New/old Osaka home

After much travelling around, we are finally settled in a new home for the next seven months! It is going to be the longest Elliott has ever lived anywhere, so I am really excited to start new routines with him.

We have had an eventful couple of months. We stayed with Elliott's grandparents in Calgary for two weeks and went to a wedding:



Elliott was too noisy to attend the ceremony, but he had a great time at the reception and even went out on the dance floor with Mummy and Daddy!

After Calgary we headed off to Hawaii, where Elliott learned to crawl during our two weeks there:



After Hawaii we came to Japan, but had to stay in a temporary apartment while we waited for our proper one to be ready. Elliott got to visit my old university campus daily. It was such a strange feeling to have him visit the International Students' Centre with me!



Then on Monday we arrived at our lovely new room:



Our new room feels like the complete opposite of our room in the Reversible Destiny Lofts. It's much smaller, which I think will make it very easy to keep warm in winter. It's also very linear!!! Now that I stay home with Elliott every day, I think the biggest difference that I will appreciate is that there are no uneven surfaces for him to fall down on, and I will be able to wipe the hardwood floors sparkling clean after every messy meal he has. I do miss our loft though. I often wonder what it would be like if Elliott had learned to crawl in our Reversible Destiny Loft!

And after a fun day out at the Expo Park yesterday I ventured out today to find the supermarket:



1. The hill right outside our apartment
2. Heading through the neighbourhood halfway down the hill (I was trying a shortcut)
3. More walking downhill... This was when I could see the supermarket in the distance!
4. Even more walking downhill... We were almost there!

Needless to say, it was a lot of walking UPhill on the way home :-D The last time I lived in this area I was the healthiest I've ever been from all the biking and walking I did up and down these hills. I'm sort of hoping all the walking to the supermarket I'll do in the next 7 months will make me look like I did a decade ago :-P

Baby angst

Elliott is seven months old now, and is slowing turning into a little boy before our eyes. He sits easily without my help now, and although he still hates tummy time he will surprise me by rolling onto his tummy and eating the corners of his play mats if I leave the room for a few minutes. He is not interested in crawling, but laughs and smiles if we let him hold our hands and "walk" on our feet, or hold onto the couch to stand up. I have a feeling he wants to skip the crawling stage and go straight to walking! This is probably because most of the babies are quite a bit older than him at his baby play group, so he sees other babies doing amazing things like push a doll pram and he wants to try it too!

It's summer in Toronto right now, and I spend a lot of my day outside meeting new mum friends in the playground outside our building. This afternoon the playground was deserted except for three boys who were about 11 or 12 years old. I had a new ball for Elliott to play with, but once he saw the older boys running around with water guns he refused to play boring old ball games with me! He spent half an hour staring longingly at the water fight going on around him.

Eventually the boys realised Elliott wanted to join them, and they came over to play with him! Growing up I was surrounded by girl cousins, and the few boy cousins we had were usually dragged into our girly games. I'm not really sure what boys get up to when they're on their own and I was not sure what to expect from the big boys this afternoon. They were just lovely though. One said "Aww! He's so cute!" and asked me lots of questions about Elliott. Then they all joined Elliott on his blanket and started playing with him! It was quite rough play, but when Elliott looked over at me and saw me smiling his concerned face disappeared and he started giggling at the boys. It was so heartwarming!

I had to physically resist trying to grab Elliott back when the boys threw him in the air, tried to make Elliott walk, and let him fall on his back when he couldn't walk. I kept saying to myself "If he had lots of older cousins or siblings, this is what would happen all the time". Elliott's look of pure joy that the boys had finally noticed him let me know I had made the right choice to leave him to play. It also made me realise that Elliott puts his complete trust in everyone he meets, and I felt such an overwhelming need to protect that trust at all costs. I never want him to be hurt, and I certainly never want his little heart to be broken. (Or his little arms and legs, if I'm completely honest!) My love for this little boy grows exponentially every day ♥

Baby led weaning

The day before Elliott's six month birthday I went out and bought a highchair from Ikea and was super excited to start solid food with him. I had read a book called Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley and had bought banana and avocado for Elliott to try for breakfast.

Elliott's first BLW experience was underwhelming... He didn't try to grab the food, and he certainly didn't demolish it like the babies I'd seen on YouTube did. After nine days of him crying after we put him in the highchair I was starting to think we may as well give up BLW and do conventional purees. I even bought a jar of organic pureed peas at the supermarket last night.

This evening I had a breakthrough though. Rather than feed Elliott the peas on a spoon I thought he might like to paint his highchair with them. He did! He loved it! There were peas EVERYWHERE and he had so much fun that when I put half a banana into the mix he picked that up and tried to nom it. Yay!

