yuki

It's rough waking up after having so much fun in California.

The three of us (and a bunch of other scientists too) went to Oakland these few days. We escaped from the talks for a few hours and met with Max and his family. We had a great time in San Francisco visiting the Academy of Science. They have a great new building, totally green, and Yuki had a great time with Max and his mom and dad! Max showed her a few tricks she can work on in the next few months, like how to tell the difference between a lemur and a gorilla, and a dump truck and a bulldozer. Yuki showed him how to stake your own seat on a stone bear. Click here for more photos. Yuki liked it so much in California with all the friendly faces and attention she got from them. Mama and Papa was very happy seeing old friends too. It was great to see you!!

Yuki now says "アッチ” or "atchi!" meaning, "hot!". She says it when I give her a hot bowl of oatmeal, when she sees a boiling pot of pasta, when she sees the bath being filled... I think she understands what it means. Then we blow on the spoonful of oatmeal together, back away from the boiling pot of pasta, and jump in the bath to make a big splash together. But most of the time, she still likes to point at things and say "uh oh!"

We are having the last of the warm days for this year and Yuki helped me rake some leaves today. She is a very good helper. Maybe we can make a fire and roast some sweet potatoes in the ashes like we used to do in Japan when I was a child. I still remember the neighborhood raking party where the everyone in the entire apartment building complex would get together, rake some leaves, and eat さつま芋 together. We had lots of cherry trees, and for some reason, I remember the leaves from palm trees vividly.

Yuki takes after her mom and is a morning person. She greets us with a big "おはよう！ (ohayo, or good morning)" in the morning.

Our friends, Claire and David got married on Sunday. Here are some photos.
It was a very nice wedding, with excellent food. We had to leave early, but they say the party lasted until late into the evening. Yuki LOVEd the carrot cake.

Yuki goes to day care. One of her friends in her class is not very happy about being there. She is crying every time we see her. There seems to be a fundamental mismatch between this little girl and the teacher, and we are trying to figure out what to do about this. While Yuki seems not to be bothered by the crying, it seems very disruptive and having a frustrated teacher is not good either. Yuki seems fine with the teacher, and the teacher keeps telling us what a "dahl" (doll) Yuki is. It's just not a good learning environment at the moment. We talked to the director of the center, and they are trying to work this out between the teacher, the child, and her parents so hopefully the situation gets resolved soon. Otherwise we will have to look for some other options.

Yuki is officially turning into an American toddler. She says "Up", "No", and "More", and says "diaper" when I say "oshime" which is japanese for diaper. She is very good with her hands, 器用なのです。One of her favorite things to do these days is to flip through pages: she will take a book or a notepad, and fan through the pages with her thumb. (somehow this seems very advanced to us :). She is also working on stacking blocks and putting things into containers and rings on posts. She likes to help around the house too: we raked some leaves in the yard together today.

Yes, Yuki now says "up" and "no". I still find it cute in that it sounds more like "nu-nu-nu-nu!" now, but I'm sure it will get old very quickly. She needed a lot of cuddling since she has upset stomach and a diaper rash from the antibiotics :( Yuki and I dug up some plants in the yard today to do some landscaping. She is a great help!

Yuki's teacher told me she did not take a nap today and boy was she right! Yuki was bouncing off the walls and all loopy when we came home today. She sat down wanted to eat dinner, then didn't, then wanted to run around move things from one corner of the room to another, brought me toys, wanted to read, and then didn't, etc. She was so exhausted! The good news is, she seems to be feeling much better and seems to be back to her cute talkative and energetic self.

Yuki is on antibiotics and I am amazed how well it works. She seem to be feeling much better and is on her way back to her normal fun self. Unfortunately now mama is sick and waiting for modern medicine to work its magic on her.

Did you know that when you press random numbers on your cell phone, it dials the emergency number? We learned this the hard way, well, not the hardest way I suppose thank goodness. The first time this happened was a few months back. That time, I hadn't noticed she had dialed until the police called back to ask if we had dialed 911. They told me they heard some baby laughing but that as a rule they have to check on every call made. And that was that.

Yuki called the police again today. This time, I realized that she dialed them right when the phone was ringing, tried to hang up but the phone wouldn't let me (probably another safety feature), so I had to talk to the police again. They asked my name, address, blah blah, then I thought they were satisfied. And then, some time later, two police actually showed up at our door. I was considering not answering the door because Yuki and I were both sick and lying in our bed, but I was curious who could be knocking on our door so I went. They wanted to come inside and see Yuki, make sure that everything was okay. Yikes! What must the neighbors think! They asked again for my name, phone number, blah blah, smiled at Yuki, and left. What a surreal experience!

We went to see the doctor today. It turns out Yuki has her first ear infection. Yes in her right ear, her left is thinking about it, to quote the doctor. Being sick twice in two weeks is a bit much, but considering this is her first ear infection and that she goes to day care, I suppose she's doing alright. She is taking some antibiotics, and hopefully she will feel better by the morning, and all better in the next few days. In the meantime, I enjoyed spending the day with her at the office.

Yuki's today's song is Gwen Stefani's Rich Girl. She likes to sing along to the "nananahnahnanah" part.

Day cares and any place where children gather are Petri dishes for the season's hottest virus. As such, Yuki (and hence both her parents) are suffering from whatever is going around at the moment. Yuki had a fever of 101F (38.3C) and was generally limp all day today. She couldn't really eat anything, she tried a bit of apple juice and later yogurt, both of which came right back up.

Last cold she had was just two weeks ago. It wasn't really a cold, she was diagnosed with "Roseola" also known as sixth disease (after measles and so on). It was fairly benign, though was a bit scary: she developed a fever very suddenly the day I got back from a week long trip to Utrecht, with no other symptoms. The fever came, she was limp for about 1/2 hour, we gave her some Tylenol, the fever went away, came back after 5 - 6 hours, etc. for about 2 days. She then developed a rash all over her body which didn't seem to bother her at all, and went away in another few days.

This one is hard in that she was limp the whole day and hasn't been able to eat anything. I also feel pretty crummy, with sore throat, light-headed, and a bit of a fever. I suppose she feel the same way. I can, however, still eat. My appetite is always the last to go :). K is on travel to Berkeley right now, but will be back in a few days. I hope he's feeling ok.

Hi everyone,
Sorry it's been a while since we updated this blog. Since her first birthday, she has been running around keeping us busy. She started walking very well, especially after our trip to Colorado where she had to scale mountains and rough terrain. We have been posting photos on picasa periodically too, so check it out!

She loves to imitate, talks up a storm and sings to herself. The songs I have to admit are unintelligible (though music to my ears), but here are some words she's working on:

"mama"
"papa"
"kiki" (for Yuki)
"zozo" (for Hai, Douzo! はい、どうぞ, here you go)
"zuzu" (kutsu, くつ、shoes)
"nai-nai" (inai-inai-ba, いない、いない、（ばあ）(picaboo))

"uh oh!"
"hat"
"mi-mi-mi!" -> Milk
something that sounds like "pamper" for diaper

"ba-ba" -> ball