Visiting Chicago

Last weekend, we took a roadtrip to Chicago. We really wanted to visit my family. Somehow we let so many years pass before seeing them...nearly a decade. It was wonderful to see my cousins again, and Maia loved meeting them. They are an amazing group of people, and we had such a nice time with them. From now on, we plan on making a trip to Chicago at least once a year to see our relatives.

Maia and Tai were golden during the 6 hour trip. Tai slept most of the way, and Maia enjoyed having uninterupted DVD time. The headphones were for Mommy and Daddy's sanity.

The Chicago skyline as it looked when we drove into the city. So striking and BIG compared to tiny Dayton OH.

These are my cousin Sofia's beautiful children with Maia. Yes, they look like they could be Yoshi's relatives rather than mine! Their daddy is Vietnamese.

Sitting on the couch is another one of Sofia's children. He has developmental delays and does not speak yet, but has the most amazing smile that communicates so much.

The kids again, this time with Tai too!

Maia at the "real" beach. Actually it is a man-made lake in Northern Chicago by my cousin's home.

Maia at the Natural History Museum.

Daniel, who is nine years old, got a bit tired during the excursion, so we put him in Tai's stroller. He is not actually sleeping, just pretending!

The Field Museum had a Pirates exhibit that terrified Maia. Here are the kids posing with a pirate before we went in. The exhibit was really dark and scary, and talked about slavery, which Maia has no idea about. She clung to us a lot!

Overall, we had a wonderful time and cannot wait to go back again. There is a Japanese food mall there as well, which got Yoshi talking about relocating. At this point, I don't know if I could do it. Though I would love to see my relatives more often, we've built such a great community of friends here that it would be very difficult to leave. Even though Dayton doesn't have a skyline to speak of, it's where we have built our lives so we will stay a bit longer!

Taira (Japanese Edition)

Since the Tai videos have been so well-received, I thought I'd share another one. This time Daddy was the videographer, and the narration is in Japanese, but I think you can figure out what he is saying. Taira koon is a nickname for Tai in Japanese. It means "little Tai boy" or something similar. We were trying to get Tai to laugh or do something entertaining, but he was not in the mood that day.

Incidentally, the location of this video is our basement, though you can't see very much of it. Since this video was taken, I have cut off much of my hair. I like the shorter look, but feel a little nostalgic for my long hair after watching this.

This is a continuation of the first video. Tai tries to crawl, but goes backwards. Unlike the video, he is now excellent at crawling. It seems he has already passed the difficult period of babyhood and is much easier to take care of. Yeah!

Thunder Thighs

This video is from back in early July! I was having computer issues and never got around to posting it, but I thought all of you would enjoy seeing it anyway.

Our Bunny!

One would imagine, given her track record, that Maia is the culprit behind these cute pictures, but that is not the case. Yoshi gets all the credit for the bunny pictures. I must admit, Tai makes an adorable bunny, though I would have gone with different ears.

Avocado adversity

My baby boy is allergic to avocados. This comes as quite a shock to me, because Yoshi and I don't have any food allergies, so I didn't expect my children to have them either. Once Tai turned six months old, I thought I could feed him any fruit or vegetable, but I was mistaken.

The morning started off normally with Tai in his high chair noshing on cheerios while Maia and I ate our breakfast and I sipped my cup of coffee. Maia saw some avocados I had recently purchased and asked to eat one. I delicately cut one in half, gave her one part, and proceeded to feed Tai a couple of spoonfuls from the second piece. He appeared to like it and wanted more, so I fed him a little more.

The next thing I knew, poor Tai turned bright red all over his face and chest and started scratching his neck violently. I was very upset and worried because I know that any allergic reaction can, in its worst form, cause you to stop breathing. Luckily, that was not the case. Tai was just very red and itchy. Luckily, we had some Benadryl on hand, and a call to the pharmacy helped me determine the appropriate dosage. After taking the Benadryl, the redness went away in a few minutes.

Maia has also had a couple of allergic reactions recently, though with her it is more difficult to pin-point the offending food. She has also turned red and complained about being itchy all over. As a mom, these situations cause me to worry, because you never know when an allergic reaction will be severe. We have been lucky so far.

As for avocados, I really hope Tai outgrows his allergy so he can eat guacamole to his heart's content when he gets older. A google search also informed me that an allergy to avocados usually means a latex allergy as well, so we are going to be careful with latex exposure. Thank goodness for the internet!

Japanese Presents Again!

Maia and Tai's o-bachan and o-jichan sent us some adorable presents for her birthday. I've been meaning to post this for some time, but my laptop is has failed, so I'm not online as often as I used to be.

Maia loved the presents and says "Arigato!" That means thankyou, for those of you who have not guessed.

Sorry to be brief. I promise to add more when I get a new computer. Hopefully it will happen by this weekend.