So I am back on the baby-led weaning bandwagon. Now to find more foods Elliott can paint with! (^o^)

Riverdale Farm

Now that it's summer in Toronto I am trying to take Elliott out and explore the city more. Today I meant to take a quick walk, and ended up trekking all the way to Riverdale Farm and back! Riverdale Farm is not a working farm, it's just a place where city kids can learn what a donkey looks like :-D

Elliott loved being at the farm! He especially loves looking at leaves blowing in the wind when he looks up at trees. He seemed to really enjoy meeting the goats today, too.



It's amazing to me how expressive babies become at six months old!

Farewell Japan

I left this blog in somewhat of a hurry after the earthquake on March 11th. It was unsafe to drink the water in Tokyo if you were a nursing mother and my husband was being called back to his university in Toronto, so we rushed to buy tickets home early and said goodbye to Japan about a week after the earthquake happened.

I have wondered if our time in the super-stimulating loft might have hurried Elliott's development along. There is a mum in my apartment building in Toronto who has a baby girl with the same birthday as our baby. We go to the same play group, so I am able to compare them. Elliott started sitting up unassisted and rolled from front to back at 5.5 months, but the baby girl was doing it earlier. Elliott is reasonably happy to sit up for long periods of time, but he flops to the floor when he gets tired. The baby girl is completely comfortable sitting, and has even started trying to crawl! All before six months old. From this I conclude that both our babies are doing things a bit early, but that girls do things faster than boys. (Although there's another baby girl a week older than Elliott at play group who doesn't know how to sit up by herself yet)

You can see from all this that mothers are pretty competitive!!

Here is a picture of Elliott sitting up nice and straight in a Dragonball suit we bought for him in Japan:

Aftershocks

Grant took a video during the first big aftershock. We have the news on TV in the background, and he was on Skype to his mum. In some ways I'm glad we don't have big shelves, because the earthquake was very silent in our apartment. Nothing but the windows rattled.







I thought this might interest my Room 3 readers! Japanese kids have these hoods under their chairs at school in case of emergency. They have to put them on to go home when an earthquake hits, to keep their heads safe from falling debris.

Earthquake(s)

On Friday afternoon, March 11th there was a huge earthquake in northern Japan. Thankfully we were very far from the epicentre, but the earthquake felt strong enough to make me want to sit down with Elliott in the Beco.

Grant and I were visiting the front office with Elliott when the earthquake struck. Since there are no shelves in the lofts, the office staff have their wine glasses hanging from a rack over the kitchen. We all ran out of the office onto the street as the glasses started smashing! Elliott was awake in the office, but soon after we ran onto the street he fell asleep in the Beco. My guess is he was soothed by the rocking motion!

After everything had calmed down, we went back up to our loft to see if everything was all right. The water in a pot we had left on the stove had splashed out, which makes sense because the earthquake felt like the ground was shaking up and down, not side to side. Some of our things had fallen off a stool and off the bathroom sink:





But nothing was broken so we were really lucky. As we were looking around our apartment for damage an equally large aftershock hit. It was eery seeing all our belongings swing back and forth from the ceiling! I wonder if Arakawa + Gins had considered earthquakes when they designed the lofts. From experience, it seems quite silly to have things hanging from the ceiling in an earthquake-prone country... We used to have our clothes hanging from bars in the square room, but I asked Grant to move them to a wire in the bathroom instead. It was too scary having our clothes rock back and forth over my head as I lay awake during aftershocks!!

Grant recently interviewed the architect who helped design the lofts, and he said that the lofts are made of such dense concrete that they are really strong against earthquakes. The windows were shaking during the two we were in, so I can't imagine how scary it must have been for people in regular apartments!

After the aftershock subsided Grant and I went across the road to McDonald's to get some late lunch. When we walked in there were only two other customers, which is very unusual for our location. When we went up to order, we were told that the gas had been shut off and we could only order drinks and desserts. We got a coffee each and sat down, and soon after that people started pouring in as usual. They opened the grills and we got our lunch!

We were sitting next to two junior high school kids in McDonald's, and I thought it was interesting that they were watching the news on TV with their cell phone. A sign of the times!



On the way home from McDonald's I noticed there was a LOT more traffic than usual. I didn't know then, but all the trains in Tokyo had been stopped and people had to stay overnight at their offices. I think there was more traffic than usual as people went to pick up their family members from work.



Although trains weren't running, busses were. There was an amazing line-up for the bus outside our loft well into the night. This usually never happens!



