If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

\

I’d never heard of Barbapapa before I came to Japan. This is the same with Hello Kitty and slightly more obscure characters like Doraemon and Anpanman. My baby is obsessed with him. At least I think he is.

I’m not sure whether it’s her who’s obsessed with him or my wife. She buys everything Barbapapa - We have a diary, cup, bento box, fluffy toy, a book in French, another in Japanese, piles of bottoms, tops, suits and more.

Thrust anything in front of my baby and she’ll play with it (or my wife and she’ll buy it). She seems to like it though. Barbapapa is easy to say for a 20 month old baby and she’ll happily babble Barbapapa for hours on end.

This is one of my favourite ever Isabelle photos. She`s really progressing. She is 17 months old and is walking confidently． She can say some words like Mama, Dada and Hai.

She can also say Deta which means it came out. She says this when she does a poo. It`s a really good early warning system and has stopped our wails of despair when we discover　little brown surprises in her nappy.

Isabelle has started speaking. She can say, “Mama”. She`ll point at somebody or something and say, “Mama” which either means she is confused about her parents or it means something else to her. It means anything from, “Give me!” to “Look at me!”

She`ll say, “Dada” sometimes but not on queue. I told her if she could say, “Dada”, I`d do anything for her. Play with her, take her to look at something interesting or　buy her illegal drugs. Anything.

I`m still waiting.

June is the month for celebrations and today, June 25th is Isabelle’s birthday. Happy Birthday darling!

Is there anything more dangerous to a baby than a kotatsu? Similar to a coffee table but used (at least in our house) for everything from eating dinner on to studying.

Perhaps it’s not the kotatsu itself but the items left on it. Steaming bowls of miso soup or tea, knives and food are all within easy grasp of a baby able to prop herself up when supported.

We’ve had near misses with the soup and last night she pulled over a cup of tea. Fortunately it had cooled down.

You might thing that a conventional table would be just as dangerous thanks to the height from which they could fall. Whilst this is true, my baby seems to be a thrill seeker hellbent on experiencing the most danger possible in her as yet short life and she could find a way to make anything deadly.

Baby Belle has a cold of mythical proportions. When she sleeps, snot bubbles expand and deflate from her nostrils.

So we bought a phlegm extractor. There are two ends. You put one end into the nostril. The other in your mouth. You suck on one end and the mucus flies from the nose into a container in the middle.

You should hear her scream.

One of us has to hold her head whilst the other sucks the stuff out. Afterwards, Reiko picks up the sobbing child and calms her. “There, there. Bad Daddy for holding your head. Come to Mummy.”

We went to the doctors yesterday and he had a similar machine. This one was larger and electrically powered.

If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger…

What’s it like being a dad? The main thing I notice apart from there being a beautiful female mini version of myself is the lack of free time to do anything I want to do.

I enjoy reading and when the mood hits me I can read a couple of books a week using every free moment I have to do so. Nowadays my reading time is limited to when I’m on a train to work or after Belle has gone to bed. I rarely watch movies at home or have the extended Western internet time I crave in a life immersed in Japanese.

I come home from a gruelling day teaching whining kids to a crying baby and I’ll sigh. I’ll admit it.

There are many things vying for my attention. The gaping time-wasting rabbit trail of the internet, my other new baby the Macbook I bought myself for Christmas or Reiko. The internet usually wins.

My schedule is still pretty unfriendly towards family life. I work two evenings a week and leave the house those days at 7:00am.

Reiko is of course magnificent. Sacrificing everything with no complaints, breastfeeding at godforsaken hours of the night and being the model housewife.

But then I’m watching a stunning baby grow up and it’s amazing. She’s hit 7 months. She’s on solids and likes sucking on a banana or strawberry. She also likes pumpkins and liver. Her favourite hobbies are inserting things into her mouth and staring at people. And I think she’s beautiful.

I don’t regret being father at all although I sometimes yearn for the freedom and peace of last year. This isn’t a very easy post for me to write - I’m a crap father. Some nice comments would be cool.

Because it`s my blog dammit and I`ll put up pictures of my beautiful baby if I want to.

O Mighty Pacifier! Oh Rescuer of souls, Bringer of peace, Withholder of despair, Calmer of nerves!

O Miraculous Dummy! Forgive my initial distrust of your magic, your ability to turn the frantic cries of a baby in torment into the contented sucks of an angel in heaven. I am a fervent follower of your fabulous finesse.

O Powerful Placator! You turn all-powerful statesman green with envy when confronted with your peace making talents. Your pain killing properties surpass those of the most potent opiate.

O Soother of souls! O Assuager of fear! O Proficient Appeaser!

I bow before your unlimited power and worship your Majesty.

I`m on the second week of a 3 week holiday as school is out for summer. I`m treating it as a delayed paternity leave. It`s been quite fun staying at home and getting to know Isabelle better changing nappies and learning which of her cries means I`m unable to control my bowel movements and which one means if you don`t feed me, I`ll explode with despair.

She`s fattening up well and looks like a baby version of me. I like it when I pick her up by the shoulders when she`s crying and she looks like a goblin I caught in the ground.

Of course I`m envious of my colleagues, one of whom is off on an as-yet-unplotted trip around Hokkaido and another who is jetting off to Tapei yet there are things I can be doing around Osaka that I want to check out such as the high school summer baseball tournament held in Koshien Stadium and get out and about taking some photos. I hope to put some new ones up soon.