Oideyasu! Please take off your shoes.
You'd be logy too if you just gulped down half a bottle of warm formula. (Gregory, day 9). He is learning to move this muscle and that muscle, and as a result, he often makes funny faces, especially the one-sided Elvis sneer.
originally built in the 6th Century and rebuilt in the 1400s. More pictures here.
"Dinner's ready, I'm going to the hospital."
"Get over here, your wife is going to have her baby tonight."
"Omedetou gozaimasu! You have a healthy son!"
In the twinkling of an eye.
Gregory was born at 38 weeks according to our calculations, which is two weeks earlier than average, but estimates can be off by quite a lot. One week earlier the doctor had pronounced him full-term and safely above the low weight threshhold, saying he could come at any time. Indeed, there were signs that he might be coming a little early.
Gregory is adjusting to his new surroundings over at Mama's house, and his milk/formula intake and weight are steadily rising according to schedule. Yoshiko is cleverly applying all the tricks she has learned from the nurses, and I am enjoying seeing this new side of her. As our baby fell asleep on my chest this evening, I felt blessed.
Homecoming
...from the hospital to my mother-in-law's home, not ours, because Yoshiko is going to stay there for a while. Here's baby G checking out his "old skool" white wooden crib and then sleeping on a futon on the floor. In the words of another famous Greg (upon moving into his parents' attic), "My own pad! My own scene!" Actually, he changed from quiet baby to fussy baby upon the change of environment, but by the time I left Yoshiko had him calmed down and sleeping again.
Unless you are a deconstructionist, in which case the overt lack or non-representation of babies in this picture SUGGESTS babies, nearly SCREAMS "BAAAYYYBIES!"
Yoshiko is feeling fine and Gregory is developing normally and there are no red flags, so they will be leaving the hospital tomorrow and going to stay with her mother for a while, as is the custom. Yoshiko said she and the other three mothers who are leaving tomorrow will wait until afternoon to check out, as that means they will each get to have one more fancy lunch. It's been a while since I lived as a bachelor, as I have the past few days. I better do some laundry soon, or I'm going to have to get really creative. Also I have to clean up all the damage I did crashing through the house after the nurse said on the phone, "Get over here fast. She's going to have her baby tonight." I was expecting her to tell me it was false labor. That'll teach me to rely on half-remembered I Love Lucy episodes for childbirth education. I spilled a double espresso on the tatami, I cut myself in two places, reminiscent of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, when my bicycle was tipping alternately to the left and right walls of my narrow apartment hallway (I kept it inside in my single days), and I cut my leg while fighting past the bike to get to the front door and get out in case the building collapsed.
A picture of baby Gregory with his eyes open, and a profile, um, in case you needed that. When I got in to the maternity hosptal (sanfujinka) today, Yoshiko seemed back to full strength after just finishing a lunch that included sashimi, the first sashimi she had eaten in nine months. then I played with Greg while she went for her esthetic facial treatment.
Tomorrow night is the big finale that Kawamura is famous for, the French course dinner for all the "graduating" mommies. All these perks, but it's not very expensive, and we'll get a lump sum payment from the city that covers much of it (National Health Insurance doesn't cover pregnancy and natural childbirth because they are not adverse conditions, go figure). Despite the pampering that Yoshiko gets to help her return to full strength, the nurses are very strict with her about building a full repertoire of baby care skills, and I can see her becoming more confident before my eyes. I helped change a diaper while she was out. Newborn poop is green, but you knew that already.
The room where Yoshiko stayed the first couple nights has this nifty little tatami alcove with a futon set where I could sleep. the hospital is not far from our house, though, so I'm sleeping at home now.
With grandmother, just a few minutes after birth late Friday night. (I realize now I need to get more pictures with his eyes open. I have some, but they were taken with flash and the color is not natural.)
I gave my wife one cell, and look what she did with it!
Taishi is written as 大 (tai or dai, meaning big) plus 志 (kokorozasu, to aspire or set your mind to something) in Japanese, and together means "ambition" or "aspiration." His color is becoming more natural and his fingers and toes are losing that pickled look from swimming for 9 months. Just like his mother, he is so warm, a human furnace, 人間ストーブ, so I've been calling him "Cinnamon Bun," but he'll hate us later if we put that on the birth certificate, so we thought we'd give him a more dignified name. He grabs my fingers tightly and looks in my eyes and I feel God has given us the most wonderful gift he has.
Today we got something I didn't know about. They recorded the first cries as Gregory came out, and took a picture, and put them together in an audio card that plays the recording. Here is a sample (QT movie).
(I think I can hear the sound of bookmarks being deleted.)
Happy baby! We were getting to know our new son today, and he did a very good job of learning to feed — both ways. He cried for no more than 5 or 10 seconds in all the time I was with him today. Here is Kawamura Ladies' Clinic, the well-regarded maternity hospital where he was born, conveniently located in our corner of town. (Click on the Japanese text under "since 1953" and there is a drop down menu with a photo tour of the hospital.) The baby was about two weeks prior to the "due" date, but was pronounced full term and ready to go just over a week ago by Dr. Kawamura.