We spent a lot of time in front of the TV. I think Elliott picked up on the gravity of the situation, because he was up in the middle of the night for about an hour trying to tell us what he thought about it!



There were lots of aftershocks all of last night and today, and we just felt the earthquake up in Fukushima before I started writing this. Elliott didn't nap from 2pm until 10pm, and had a huge crying spell just before the TV announced the Fukushima earthquake was about to start. (How do they know the earthquake is going to happen before it does, I wonder...?) I wonder if babies are like dogs, they can predict when an earthquake is about to happen :-P

Just so you know we're all safe and sound, here is a photo of our loft right after the big earthquake happened on Friday:

Babies cuddling babies

Today Elliott and I were supposed to go to Roppongi to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader at the Mamas Club showing at Toho Cinemas. Elliott has the sniffles at the moment though, so we stayed home instead. I loved the Narnia series as a girl, so I'm quite sad to have missed it.

Elliott was looking a little better this afternoon, so I took him and Grant to Coppice in Kichijoji for some play time and dinner. Elliott doesn't "play" as such just yet, but he loves meeting new babies. We just sat in the play area they have on the third floor and watched the other more mobile babies for a while, and then the most outgoing little two year old showed up and beelined straight for Elliott. It was so cute! I said hello and made Elliott bow hello too. After that the little boy walked up to Elliott and gave him a big hug! Elliott broke out into the hugest grin as if to say "Hello new friend! So glad to meet you". It was perhaps the most adorable thing I have ever seen. My heart melted. The little boy seemed to really like Elliott, and came back to touch his arm or leg every so often as if to say "I haven't forgotten you little friend, I'm just really busy running around building things over there with those blocks". Every time the boy came back Elliott smiled. I really must make sure he meets lots of babies and stays this social!

The third floor of Coppice has a really nice children's area, and the changing room and nursing room are very colourful. Elliott and I were the only ones in the communal nursing room which I thought would mean he would be able to concentrate on drinking. Not so! He kept looking at the colourful pictures on the wall and then at me and laughing. It was very cute, but I was counting on the milk to knock him out so he would be asleep on the bus home. A bit of jiggling in the Beco soon got him asleep though.

All in all it has a been a good day. I hope Elliott doesn't have the sniffles for too much longer though!

Everyday life

I am writing this as Elliott naps in my futon. Such a simple sentence, but actually it's a minor miracle!

I felt very lonely and displaced when we first arrived in Mitaka. I think if Grant's research had been based in Osaka I would have felt at home and there wouldn't have been an adjustment period, but here it took a few weeks to feel "at home". A big part of why I feel comfortable here now is that I have been meeting lots of lovely (English-speaking) ladies from the Tokyo Moms group on Facebook as well as from the Tokyo Mothers Group website. I'm so glad to know the women I met from those two resources!

One of the outings I got to go to with the Tokyo Mums was a lunch at Le Petit Bedon in Daikanyama. The food was sooooo good! Normally it is not a very baby-friendly restaurant, but one of the mothers knows the owner and he set up a temporary changing station in the toilet for us. It was great! Elliott loved meeting the other babies. There is an elevator down to the restaurant (it's at basement level) so you probably could take a baby in a stroller at a regular time.



While meeting the ladies and their babies has been wonderful, it has meant that Elliott didn't really have a routine for the last month. We live about a 20 minute bus ride from any of the nearby train stations, and to get to central Tokyo it takes at least an hour. That means that Elliott has almost exclusively been napping in my Beco, because we're out morning to evening. I don't mind this, because he zonks out in the Beco for hours... his longest nap was six hours!! And it's so cute the way his little hands hang onto my jersey as he's sleeping. But I do feel bad that he was almost completely incapable of sleeping on his own anymore... Today we are at home, and because napping in the Beco taught me Elliott's sleep cues really well I was able to catch him at the best time to put him to sleep. The first time didn't really work, he was up and out of bed within 30 minutes. Right now though, he has been asleep for just over an hour and is still going strong! He grumbled a little bit at the beginning, but I shushed him from outside the oshoji and now he is deeply asleep. Success!!

We had to take Elliott to the doctor yesterday, and thanks to my new friend E I was recommended a very nice doctor at Musashisakai station. The doctor is Japanese-speaking, and he was lovely! Very matter-of-fact, but I appreciated that. He asked Grant and me about ourselves and joked with us a little bit, which I liked. We might never need to see him again, so I'm grateful that he took the time to get to know us a little just in case we had to come back for something unforeseen. I thought I would put the information for the doctor in this blog, in case another young family ever comes to live in the Reversible Destiny Lofts and finds my blog!

