Kokochi

1st Ice Skating

T's preschool organized ice skating on Sunday at the Yerba Buena rink. I signed up as it would be a good first experience...but I think T didn't know what to make of it. After 1 round, and maybe 10 minutes, she wanted her skates off. I'm still glad she got a try. Next year I'll try again!

It was actually really hard and tiring to hold her up. Dav and I had to take turns, and frankly didn't protest when T said she was done. Our backs hurt!

   

Sunday morning

We were going to walk to Farley's for coffee and a bagel, but got a call from the neighbors to head over for mimosas and a full breakfast on their deck since the weather was just so good.

This is Tesla as we're trying to leave. Of course she had all her toys around, then started to practice writing numbers and the alphabet. Dav went ahead while I waited as it was rather hard to tell her not to get into practicing letters...

 

Once at the Regenbogen's, both Fia and T got into their full dress-up mode. Fav fluffy dress, jewelry, and plastic heeled shoes. Initially I really didn't like those heeled shoes, but girls love them.

 
p.s. T seemed to appreciate her buns I did for her. While walking to the Regenbogens, she noticed her shadow and was happy she had "bear ears."

Dinner Chez Jack's

Friday night was a great night...the kind I've been looking forward to for a while, the kind where I knew I was going to have tons of fun, the kind where I let myself go. Started with dinner chez Jack's. 8 people is a perfect size for a dinner party where there are multiple conversations, but small enough where you get to be with everyone. Fish tacos. I made Mexican rice for the first time, using brown rice. Came out weird but the dinner overall was super. And fresh margaritas. Yum!

Post dinner, in preparation for a BM fundraiser party with Garage Mahal, Michelle kindly brought out her black face paint to decorate us. It's rather fun to show up as a group with fun paint stuff all together.
Michelle and JR couldn't resist a little smootch.
Michelle's handiwork on my back, and Lisa and her fab beau Greg.
The girls, and the boys.

Thanks Jack and all!

Driving out the devil

We did Setsubun last year, dragging the Regenbogens to participate by throwing soy beans to beat the devil out of the house...then throwing a bunch inside for good luck where next you must eat your age number of soy beans. I hadn't planned it quite yet this year (usually, Nijiya and what they sell reminds me of the seasonal things going on), and I've missed the proper date but shall do this to "cleanse" our house at some date.

But T's preschool, being so organized and amazing as always, did the ritual today.

When I arrived to pick her up, as usual, I headed to a teacher to check in how T was. Hitomi-sensei said she cried...and first I thought, "time-out or a fight?" But what happened is the Oni (devil) came to school for Setsubun so the kids could beat him out with soy beans, and T freaked out. She cried! Last time, she knew it was daddy. This time it was a teacher, and I guess he went all out.

However, since our daily come-home-ritual is, I "play Tesla" while she "plays mama," she reenacted what happened at preschool. So me being Tesla, I said I was scared. Tesla being "mama" then comforted me saying, "it's OK, it's for pretend."

So she knew what was going on. It's fine feeling scared (I'm a total scaredy cat myself), and I really feel Halloween or Setsubun is ideal for kids to experiment with fear in safe way. But I was impressed that in spite her fear, T did somewhere know what was going on.

Photography I love

 

Andrew Armour and Scar, the sperm whale, originally uploaded by echeng.

I met Eric Cheng a few + years back at a blogging event. Photography was his hobby, but his pictures were so mesmerizing that it quickly became his profession. He does a lot of underwater stuff, and what I love is peeking into a beautiful world I'll probably never see. I especially love that he focuses on the sea life, showing the beings living as they do.

At that blogging event, Dav and I bought a photo of a baby turtle taking its first dive into water that Eric photographed. You have to see it. We call him Charles, he's up in Tesla's room, and is one of my treasures.

Anyhow, I follow Eric on Flickr. One of my favorite sets are these happily swimming piggies in the Bahamas. I mean, talk about happiness! And today, he posted another set of sperm whales that blew me away, so I want to share.

Eric is doing great work for awareness of life in our oceans. I'm an admirer!

She did it!

I'm noting this cuz it's noteworthy to me.

