Nothing But Words

Here are the pictures from my trip to Newport with the boys last week. They had a great time playing with their cousins. Here are a couple choice Kai quotes from the trip:

• On our first day there my sister asked him, when I wasn’t around, what he wanted to do in Newport: “Well, I don’t really have a lot of options – I have to do whatever my dad what’s to do.” That’s me, the tyrannical father.
• After a long session of dancing (see the video below): “Daddy, I want to go home now. I’m really tired of dancing, but the music is still playing, and I can’t stop.”

Maria was in Japan for a conference while we were in Newport. She looked at the apartment I wrote about a few weeks ago, and she liked it. She’s checked on some other options as well, and so far this place seems to have the best combination of price, amenities, and location. The only downside is that it’s really small, but anything bigger that we could afford would require a long commute from the suburbs, and Maria doesn’t want to do that (she’ll be working long hours, and if she had a long commute, she’d never see the boys during the week).

Maria’s taking the boys back to Newport in a couple days, and they’ll stay there until the end of the month. I’ll stay in Philly and put a new tile floor in the bathroom (we only have one full bathroom, so this will be a good time to do it).

Probably the only thing harder than herding cats is trying to change a cat’s diaper. Unless he’s asleep, Eidan simply does not sit still, and that means I often can’t change his diaper without getting into a test of will, strength, and agility (since I only win consistently on strength, the outcome is not always certain). Eidan is much more boisterous and expressive than Kai was as a baby, so Maria and I are getting a whole new experience in parenting. One of his favorite games is for you to get on your hands and knees and square off against him in several rounds of head-butting. He will wiggle and clap to any tune he hears, and he’s generous with hugs and kisses. But if you’re not giving him the attention he thinks he deserves, he won’t hesitate to crawl over and slap you in the face. He’s at an age that is quite challenging for parenting, in that he’s very active and adventurous, doesn’t fully understand the risks around him (stairs, electrical outlets, etc), and his ability to understand us and take direction is very limited. Kai has nicknamed him infanto destructo, as he will pull down, tear up, chew up, and throw around anything he can get his hands on. Books and toys are the things he most commonly leaves scattered behind him in his path of destruction. He was measured at 92nd percentile for height at his most recent checkup, which means even though he’s only 10 months old, he can reach up onto most tables now. So trying to keep things out of his reach is like trying to move things out of the way of a flood. Even though he’s a little guy moving on all fours, he is very, very fast. As the saying goes, you can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

Back in May, Maria took the boys the Denver, and then made a short trip from there to San Francisco with Kai (I stayed home and worked on our 3rd floor bathroom). Here’s a random assortment of photos from their trip, from home, and Kai’s graduation from pre-school.

Kai explained that in this picture, he’s climbing the tree, and a coconut has hit him on the head. His friend Ryan is standing nearby, laughing. I don’t know where Kai gets his sense of humor

Kai says this is a bat, carrying its baby around its neck (a bat equivalent to a kangaroo pouch, I guess).

I haven’t posted anything since early April about our upcoming 6-month stay in Japan. So it’s time for an update:

• Maria’s position with JBIC is now finalized (it’s not a common destination for CFR Fellows, so there was some bureaucratic legwork to do). She’ll also get to spend some time at JICA, which was where she originally thought she might go.
• We’re looking into an apartment that’s the first one to catch our eye so far. Here are some pictures of it. It’s very nice, small (1 bedroom, about 500 sq. ft.), and fairly expensive (the rent is about the same as the mortgage we pay for our 5 bedroom house). The location – Shinagawa – is part of Tokyo’s equivalent to Manhattan. We’ve been trying to decide between paying less and living further away from where Maria will work, vs. paying more and living closer. Maria will be working Japanese salaryman hours, which means if she has a long commute, she’d leave before the boys are up in the morning and often not get home until after they’re in bed. So we’re thinking it’s worth it to pay more to have a place where her commute will be short.