The clinic is called 武居小児科医院 (Takesue Kids Clinic) and the address is 武蔵野市境南町2-8-17 (Musashino-shi, Kyounan-cho). The phone number is 0422-32-4152. The clinic is a really short walk from the station. You go past the Mizuho Bank, cross the street at the light and then cross again to the Sankus convenience store. It is a couple of buildings past the convenience store, on the 2nd floor. There's an elevator to go up, and the sign is quite easy to see from the lights.

Elliott really is a very portable baby. We have been taking him out for dinner quite a bit, because I don't want to pass up the chance to eat as much yummy Japanese food as possible while we're here! We took him to a kaiten-zushi restaurant the other day, and he woke up while I was eating. I took him to the take-out waiting area and fed him a bit, but then I got hungry so I carried him back to the counter and ate my dinner while he finished off his! I snapped this picture at the kaiten-zushi place. I am so impressed with the idea. It's very hard to forget your umbrella when it's sitting with you all through your meal!



And just in case you're not quite sure what kaiten-zushi is, here's a picture of the revolving sushi restaurant:



The front office kindly organised a welcome party for us last Friday, and Elliott had a great time! I think he really loves to meet new people, and even though he usually can't stay up longer than two hours he sat and talked to the other residents of our loft for four hours! The food was incredible at the party. Everyone cooked something for us to try, and it was all delicious!



Although Grant is still the head chef in our household, I am in charge of housework at the loft. A clotheshorse came with the loft when we moved in, so technically I could hang laundry to dry outside on the balcony. It seemed so much easier to use our super duper washing machine though. The washing machine in the loft automatically washes and dries clothes, you just push a button and a couple of hours later the laundry is all done!



This machine made laundry so easy that I really started to rely on it. However, I started to notice that Elliott wasn't fitting his clothes well anymore. I assumed it was because he is STILL putting on a pound a week (!!!), but then I came across two onesies that came together in a boxed gift set - one I had only washed in Toronto and one I had washed and dried using the machine at our loft. The comparison speaks for itself:



I'm either going to have to buy 18 month old size clothing and carry on using the dryer, or I'll have to start hanging what he already wears out on the balcony!

Wow, this nap has lasted nearly an hour and a half. I'm off to see if I can eat lunch before Elliott wakes up. Bye dear readers!

Everyday activities (2)

I often forget to give Elliott tummy time, and the back of his head is rapidly becoming flatter and flatter... They say this evens out when babies become more active at 6 months or so, and I'm hoping that's true for Elliott! I made a nice cushioned area for Elliott to play on, but when Grant was in charge of play time the other day he decided to give Elliott a new experience by putting him down directly on the bumpy floor. Looks cold to me!!



The other day I needed to charge my cell phone, so Grant kindly went and got the cable and plugged it in for me. When I asked where he'd plugged it in, he took me to the square room to show me my cell phone hanging on the wall! Most of the plugs and light switches in the loft are in odd places. I like that the switch in the square room is at shin level, because I can turn the light on with my foot when I have Elliott in my arms. I wonder if Arakawa + Gins had parents in mind when they were deciding the light switch height?!

Feeding

Lately I've been using the round room to feed Elliott when he isn't sleepy. We have a bean bag in there that the front office gave us, and I can get the perfect angle so that my leg is supporting Elliott's weight. He's a very big baby now, so it's nice to have somewhere comfortable to nurse him! I also get to watch TV, although Elliott is getting old enough to know what TV is and gets distracted if the volume is up too high.



Elliott's grandmother often asks if we are giving him extra fluids, because I think she's worried he will dehydrate in winter. Soon after Elliott was born I asked our midwife about this, and she said that in the past women supplemented milk with water, but these days they say that breast milk is all the baby needs. We were at Akachan Honpo the other day and I was surprised to see not only ion water for babies, but roasted barley tea:



Roasted green tea:



And they also sold these little tiny bottles for giving your baby juice!



The teas were decaffeinated and were recommended for one month onwards. The juice bottles didn't have a recommended age written on them, but just their existence was surprising to me! In Canada I think they only recommend that you give babies juice once they are already old enough to drink out of a cup.

Futons

Things I have learned about futons in the eight years I've lived in Japan:

1. If you don't fold up your futon every day, it will grow mould on the bottom...
2. If you don't hang your futon in the sun often, it will grow mould on the bottom...
3. Forgetting your futon outside on a rainy day is an expensive mistake!
4. Futons are not comfortable unless you have a tatami room.
5. Futons are especially uncomfortable on concrete floors.

