Baby Evan

Tony's friend Hector's & his wife Erika had their baby on April 1st.  Here are some pictures of the baby gift bag decorated by Maiya, and the day Baby Evan came home from the hospital when he was 2 days old.  It was nice to hold a newborn baby in my arms.  Got that awwwww feeling.  Although I love that baby period, if anything, I wish we had had a 2nd sooner, and wish that we had started earlier.  Anyways, water under the bridge.  Even though Maiya always reminds me that she wishes she had a brother or a sister so she would have a built in playmate, there's a lot of things to like about only having one kid.  

NaBloPoMo#6.  Peace. Gaga goo goo.  Out.

Maiya Turns 6 (in Feb!)

SIX:  So Maiya turned 6 in February.  We had the party at a park walking distance from our house.  Mista Cookie Jar came and performed some great music for the kids.  We had seen him perform at a couple of community events and Maiya loves his CDs.  I have always wanted to do a concert for a birthday party, but Joe Reilly and Chic Street Man don't live in town and we don't really know Ice Cream Man (reggae kids performer that we've seen at the Farmer's Market).  You know that thing about invite 6 kids for a 6th bday?  Well we times'd it by 10, and over 60 people came, including 4 kids from Kindergarten.

GAMES:  The theme was not Barbie or Bakugan, it was FRUIT!  So my friend Mickie gave me some suggestions (via Skype from Japan) for games.  You'll see in the pictures we did relay race games with orange on a spoon, banana on your neck, and oranges between your legs. Oh my goodness, how fun is that?  The cake was fruit, and the party favor was reusable shopping bags that fold up into fruits.  

ECO-PARTY:  We did another ECO-party.  It's easy to use dishes and real utensils when you have a party at home, but when you do it elsewhere, you have to lug the stuff back and forth.  I got paper plates made of bamboo and recycled materials.  We brought a bucket so that the nice plastic cutlery and hashi (used at several parties including her 5th bday) could be tossed in, taken home, and rewashed.   I re-used some plastic tablecloths from past parties, and also now have 4 cloth tablecloths that can be washed and used again.  We brought real mugs for drinks. Drinks were by the half gallon (no throwaway one-time use plastic bottles or juice boxes), and since it was cold, I made pots of coffee (not enough though) and brought them in the hot pots.  The nice thing is that we didn't even fill one trash barrel at the park; although I did have to fish out a few forks and hashi.

Here's around 20 pictures to share.  I know it's a lot, but we took about 130 pictures and filled up a video card, so you get the gist.  (If you were there, and you want individual pics of your kids, we have almost all the kids with either a piece of fruit between their legs or behind their neck.)

Happy 6th Bday.  At the time of this writing, Maiya is almost 7.   Oh, the time goes by so quickly.  Peace. Out.  (NaBloPoMo#5)

February 2011 Happenings

NaBloPoMo#4 is going to be the recap of February 2011. I honestly don't know if I'm going to have the time and energy to update a whole year, but we'll see where this goes.  On the 1st of the month, Maiya turned SIX years old.  That crept up pretty quickly.  We forgot to take a picture until after shower time, thus the robes with wet hair.  Notice the candle in the manjuu, her favorite treat.

My Dad turned 80 years old, so we had a surprise party and Roast for him at my sister's house.  We invited a bunch of his old gang, plus some golf friends.  

We also celebrated Maiya and her friend Eve's 6th bday party at school.  We've been friends with Eve's parents since 15+ years ago, so it's been nice that they're in the same class, and have birthdays in the same month.  I brought chocolate manjuu, as I did the two previous years at Maiya's preschool bdays. (Class photo removed)

Our friends, Scott, Emily and Tula (Maiya's sistahfriend) came to visit from Detroit.  We manage to see them about 3-4 times a year.  Scott and Grace Lee Boggs published a book of Grace's speeches, writings and ideas.  That led to a sleepover for Maiya and Tula.

 

Of course, being on the Board for Great Leap (where I worked from 1997 to 2004), means our annual fundraising event.  This year instead of the LA Marathon, we participated in the Chinatown Firecracker 5K.  Maiya actually walked the 5K with us, and did the 1K for kids by herself.  Me and Maiya raised about $1,500 for Great Leap from generous friends/family sponsors.

At the end of Maiya's first basketball season playing bball, her team went to the year end event where they handed out trophies for all the teams.  Afterwards, we invited the whole team and their families over for a potluck.  It was a lot of fun.

Peace. Out.

January 2011 in a Nutshell

I don't know if anyone who is taking the time to read my NaBloPoMo cares about me documenting the year, but we have so many photos, I feel the urge to catch up on highlights of this year so far.

Annual New Year's Day Family photo at my Uncle's house in Boyle Heights

I caught Maiya and Rockett giving kisses at our friend Evelyn's annual Oshogatsu.

Maiya lost her first tooth on New Year's night,
 shortly after coming home from Evelyn's party.

We went to La Brea Tarpits for family time.

