Junya viste os i gaar at han nu har laert bogstavet “B”. I hvert fald er han begyndt at sige lyde der starter med B. Fx ordet “Bfuuuh”, som desvaerre ikke staar i min ordbog saa jeg har ingen ide om hvad det betyder! Han er ogsaa begyndt at tage ting op som vi laegger foran ham. Han har laenge kunnet holde om ting, men det er foerst nu han begynder at identificere ting og tage dem. Han er naturligvis stadig lidt klodset, men det er et godt fremskridt!

I dag var vi henne paa Yuutas skole og undervise nogle af de lidt aeldre elever. Vi havde lavet en fin PowerPoint quiz med 10 spoergsmaal, og det var en stor success. Eleverne var inddelt i 5 grupper med ca. 6 i hver gruppe, og de konkurrerede saa om at faa flest point. Ikke alle spoergsmaal gav lige mange point. Vinderholdet fik en fin 2-krone med guldsnor, samt retten til foerst at vaelge blandt de medbragte Haribo-vingummier, smaakager og fine danske noegleringe!!

For en uges tid siden underviste vi de mindste elever, og her var det bagning af smaakager samt julehjerteklip. Det var naesten endnu sjovere fordi vi havde mere tid, og fordi det er noget sjovere at rende rundt i et koekken og bage end at staa ved et whiteboard og skulle lyde intelligent!

I received my developer G1 mobile phone today, and am currently checking out a Wordpress utility for it. If you see this post it means I can now update my blog from my mobile phone!

A little video of Junya kicking the table with his frog socks on!

dv20081216-frog-kicking.avi

Today we went to Aizu Wakamatsu to get a free trial lesson at the International Swimming School. We joined the baby swimming class which you can do when your child is 2 weeks or older! Of course, when they are that small they can’t do much, but it is believed that even at that time, swimming with them will make them more comfortable with water later in life.

Junya is now 3.5 months old, and still too small to really enjoy a swimming pool. But we still had some 30 minutes swimming fun with the other kids. The youngerst I think was about 1 year, and he could already swim a little and seemed to enjoy the class. Junya was just floating, sometimes kicking, but mostly just floating. The teacher showed various ways we could “swim” with him, but after about 15 minutes he got tired. He didn’t cry, but became a little sulky. It helped when Takako held him on her shoulder.

Later we went shopping for Christmas presents with Noriko. Here are a few photos from today’s adventures:

At home, Junya sat in his favorite chair and did his favorite leg exercise: Pushing the table with both feet (while wearing frog socks) thereby making his chair bounce up and down!

Fra nu af hedder jeg saa Asmino - i hvert fald hvis det staar til vores videoudlejningsforretning!

Heeey

Today Junya turned 100 days!

On this day many Japanese families go to a professional photoshop and have a photo taken of the baby. We did the same, so we got up early to make sure that everything was ready before leaving the house at around 10:30. We wanted to leave early before Junya would start to get “grumpy”.

The photoshop is called Photo Studio Hara and is located in Aizu Bange, about 30 minutes drive from where we live. When we got there everything was ready and we only needed to decide what clothes Junya should wear. We had already decided that we wanted one photo with Junya alone and one with the family (that is, me and Takako and Takako’s parents).

We decided that Junya would wear a kimono on the photo where he sits by himself, and a white baby dress on the one where he is with us. The photographer and his assistants were very professional and managed to make Junya smile on almost all the photos! But it didn’t start out that easy. After wearing the kimono, Junya suddenly started to cry. Takako gave him some milk, and after 10 minutes we were ready to try again. This time he didn’t complain when we dressed him in the kimono, and the photographers managed to get 7-8 shots before Junya got tired again

We took him out again and played a little with him, and he got happy again. This time he would have to wear the white dress and the rest of us would stand or sit around him while he sat by himself. This time we were close to him, so the photo shoot went a bit easier, but suddenly he decided that it was enough, and started crying and after that he didn’t want to sitby himself - only Takako’s shoulder would do!

We had a cup of coffee and tea while we waited for the negatives to be developed. It only took about 10 minutes and we could then previews them on a small TV. (they had a camera which they used to film the negatives which also inverted the signal so the photos looked correct!)

After that we did some shopping for tonight’s dinner and drove home. Junya was quite happy the rest of the afternoon - probably because he was so excited about his first real meal!

