First bout of major sickness for the little solider

We've been pretty lucky with illness so far, but that was inevitable to change and last weekend was the time for it all to go down.

This may be unrelated, but... Our plan now is that Ritsy will go back to work a little earlier than originally planned (due to lack of work coming in for me so far this year) and our minds have been on a weaning strategy. She will start just about a month and a half earlier- meaning her total time off will have been exactly a year. We have already started to cut back on the breast milk, and stepped up the regular meal quantities. He has a healthy appetite too. But maybe the cutback in Momma's milk lowered his immune system a bit.

He started in with a bit of a fever late Thursday and that increased up to about 38.5 degrees roughly. That made for a lot of crying and lots of waking up at night. A long couple of days. The next day we took him to the clinic and he got a suppository (poor guy) to lower his temperature. He never had fever again after that. But then he progressed on to have a number of little spot all over his body.

Also about the same time he developed Thrush. What is thrush? In our mouths and some other areas of the body a fungus exists quite peacefully called candida. When his fever broke or he got some antibiotics(timing a bit hazy now) the fungus was allowed to grow making a white cheesey substance in his mouth. Today was the first day his mouth looked totally clean to me. And also, spot free.Now he has a bit of a cold, but is basically normal again.

A bit of a rough weekend last week for us, but it was a good experience and crucial in building the little guy's immune system!

Kids Place

Sunday we wanted to find somewhere to take Ken that would be fun for him so we remembered the Kodomo Kan (Kids Place) in central Hamamatsu area.
While most of the fun stuff in there is geared towards bigger children, there is still a nice big area for crawling around with a lot of safe toys to play with. Ken was having a ball!
The little girl that was playing around the kids area had no problem sitting down and babbling on to me in Japanese which I didn't understand, but it was nice anyway. A lot of children are scared of foreigners.
Afterwards we stopped at a restaurant for some food and Ken enjoyed gnawing on the package for the free toy he got.
He tried to teach me his picture face. But he still has me beat. After a satisfyingly fun day, he fell asleep in the car and was in his bed in not time!

Warwick and co.

On Saturday evening. Emi, Taira (Tyler?), Elmo and Warwick came over for a bit of a visit. Wow! Tyler has grown!
Now, Tyler must be about 14 months old or so, he is running around, chasing cats and being quite a good boy actually. He was a bit afraid of me at first but warmed up as the evening went on. Ken isn't very interactive with other babies yet, but did take a good look at Tyler from time to time.
Of course Ken is always ready with his "your taking a picture" face.
The ladies sat in the living room with the little guys enjoying some of my homemade pizza.
Warwick snapped a bunch of photos with his SLR but forgot his lens cap lying around. Bad move, now he has baby drool on the lenscap.
In the end it was another fun visit with Warwick's family and I hope that the BBQ we talked about pans out in August!

Vids-- standing at the door and climbing on the couch

Of course, seeing as to Ken is fully mobile he's become a bit of a menace, not only to his poor tired mom and dad, but also to himself. So we had to install a little baby fencing between the living room and the entry way (and another one blocking the kitchen). He enjoys standing at the fence and calling for his mother and I when we leave the room, or just watching Santa.

Even better is now that he has mastered climbing on the couch- it is very tough not to keep an eye on him basically at all times. Of course the only way he will learn of danger is to experience it, but it's good to make sure that the most dangerous falls are prevented... He is so proud of himself when he climbs up though.

Cutting up the Carpet

Remember that Beastie Boys song where they said "Let's cut up a rug, she started cutting up the carpet- oh baby please Stop it!" I always loved that little bit. But I digress.
The beast in action with his incisors.
We have this safety mat laid out on the hardwood to protect Ken against accidental slips and spills, etc. Now that the little bugger has discovered his motor skills, he loves ripping up the mat and gnawing on it.
I wanted to see if it made a good hat. Not bad...
Ken's Photo face-- he is pretty bright, now when he sees the camera he always squints- anticipating the flash. Makes for a funny face!

brushin'

The little man is swimming along. He really had a huge size jump the first few months but has slowed down quite a bit. He sprout his first two teeth back in April, but hasn't shown signs of anymore as of yet. Not worried though, they will come...
In baby-proofing the house we have a couple of these gates sitting around the living room area now. Here Santa enjoys the view from atop his cat post.
We read a lot about taking care of the teeth, and considering that he is drinking his juice like crazy in this lovely heat, we have gotten him on his first toothbrush.
He enjoys it.

A video

I caught up with all my outstanding news and pics of Ken basically, so have been at a bit of a loss for posts the last week, sorry!

I have a few ideas for getting back into a bit more creative blogging posts and some more looking back memories.

For today a current video of Ken. Again, excuse my 'talking to babies voice'...

Stop... Ken Time!

Yep, Thai curry and Ken coming up from under the table can only mean one thing, I'm just gonna let the pictures talk for themselves today...

Setsuko Loves Chachi

Okay, not Chachi-- Yocchan actually. It seems that Ritsy's sister has found love again-- this time with a very nice gentleman from her office. I guess the entire thing is a bit of a secret at their company- so hopefully no one finds this that works with them. After two months of romantic dating-- they have decided to tie the knot in November. November 16th to be exact. The two families met up 2 weeks ago at a fancy dinner for a formal announcement of the impending nuptials.
We met up at a beautiful little restaurant called Hanayamokubei (花屋杢兵衛 ). It had a very expensive, old fashioned Japanese feel to the place, beautifully decked out. Indeed, it is even setup to hold Japanese-style restaurant weddings.
However, they have decided on a different location for their wedding. They chose a place called Amandan Rise in Hamamatsu. Japanese weddings look expensive!
Ken was popular as usual, but this whole day had a very formal feeling. We all had to introduce ourselves- it was good practice for my Japanese speaking, but I was nervous, of course.
We left the place feeling peaceful and happy to meet the new extension of our families. I wish Setsuko and Yocchan all the best of luck in their future together-- I hope they have found their keys to happiness!