  This apartment also has some nice perks: a washing machine (which Maria tells me is a rare thing to find in a Japanese rental), paid utilities (also uncommon, which means the rent isn’t quite as bad as it seems), an elevator, a fiber-optic internet connection (fairly important since I’ll be working remotely), and no key money required (a legal form of bribery in Japan, where you pay an extra, non-refundable fee to the landlord for the privilege of renting). We also like it because it’s much less dark and dreary than a lot of Tokyo apartments.

  If we end up in this place, or another place like it, we’ll probably put the boys together in the bedroom and Maria and I would use a convertible futon in the living room (or just sleep on tatami mats). Since we’re travelling half-way around the world, we’re not bringing much stuff, so I don’t think we’ll need a lot of storage room.

  Here’s a map where you can get the lay of the land. The apartment is near the Shinagawa subway station, near the bottom center of the map (and near lots of hotels if you want to visit ). The JBIC office is near the Tokyo station, just to the right of the center of the map (near the Imperial Palace). That’s only 5 stops on the subway, so it would be a short commute. Note this map only covers a slice of Tokyo – it is an unbelievably enormous city (Wikipedia lists it as the world’s largest megacity – New York is number 4).

• A good friend of Maria’s has agreed to stay in our house while we’re away. We’re hoping to find one more person to stay in the house – that way we’ll get enough rent to cover the mortgage (as we can’t afford our mortgage and Tokyo rent at the same time!).
• We’re leaning towards putting Kai in a Japanese public school. This is partly because the private, international schools are more expensive than we first thought (almost twice the cost of private schools here), and because we’ve seen a lot of positive feedback from other Americans who’ve stayed in Japan and put their kids in Japanese public schools (unlike here, Japanese public schools are uniformly excellent). Apparently, the teachers usually have a smattering of English, which helps ease the immersion into Japanese, and Kai is still in that age range where kids can absorb language like a sponge. Also, kindergarten in Japan is more like pre-school here, so Kai won’t be academically stressed . I saw one post in a discussion forum (which I can’t seem to find again) where someone was worried that her American kid might be bullied in a Japanese school. The response was that Americans are usually so good at pumping up their kids’ self-esteem, that if any bullying goes on when they arrive in a Japanese school, it’s the other way around. One thing we haven’t figured out is how to deal with the Japanese school calendar – their school year starts in March, not September. So Kai may actually end up in 1st grade for the last half of our time there (or he could probably repeat kindergarten if he ends up having any difficulty).
• One thing I’m looking forward to is taking the boys on a tour of the really impressive, crazy Japanese playgrounds.

About a week ago Eidan entered his “attachment” phase of development. This is part of his realization of what’s called object permanence: he’s realized that just because something is out of his range of vision, it doesn’t cease to exist. One clear sign of this is that he’ll drop or throw a toy out of sight, and then look for it (yesterday he gleefully played a game with Kai, where he would throw a ball through the hallway railing, and it would land out of sight down the stairs, and then Kai would toss it back up to him). Another clear sign is that when I hold him now, and then Maria leaves the room, he screams. And keeps screaming, and staring longingly at the doorway, until she comes back. Babies will latch on to one person during this phase, and when they’re tired or cranky, no other person will do. When Kai was this age, he attached himself to me, but Eidan’s got a serious case of the mommy’s. So now I’m going through what Maria endured with Kai – life as a second-class parent. Eidan’s happy to be alone with me when he’s in a good mood, but when the chips are down, I just won’t do at all. So I’m trying not to take it personally, and I’m hoping that this phase won’t last too long. My step-father’s a psychologist, and he’s told me there’s a saying that the first child is the father’s child, and the second child is the mother’s child. We’ll see how things go, but I think that may end up being true with our boys.