Photos taken with Panasonic Lumix FZ10
The last picture shows the stuffed bunny that stands next to our futon. Bunny held a thermometer for all the months that we were trying, and then at night held the lucky charm (the red object) that Yoshiko wore every day during her pregnancy. The charm (omamori in Japanese) is from a well-hidden shrine specializing in pregnancy and childbirth which is tucked in behind a chestnut vendor on Shijo street next to the Shin-kyogoku shopping arcade. Inside the red embroidery was a small slip of paper with a mantra written on it that the mother is supposed to swallow during labor. Labor came on so fast, though, that she almost forgot, but she sent the nurse out of the delivery room to look for it, and was able to swallow the prayer in time. The wooden box contains a piece of our baby's umbilical cord. When a mother in Japan goes to her final reward, she takes the umbilical cords of her children with her.
One more soul alive in Kyoto this beautiful spring-like morning, born last night (Feb. 20) at 11:30 p.m. after 3 hrs of labor. 2870 grams, about 6 and a half pounds, 10 points on Apgar, Mother and baby very healthy. Sunshine is shooting out of my pores. Name to follow...
An inuyarai is an elegant way to keep dogs from urinating on your house, in this case a teahouse.
The sun was shining and it was warm enough to go out in a sweater without a coat today, although it was quite cold a couple days ago. This is normal in Japan, where spring comes with two steps forward and one step back.
We assembled our crib (baby bed) yesterday over at Mama's house. Everything is going very well, and our little gunyo-chan seems to be judo-chopping himself or herself an exit.
Looking up the road (L) and down the road(R) from approximately the same spot.
It's the fanciest hotel in Otsu. I wonder if there are really strangely-shaped rooms at the end of the hall. "Gimme the pie wedge room!"
Ｑ.ブログって、やってみたい？
A. やってみたい 71件 4.2%
A. 面倒くさいのでやらない 61件 3.6%
A. ブログって何? 1462件 87.1%
A. もうやってます 63件 3.7%
「ブログって何？ 」派 「プログ？一体何の事でしょう？教えて下さい。」
「ブログって何？ 」派 「ブクロかと思いました。」
「ブログって何？ 」派 「???」
「ブログって何？ 」派 「ほんまに何か分からん」
(via Wirefarm Jim.) In a nutshell, it's a poll on an Excite Japan women's issues page asking "Do you want try blogging?" The answers are, in order: Yeah, I wanna try; No, I don't. It's a hassle; What's a blog?; I'm already blogging. the funny part is that almost 90% have no idea what a blog is. Some of their comments are below, basically saying, "What the..???"
At a statuary near Kurama Onsen.
I seem to be the leading search result for "did not match any documents". Weird. I'm anti-famous! (Look but don't click, please.)
Up in the mountains where they make the fresh air that we consume so greedily down below.
Straw pilgrim's sandals hanging at the main gate of Kurama-dera Temple
A RealPlayer movie (3 min, 8.7MB) of some scenery I happened to walk past this afternoon. I wasn't paying attention to the sound and accidentally shifted some around. There are no cars in the Imperial Palace Park, just so you know.
In order:
Kamo River/Mt. Hiei/Kitayama
Kyoto (old) Imperial Palace Park paths
A teahouse in the corner of the park
Hiiragiya Ryokan and Tawaraya Ryokan (two of Kyoto's finest)
The sun does shine in Shiga-ken, and today was another beautiful day to prove it, Pam. Sorry I doubted you. Is Robert somewhere in this picture?
Slapdash Otsu panorama
In my mother-in-law's garden, there is a slanted, craggy rock like the one in the background of this picture, so alive it has ferns growing out of it.
The public funeral for Chiko Komatsu, the 31st Head Priestess of 1,400-year-old Jakko-in Temple, will be held Monday at the temple. (Her official portrait is at left) Before she died at age 93, the activist nun recorded this eerie final message that is on the temple's small website in MP3 format.
I live in the extreme northeastern corner of Kyoto city, in the foothills of Mt. Hiei. If you go further northeast from here, up the river valley along Hiei-zan's base, you come to a small village named "Ohara," which most Japanese people have heard of because of the famously beautiful temple Sanzen-in and it's small neighbor, Jakko-in.
After moving to this neighborhood in 1999, Yoshiko and I went to Jakko-in in May 2000, in Golden Week, to see the famous old temple. The main hall (left) was more than a millenium old, the place where lady Kenrei-Mon-in spent her life in prayerful seclusion after the Heike-Genji wars, and the wooden Jizo Buddha statue inside was a national treasure, hollow and filled with thousands of small wooden statues.
Sadly, four days after we visited, an arsonist splashed kerosene on the walls of the main hall, and burned it to the ground, turning the Jizo Bosatsu (left) into a charred remnant (click "to reconstruct"). The statues inside the Jizo were saved, but that is all. If I had known it was my last chance, I would have taken more than a few instamatic snapshots. The pictures on this page are from the handbook given to visitors.
This garden dates from the middle of the 1600s, but this wall is certainly younger than that. That's a grinding wheel embedded in the wall. Click for 1024 X 768 desktop background.
