Toddlerhood

Yep, I think it's time to declare it... Touma is officially a toddler. How do I know that this milestone has been reached? I think it can be explained in one word. Tantrums. Yup, we are definitely there.

Our latest, and by far most melodramatic, tantrum occurred on Tuesday. It was a classic mealtime tantrum. We'd managed to begin dinner. However, in less than 10 minutes Touma was objecting to everything: the food, the high chair, different food, the water bottle, and the high chair belt. That last one was the real culprit, I suspect. He hates being strapped in.

When he started emptying the entirety of the tray's contents onto the floor, I got him out of the chair. Only for more crying and flailing... all the while, I am trying to keep my cool, while trying to avoid having noodles glued to my floor. Meaning, I was picking them up and putting them back into the bowl from which they had been dumped. Sigh.

As the drama continued, I decided that letting it run its course would be best. Cuddling was not working. Feeding him was not working. Nothing. Was. Working.

And then, as quickly as it began, the storm subsided. How? Touma found the yogurt that I had set down, but had not given him, when he started the whole drama in the first place. He found the spoon. He fed himself. And suddenly, all was right with the world. Say wha!?!

So, I fed him yogurt. And he ate, two bowls of plain yogurt. For the third bowl, I smooshed up some of the hamburger he'd refused to eat and mixed it with the yogurt... and down that went too!

I do have some post-tantrum pictures. Mostly, he if very intent on the yogurt...

Looking down at the spoon about to take another bite.

 The second picture needs a little explanation. After all that fuss, I noticed that Touma seemed to have a huge booger coming out his nose. Which was funny enough. Until I realized that it wasn't a booger, it was a bit of hamburger... most likely from before the tantrum even began! Baby noses are quite good hiding places for all sorts of things... including snacks being saved for later.

A somewhat blurry photo of the "booger"

Wedding 2

This year has been quite the year for weddings. It's not the year with the most weddings, but so far it's the year I've been able to attend the most (only 2, but still...). Being in Japan for most of the past 11 years has meant foregoing many special events, but this year the weddings were in my "neighborhood."

Our first wedding was in Seoul. The second was last weekend in Shizuoka.
My friend Mike, who I've known for 10 years (!!), got married. Originally I was going to go by myself. However, due to work, Shimon was away and Touma got to be my wedding date again. He was a trooper. We made it down and back with no major problems.

He also slept through a majority of the reception, which allowed me to have a bit more fun than if I'd been chasing him the whole time. Sadly, I didn't take many pictures, but have a friend who will send me some (he had a pretty big camera which beat my little point and shoot!).

When I get more pics, I will post them. For now I'll leave you with this one...

Family Outing

This past Sunday, I decided it was a good time to go on a bit of an outing. We hadn't done anything like that in awhile and since the weather was gorgeous, I suggested it. Japan is really amazing with all sorts of day trip guides and things, but we didn't actually own one. We remedied that and then decided on what route we would take.

Shimon chose one that would take us near Mt. Fuji and would be relatively easy to navigate. If we went in the opposite direction (toward Chiba prefecture), we would definitely get stuck in traffic, which was another factor in the choice.

The drive was gorgeous. We didn't hit much traffic and we made it to near Mt. Fuji in decent time. We were very lucky to be able to get a glimpse of the mountain as we drove in. Sadly, as we got closer to our actual destination the mountain disappeared.

We were headed to a lake called Yamanaka-ko (Yamanaka Lake). There are 5 (I think!) lakes that surround Mt. Fuji and this one just happened to be one of them. We drove part way around the lake until we found a parking lot. You can tell you have left the metropolitan area when all the parking is free!!

There are nice bike paths around the lake and a lot of little shops offering bike rental. Shimon went to check the place out. Turns out that there was a tandem bike with a small baby seat attached. There was no helmet, and normally I would be a stickler, but as we wouldn't be crossing any roads I decided we'd take it just the once. (We really need to get on the bike situation for me anyway....)

So we rented the tandem bike.

And we're ready to go!

I actually didn't ride up front. I let Shimon steer as I was a little nervous to do it. I have to say that riding in the back is weird because the handles are just for show. But your instinct (or at least mine) was to try and steer. It's a very weird feeling!

We road a ways to park area where we got off and walked around.

Run to dad....

Run to mom!

This was a fun game we played while Shimon took lots of pictures. Back and forth, back and forth. Eventually we had to stop and return to where we parked the bike because we only had it for an hour. Walking back Touma got a ride!

This was the first time Touma has really been stable enough to do this.

After returning the bike we ended up having some noodles for a late lunch. However, the most entertaining thing about lunch was Touma demonstrating his new "skill."

Whatcha diggin' for son?