A couple other Eidan related observations while I’m here:

• Is the name Aidan the new Michael? There’s another baby named Aidan a few houses down from us, there’s one on Kai’s baseball team, there’s one in his karate class, a friend of mine recently named his baby Aidan, etc. To avoid sounding like obnoxious snobs we decided to pronounce Eidan’s name like the Irish Aidan (as we didn’t want to spend his entire childhood correcting people with, “actually, it’s Ay-dan”). So for all practical purposes he’s another of the apparently growing number of Aidans, which I used to think was a fairly uncommon name. Maybe it’s just the large number of Irish in Philly?
• One thing that’s great about babies is their complete lack of impulse control. The pleasure center of Eidan’s brain is hard-wired to his arms and legs. When he experiences joy, his entire body flails with glee. Imagine if adults were like that.

We had some friends over a few weeks ago for brunch on a sunny Saturday (the first time we’ve entertained since fixing up the house – another milestone!). Breakfast food – pancakes, fruit, etc – is even easier to prepare than the usual BBQ foods, and it’s a guaranteed hit with the kids. Kai decided to dress up as Darth Vader for the occasion. By the afternoon, the temperature was in the 70s, but Kai refused to remove the winter boots and ski gloves that were integral to his outfit (although he did concede to removing the gloves temporarily so he could eat his pancakes). A friend of mine brought his 6 year old, whom Kai had never met before. The other boy also brought his light saber. I wasn’t there when when first saw each other, but I’m told the first thing Kai said was “my light saber is red!” and other boy said “mine’s blue!” and then they immediately began an epic light saber duel.

Grammar note: I’ve never known for sure when to use “whom” in a sentence, so I decided to finally look it up. Through the wonders of Google, I came across this handy rule of thumb: “…simply substitute the personal pronoun ‘he/him’ or ‘she/her’ for ‘who/whom.’ If he or she would be the correct form, the proper choice is ‘who.’ If ‘him’ or ‘her’ would be correct, use ‘whom.’ …Even when the word order must be altered slightly, you can use the technique…” So in the sentence above, I’d say “Kai had never met him before,” so “whom” is the right choice.

I hope I don’t have to figure out this kind of stuff with Japanese…

Eidan mastered clapping a few days ago, and nothing inspires him to clap more than Kai acting like a goofball. The hand-twisting motion he’s doing at the start of the video is something he learned from Maria’s mother, who’s been staying with us the past couple of weeks. It goes with a Japanese nursery rhyme.

After you click a picture, you’ll need to come back here to get to the next one – don’t use the navigation arrows. Sorry about that. Turn up the volume on the movie clip!

Eidan’s been crawling for a couple of weeks now. He had a lot of trouble with it at first, as he didn’t do his “swimming” practice before trying to crawl. When Kai was an infant he – like most babies – would get on his stomach and flail his arms and legs, building up his strength and coordination before trying to crawl. But Eidan always hated being on his stomach, so in his first attempts at crawling, he had a lot of trouble holding himself up for any length of time, and he couldn’t control his arms and legs very well. But now he’s built up his strength and has his arms and legs doing what he wants them to, and he has become the master of his domain. As you might expect, he’s into everything – if you let him loose in a room, he will explore every corner of it. He’s also smart as a whip – he studies everything that goes on around him. For example, I showed him a matchbox car the other day, and rolled it in front of him. He immediately picked it up, turned it over, and stared at the wheels while carefully spinning one of them with his finger. He’s also entirely too happy – at any given moment, you’re most likely to see a smile on his face. But recently he’s also started showing he has a temper: if he gets his hands on something he shouldn’t have, and you take it away and replace it with something else, he’ll probably scream at you and throw the thing you gave him. I’ve also noticed that he’ll play by himself in a way that Kai never did at this age. As long as he knows you’re nearby, Eidan will feel free to venture out of the room on his own, or he’ll sit and play with toys without demanding you get involved (as an infant, Kai always wanted someone right there with him). So, while Eidan may look an awful lot like Kai, his personality is definitely different.

It’s definitely time for another look at the boys. Here’s Kai at his first t-ball game a couple of weeks ago. He’s had a couple more games since then, and he’s been having a lot of fun. I’ve been enjoying going to the games too – at least partly because it forces me to sit down and relax for a couple hours!

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And here’s Eidan. He’s been crawling for a week or so now, and he’s starting to pull himself upright. Time to break out the baby gates!

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