Because on the 100th day, according to Japanese tradition, you can start feeding the baby a little bit of real food in addition to the breast milk. Of course, today, you don’t give them real food until they are 5-6 months, but the ceremony still includes serving him a delicious and auspicious meal!

Junya’s first dinner consisted of: sekihan (red rice), clam soup, red rockfish, various boiled vegetables including kombu (a type of seaweed) and daifuku (a Japanese confectionary made mostly from pounded rice). We took several photos of Katsushi and Taiko pretending to feed Junya, but in reality he didn’t eat anything.

Red is a “lucky” color in Japan, which is why the rice is colored red. We use red beans added to the rice before boiling it to give it its special color. The fish was also red and the kombu seaweed is served because “kombu” sounds like “kobu” which is the last part of the word “yorokobu” which means “to be happy”. We also bought a cake in the shape of a red snapper, in Japanese called a tai. “Tai” is also the ending of the word “medetai” which means “happy” or “congratulate”.

The spoon we used to feed him with was a silver spoon he received from his great grandparents in Denmark (farmor og farfar). According to the tradition it is the oldest member of the family present who is the first to feed Junya. We told Katsushi that it is not the oldest but the most respected person who does it - and then he happily volunteered!

After that Taiko also gave hime some soup and a little bit of grapefruit juice (which he actually seemed to like!) Takako took photos and I video filmed. Finally we could all sit down and eat, and it was very delicious!

I morgen fylder Junya 100 dage, og saa skal der vaere en speciel, ehh, bryst-afvaennings-ceremoni her hvor vi bor. Det betyder ikke at han fra nu af ikke skal have bryst mere - det er bare et navn. I foelge traditionen faar Junya bla. et spisesaet og familien samles og man beder for at han ikke skal vokse op og blive kraesen!

Jeg fandt en hjemmeside med nogle sporadiske billeder hvor man kan se hvad der sker til saadan en cerfemoni. Mine egne billeder foelger i morgen.

http://baby.goo.ne.jp/member/topics_back/topics45/okuizome.html

Vi skal ogsaa have taget billeder, og det bliver hos en professionel fotograf i Aizu Bange. Der skal vist nok tages to billeder, et hvor han er alene og et med foraeldre, bedsteforaeldre osv. Jeg er lidt bange for at han begynder at graede det oejeblik han bliver sat ned alene - ligesom han plejer - og kun vil stoppe hvis Takako tager ham op. Men vi maa jo proeve at se hvad vi kan goere for at han skal klare sig igennem.

I dag var jeg blevet spurgt om jeg ville tage med Takakos mor ned i den klub hvor hun traener folkedans og servere dansk frokost for dem. Det goer jeg naturligvis altid gerne, og denne gang blev det ogsaa en succes! Der var makresalat, leverpostej, hjemmelavet skinkesalat (jeg kunne have spist den hele selv!), sardiner, laksepate, aeg med rejer og svensk snyde-kaviar, roeget laks osv. Der var hjemmelavet valnoeddebroed og saa havde vi koebt rugbroed!

Jeg fik ogsaa lov at se dem danse, og det saa meget hyggeligt ud! Det virkede faktisk som om de hyggede mere end de tog selve dansen serioest  - til mild frustration fra den semi-profesionelle instruktoer der volunterede i at undervise dem!

A new little video of Junya who can now skillfully hold his rattle and even put it into his mouth and suck on it! This is a big step forward since only a few weeks ago when he could hold things, but didn’t know what to do with them. Before that he wasn’t even really aware that he was the one holding the things.

dv20081206-junya-sucking-rattle.avi

Today we went to Aizu Bange and Wakamatsu to do some shopping. Junya slept soon after we put him in his car seat. He now weighs almost 7 kg so it was time to take out the inner lining of the seat. We used to use a special thick lining to support newborn babies. Without that the seat provides more space for hime, and he didn’t seem to mind not having the extra cushioning!

Here are some photos taken at Apita, a big shopping mall in Aizu Wakamatsu.

On the way home in the car, Junya was so active! But eventually he fell asleep and slept until we arrived home. When we took him out he of course got very angry, but soon forgot about that, and is now happily playing downstairs waiting for his evening bath!

Finally it is worth mentioning that we managed to find glanspapir - a special coated type of paper used for Danish Christmas decorations. In Japanese it is called 艶紙　（つやがみ）. The prices was only 30 yen per sheet, so I bought a lot of sheets so we can also bring some to Denmark!