Last night, Tesla announced, and demanded, not to wear diapers at night. She's toilet-trained, and has been good at night too, but to avoid accidents and having to wash loads of sheets, we've been lazy and let her still wear diapers to be safe. But she decided it's over. And just like that, diapers are over. We needed her to be on-board for this so that if she awoke at night, she'd call us instead of having an accident, and I'm just so proud of her!

Second giant news for us and the preschool staff was today, we forgot blankie. T doesn't go anywhere without blankie, but we decided this was a good excuse to force her a little separation as I was too far from home to go back and get it (I've done that once). So although wailing, off to preschool we went. I negotiated with Tesla and we decided I would stay for "a long time" once at preschool, and we ended up doing 4 puzzles together. She seemed much better after settling in, and one of the teachers brought out a box of extra cloth so Tesla could choose a temporary replacement. It wasn't soft and didn't have the familiar smell, but she was good all day. I'm so proud for this...and all the teachers were too!

Yay for Tesla!

pottery painting

T painted a mug for daddy (and herself) for Christmas at one of those paint your pottery places. Since I'm heading to Tokyo soon for work again, T and I went again here to make a gift for my parents. I must say it's fun. Colors & brushes galore. No worries about a mess. And I was quite happy with the results last time. Best thing is T loves it too. She made a plate and bowl, and just like last time, a little bowl for herself too.
I wrote her name on the bottom, and for the plate, added "Ojiichan" and "Obaachan" [grandpa and grandma]. Yep, she's wearing her fav sunflower dress (every weekend), and yes her favorite color that moment was black.

Video call with Japan

I had a fun video conference call, along with Garth (who came to me Tokyo with me last time), with Nifty (one of our major partners at Six Apart) and their customers from a small traditional town called Okuizumo. This town has internet connectivity, but representatives came to Nifty (a top ISP in Japan) to learn more about what the internet could offer. A fun demo was to connect via Skype with Garth and me in San Francisco to talk with them in Tokyo, to show how easy it was. We were so happy to help out for Nifty, and it was a pleasure.

For the timing, I had to first pick up T at preschool, bring her back to work, then do the video call. I gave T crackers, games, and stuff to draw with. I told her to be quiet and she totally was. But at the end of the video call, since it was rather casual, I brought T into the video call so she got to wave at the folks from Okuizumo!

Tesla and Fia

Fia met Tesla when she was a newborn, meaning pretty much a blob and not fun to play with. But Fia has always been an older sister to T. Lately, now that T can hold her own conversation and can join in Fia's fab imagination, these 2 gals have so much fun together. T pretty much begs everyday to hang out with Fia, and so far, they totally play happily together. I know a day will come when T, who is 1.5 years younger, may be shut out for being "too young." For now, however, it's pretty awesome to see them play together.

Lots of dress up and imagination character play. Here Fia was in her gorgeous dress, T in her best dress with a wand. I wanted to get them together for a pic, but as my camera clicked, Fia ran off, leaving just T posing diligently with her wand. Next I got Michelle to keep Fia in the pic.(Look at Fia and T totally pose!)

Here we have T dressed in one of Fia's dresses from Spain, graciously lent by Fia. They are really intrigued about babies and such, and they stuffed their animals in their bellies. They were quite proud to show us their "babies." Then we have some more wand action along with T's giant elephant & Fia's Lavender doggy.

T showing off Fia's dress. The 2 of them trying out fancy heel shoes. Yes, T loves such fancy shoes even though I never really suggested them. So, um, girly!!

And a little something else: a top-notch cheese platter that Michelle brought to a dinner party we went to. Big smiles from me for that.

Bunk Bed!

T graduated from her crib a long time ago, but we kept it since we often have baby guests, and T liked to play with it. We finally handed it off to Dav's cousin who is expecting her 3rd baby (!!!). T also is pretty much outgrowing her toddler bed, so we went off to good 'ol Ikea to buy Tesla a twin size bed; the real deal that I hope she can use for many years. We found a super cool bunk bed with tent combo that I fell in love with, and T got really excited about too.

With 3 hours of daddy's labor, voila! It's fun, cozy, and just perfect. For now we stuck her old bed underneath to open up play room, but plan to make the bottom part a play house. Kid deco is so much fun!