's not a water baby like I was.  He never craved the swimming pool before, but to our surprise, he loves the lessons.  We just drop him off and off he goes.  (For Taisei, that's a big deal.)  It probably doesn't hurt that the water's like 85 degrees and it's basically a private lesson since there's only one other boy in the class.  We recommend Saturday mornings.  Apparently, no one wants to be there at that time.

As the kids get older, I keep waiting for Taisei to turn jealous and resentful.  We're pleased to see that it hasn't happened yet, even as Mirei has demanded more and more attention.  Taisei did go through a phase where he had to realize that Mirei's not a baby anymore and has her own opinions about stuff.  And boy does she have opinions.  She has never been shy about letting us know what she wants.  So as the two have gotten older, I'm convinced that their bond has only gotten stronger.  Taisei tells us now that he's not scared to go have over nighters with his buddies (the Jones) as long as Mirei comes along.  Mirei, on the other hand, is a friendly baby and will smile for anybody as long as they make an effort to coo and pay attention to her.  But when Taisei walks into the room, she beams and giggles almost without fail.  She sure seems to love her older brother.  Taisei loves to show off "his baby" whenever others gather around to pay attention to her.  So far, it's perfect.  I hope they can be best buds and take care of each other for a long long time to come.

By the way, Happy Father's Day to me and all my Daddy friends.  ;)

Welcome

Today, Taisei's four years old and Mirei's almost 7 months old.  Taisei's about to finish his first year of official preschool at the U of U.  He's loved it and we'll send him back there again next year.  He's been in the Wanpaku Japanese Preschool for several years now and may be finishing up his last year this summer.  Mirei just started officially crawling on Monday, two days ago.  Until now, she has been doing the army crawl to get at things she wants.  And, boy, when she wants something, she really wants something.  She wears her emotions on her sleeves, completely the opposite of her brother, who has to be pried, prodded, and bribed for any extra information.  They seem to be very different already, yet they are the best of buds.  Often, they'll sleep together in a bed at night now.  When Mirei sees Taisei, her eyes light up and she squeals with joy.  It's a happy sight for their parents.  Seeing our kids happy makes everything we do worth it.  We'll do our best to post pictures and anecdotes for posterity and for any of our interested friends.

About 3 months ago.