Unfortunately I still often forget these things! I take naps with Elliott during the day, so often my futon doesn't get folded up at all. We have been in our loft for a month, and I only just hung our futons on the balcony to air this weekend. Hopefully they won't grow mould?!

Elliott sleeping in my futon:



Our futons hanging on the balcony. I haven't seen other residents hanging their futons on their front balconies, so hopefully it's OK! Arakawa + Gins say that the lofts come alive when people live in them, so we'll say it's OK to hang futons on the front of the building!

Windows and balconies

It was 20 degrees in Tokyo yesterday, so I took Elliott outside a few times and we explored the balconies for the first time. We had been living here for a week before I realised there are two balconies in our loft... The large one is at the front of the loft, and the floor to ceiling windows looking onto it are how we get most of our natural light. The view from the large balcony is of the busy road, so I show Elliott the cars and people out the window every morning at play time. He loves it!



The other balcony is easy to miss because it's behind some thick colourful curtains, and doesn't let in very much natural light.



You have to crouch down and crawl through a little window to get onto this balcony. I think this is the one Mrs. Yamaoka was talking about in the Wall Street Journal article here, although I disagree with her! I think it's fun to crawl through a little door. Elliott and I felt like Alice in Wonderland. There is a normal-sized door on the large front balcony, so I do wonder why she didn't just use that one for hanging her laundry. Perhaps she didn't want people to see her undies from the street?

The little door:



The view towards the street:



The view straight ahead, of the neighbour's balcony!



Little Elliott feeling like Alice in Wonderland:



I also took the chance to take photos of the windows in our loft. My two favourite aspects of architecture are windows and staircases, and the windows here are pretty photo-worthy! They are made of metal, which is usually my least favourite type of window. These windows are cool though, because they're at all different heights and are lots of different shapes!

Here's the view from the round room:



And here's the little window in the square room:



And here's another little window in the bathroom:



Obviously I like the little windows best!

Out and about (2)

I met a wonderful group of ladies in a playgroup called Little Angels on Friday. They were so lovely! We went out for lunch after the playgroup, and after that I went shopping with one of the Little Angels' mummies at Babies 'R' Us. Very fun! I now know that I can travel an hour and 45 minutes with Elliott on public transport, which is pretty amazing.

Right as we walked into Babies 'R' Us there was a section for Hinamatsuri dolls. Hinamatsuri is on March 3rd, and is Girls' Day in Japan. Families with daughters set up a shelf with dolls on them for the day. The dolls are of a royal court from the Heian period. Just as with Christmas trees, the size and quality of your dolls can depend on your budget.



There was also a maternity section in the Babies 'R' Us, and I was surprised to see these contraptions:



Apparently the extra fabric under your belly helps hold the baby up when you are pregnant. I am dubious about how helpful that would actually be though!! Mostly it just looks like an extra piece of ugly for your money.

I showed remarkable restraint in Babies 'R' Us and only came home with a teething toy, diaper wipes, and baby laundry detergent. I was super pleased to find the same diaper wipes we were using in Toronto. The things that make a mother happy!

Today we found a different baby supply shop called "Akachan Hompo" next to Musashi Koganei station, which is just one bus ride away from the Reversible Destiny Lofts rather than the two hours to Babies 'R' Us. Grant fell in love with a Dragon Ball onesie which we came home with, and we found nappies and bigger onesies for my quickly growing boy! Here we are in front of Akachan Honpo.



And here's the super geeky onesie Grant came home with!

The round room - Light

Grant participated in one of the tours the front office organises in an empty Reversible Destiny Loft upstairs, and learned some cool things about the round room. Because of the angles, there is a difference in the way the light hits you depending on whether you're standing up or sitting down. If you're standing up the light hits you as usual, but if you're sitting down the light hits you from below. It's really interesting to experience! The light also reflects off the bottom half of the wall when you're crouching down. It's quite pretty.

Normal light:



Lit from below:



The light on the walls when I sit down:

Play time!

Elliott had a colourful play mat and a bouncy chair in Toronto, with many toys hanging from both, so I feel as though since we came to the Reversible Destiny Loft he has been missing out on that. This morning I grabbed all the hooks I could find and hung them from the ceiling to almost the floor, then put toys on them for Elliott to play with. So resourceful! It turns out living in the Reversible Destiny Loft saved us the cost of buying a new play gym for Elliott. The best part is I can easily change out the toys to keep him interested.



Tummy time is still not very successful, but at least we're trying!



I also put Elliott on the bumpy floor for the first time this evening. I left one foot bare so he could experience the texture that way. It was so funny, he lifted the bare foot and put it on the covered foot! I think we will have to try this experiment again when it's a bit warmer.