The following week, we went to the LA Zoo.  See giraffe.

Kids in Maiya's class at Mochitzuki pounding steamed rice.  

Do you want some of my mochi?

Maiya at Nihon Buyo (Japanese folk dance) class at school. 

We celebrated my nephew Kevin and my mom's Bday at the same time.

We surprised mom by inviting Cathy, our neighbor from the Valley,
who babysat me when I was a baby (reconnected on FB).  

Maiya and friend Devin pictured in front of Tony's dad's Miata, sold to Devin's dad.
We sold  3 old cars (1991, 1992, 1993), for 2 newer used cars (2001, 2007).  

And that is January in a nutshell.  From it, I hope you can glean that family is important, family time together is important, that things are changing (losing teeth, kissing boys (oy!) updating cars), that Japanese and Japanese American culture are important values for us to pass on to Maiya, and that we're lucky she's in a language immersion school that incorporates those values into its curriculum.

Peace. Out. (NaBloPoMO#3)

Ffffforty-seven?

Is that right?  Am I really 47?  I cannot even believe it.  In my mind, college was just a few years ago, but no.  I must be getting old, because freakin' DAVID BOWIE was on the oldies radio station K-Earth 101 the other day.  Serious.

Took a birthday holiday from work today.  I should have stayed home and cleaned our messy house, or done some of the work I brought home to do, but it was a crazy busy day.  We left 25 minutes early today so that Maiya and I could participate in Walk n Roll Wednesday, that is walking (or scootering/skating/skateboarding/biking) part of the way to school with a group of about 25 kids and parents from Maiya's school.  I think it's going to be a monthly thing--trying to encourage parents to use alternate transportation to get the kids to school.

Went to a parent meeting at school in the morning (my first time, it was interesting), then went to get a Thai massage, had a nice lunch (Veggie sandwich, bionico and fresh beet/spinach/carrot/apple juice), and then went to see my eye doctor, who has been telling me for years about how droopy my eyelids are getting, and how it affects my ability to see more each year.

After that, I went to pick up Maiya from school.  She's taking a traditional Japanese dance class on Wednesdays, and I haven't ever been able to see the class.  Luckily, I got there and was able to catch the last 10 minutes of class.  Then, since it's my bday, we stopped at the local neighborhood coffee shop, and I got a yummy chocolate/caramel/coffee drink.

When we got home, Maiya and I proceeded to have a pretty rough afternoon, which started with us getting out of the car, continuing through and beyond homework time.  She can push my buttons like no one else.  I know that she is embarrassed and wouldn't want me to write in detail about just how terrible it was.  I'll just say that she was whiny, cranky, demanding, disrespectful, and we had a pretty miserable time.  She pushed me to to my limit, not my finest hour as a parent, and I had to get out and take a long walk around the block.  I came back home, and since I wasn't ready to go back in the house, I took down all the Halloween decorations.  When I went back in the house, I found this note on the computer:

Dera Mom 

I no I made you angare 

but do you fugiv me dust rit me a leter. 

Love Maiya

I wrote her this on a 3x5 card and handed it to her up in her bunk bed, where she was still sulking.

Dear Maiya. 

You are my daughter and I love you. 

I am sorry, too. 

Love Mommy

A little later, she came down and asked me if I forgave her, yes or no, then brought me her bag of Halloween goodies and said, "since it's your birthday, you can pick one candy."  An hour after that, we went to dinner with Tony, who napped through our bickering.  By shower time and an early bedtime, things were back to normal.

Today, I am 47.  There is a lot of stuff going on in the world...in Oakland, for one, and important stuff that maybe I should be blogging about, but I'll tell you this, I may have gotten a few more gray hairs this afternoon.  

Peace.  Out. (NaBloPoMo#2).

NaBloPoMo#1

Well here it is November 1st, the first day of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) for my 5th anniversary of participating in this blog-every-day-for-a-month event.  Hmm, what would you like me to write about.  I could write about Halloween, and how Maiya was the only one in her class not to wear a Halloween costume in the parade this morning, or about how cute the toddlers are at my work who went trick-or-treating today at the office, or about going around the neighborhood with 6 girls and 6 adults, or how cute our yard decorations were (pictures possibly to follow).

Instead, since I haven't blogged this year, I'm going to go all the way back to January (2011) and share some photos.  Looking back at them makes me realize how valuable days off are.  I recall this is one of Maiya's furlough days (where I decided to also take my own furlough day on the same day), where we ran like 8 or 9 errands, and we were both a little cranky, but took the time to stop by the park for a few hours (yes, it was about 2 hours) to check out the new play area at Glen Alla Park near our old house.  It was one of those cool, beautiful January days in LA.

 

 

 

But seriously folks.  30 days is a lot of blogging for someone who is as out of practice as I am.  So if there's something you'd like me to write about, send me a sweet comment. I know it takes longer than clicking "like," but we bloggers feed off of oldstyle feedback.  NaBloPoMo#1.  OWS & LA.  Peace out.