She's Just Lovely

I am smitten with my baby. 100%. When I'm not with her she is all I can think about, which is why we have decided that I will cut my work hours back yet again from part-time 5 days/week to just one day.

Mom aka Grandma Brown aka Babu has been babysitting since I went back to work at the end of October, and suffice to say that it ain't been easy. Miss Sakura is quite particular about when she wants to nurse, and if I am not there to perform the task then she makes her displeasure very, very known. NOOOOOO to bottles and other attempts to distract from what she wants. It makes sense that an almost 4 month old would want to be with her mother 24/7. Didn't you?

We celebrated Baby's First 100 Days by dressing her up and taking pictures. Traditionally we would take her to a shrine and have her blessed by a priest, but this will have to wait until we are back in the land of shrines. In the meantime we were able to take adorable pictures of Sakura in her kimono (she will wear the same kimono in her 3rd, 5th and 7th years, as is the custom), although when I say 'in' her kimono, it was actually just draped across her.

She's a bouncing baby and is more the size of a 6-9 month old at almost 4 months. She is growing like a hulk and all of her adorable clothes are getting used far too infrequently (sometimes just once!!) I am rather tired of the sumo comments, as I am of people assuming that my healthy little girl is a little boy!

At any rate, she's just lovely.

The Day Sanity was Restored

Minutes after Obama's declared (projected) victory, facebook statuses (statii??) were updated around the world and I learned with glee but no surprise that my political views are 100% supported by my friends, be they in Australia, Japan, Austria, New Zealand, England, Canada, Guam or the US. This outpouring of support for the new President has really touched me and inspired in me a hope for a new direction for the country which I am starting to call home. Again.

In an otherwise crappy year, Sakura's birth and this victory stand out as 2 wonderful highlights. I look forward to positive change and I look forward to the new face of the US which Obama will represent.

Blogging with one hand

Well there are no surprises as I'm sure everyone (all 3 of you) who reads this blog knows that we welcomed Sakura Bella into our lives on the 9th of August!

But what may be lesser known is the story of her birth, so I shall endeavour to divulge a shortened version of that here.

On the day before 8/8/08, I tried everything known to man to induce babies, as I wanted Sakura to have a cool birthday! She was due on the 12th, so I figured she was probably ready to come out anyway. So I had a ridiculously hot curry, followed by a whole can of pineapple, a long walk around the neighbourhood and a few cups of raspberry leaf tea before bed. The 8th of August came, and the 8th of August went... or got as far as 11pm when I started having cramps and Kentaro hit the sack. I had never experienced any Braxton Hicks, or 'practice' contractions, so I figured I was probably having a few of them. They were annoying enough that I couldn't sleep, and by 3am they were downright painful, but after googling all I could about 'false labour' I seemed to fit the bill, because of the location, duration and frequency of the pains. I called the birthing centre just in case, and they told me it was false labour and to please stay home. I called them again at 6am to tell them I hadn't been able to sleep all night because of the pain, but because the cramps weren't coming close enough together and were not located in either my lower back or abdominal area, I was advised again to stay home. At 9am Kentaro awoke to find a very unhappy Indy. I told him we might as well drive to the birthing centre so they could at least do a physical assessment even though we would probably be turned away again. This first time mother stuff is so difficult because it's so easy to overreact! So in the car we went, and even stopped by the post office to check mail on the way. We got there, and they all confirmed my first mother status as I walked in, with knowing smirks on their faces. Then they measured my cervix and found it to be 8cm dilated, and I felt like giving them all the finger!!! I then decided I'd better call my parents! They rushed over, and at noon, I was given the go ahead to push, and another 3 hours later Miss Sakura Bella popped out!

And with my insurance with DFS, the whole birth cost me $50, which I reckon is a bit of a bargain for the world's cutest baby.

Welcome to the Family, Chibi-chan!

Our little green-eyed blue-eyed white devil.

A few thousand words' worth

By popular demand, a 'bump' shot - you can't see it? Aww, too bad ;P

My sexy fisherman
'Tora', one of the four kittens we've raised from birth
Kentaro's baby bumps

My English class at the Japanese School

Me and Takayama (the pro-wrestler who features in 'Kill Bill')
Cat sitting Jango Brown (he lurves Cookie)
Our avacado harvest (round 1)
'Tenshi', another of the four

My quarterly entry...

Well for those few of you who still read my blog, apologies again!

But never fear, for I do predict a resurgence of my blogging motivation, and it will probably occur sometime in mid-August, along with the arrival of Little Miss Babyguchi. I have every intention of making Salt and Sesame a gratuitous baby pic fest, and to show how serious I am I will start now:

Ain't she cute?

Other things that have kept us busy since my last post in January include but are not limited to:

1. Taking in a mega-feral cat and her 4 newborn kittens and figuring out what the hell to do with them.

2. Hitting the beach with style in our new shiny yellow kayak.

3. Gathering and grating coconuts to make kelaguen.

4. Harvesting our avocadoes and bananas.

5. Behaving like Guamanians in general.

6. Hiding news of Babyguchi until late March when I finally got my first ultrasound and felt ready to broadcast her existence.

I have had requests for a good 'bump' pic but so far have only taken a good one of Kentaro. I will wait until mine is better than his to post it.

Hugs and kisses.

Umm, Happy New Year?

Don't you hate it when you turn around and realise you haven't updated your blog for a few months?

And there's no good excuse, either. What have we been doing?

Well let's see:
Halloween came and went,
as did Thanksgiving.
Then I had some out of town guests for a few days,
then my birthday,
then Dad's birthday,
and just before Christmas, Kentaro and I landed a ripper case of food poisoning after dining at a local Japanese restaurant. It knocked us both around for a good week or so and ensured that we weren't able to eat a damn thing on Christmas Day, which was a huge tragedy as my parents whipped up their Christmas extravaganza.
Solon and Jess flew in for the festivities and flew out again on Solon's birthday,
New Year's was a complete non-event as we were still feeling under the weather,
and Solon and Jess were kind enough to fly in again just for Kentaro's birthday on Jan 3rd (a very conveniently timed layover on their trip back to Oz after their head-splitting tour of Japan).
And here we are on the 13th and I'm reckoning it was probably the dullest holiday season of all time, much much worsened by the fact that we both worked every bloody day throughout the whole period.

Here's to 2008!!!