Imperial Palace

As perpetual tourists in our own city, we decided to over to the Imperial Palace to get out of the house for a little bit.  I had never been there -- the grounds were beautiful, the hydrangeas were in bloom and the boys had fun running around in the big, open spaces.

Week From Hell

We had a pretty tough week in June -- starting off with Max falling over a chair and hitting the back of his head on our window sill.  When it happened, I picked him up and put my hand on his head, pulled my hand away, and my hand was covered in sticky blood!  HORRIFYING as a mother!  I of course started panicking and couldn't find my phone.  With help from our nice, helpful concierge staff and my friends -- I was able to find a clinic across the street with a plastic surgeon and an English-speaking staff.  What a relief!  Max had stopped crying and the wound stopped bleeding after about 10 minutes, so I knew it wasn't too serious, but it still was this gaping head wound!  He had to have 5 staples put in his head!  HORRIFYING to watch your baby getting his head stapled!  Max did great though (they super-swaddled him to keep him from moving his arms).  He got the staples taken out the next week.  A few days after this happened, both boys and I got this wicked stomach virus.   Gross -- the boys threw up all over our living room and kitchen -- did I mention we have white carpet?  Nightmare.  They then got a cold on top of the stomach virus, which Greg got too.  I was spared from that at least!

Max & Zac Turn Two!

On June 5th, the boys turned two!  It was the Thursday before we moved into our new place; so, we didn't do their little party until that following Sunday in the new place.  We are across the street from Baskin Robbins; so, I got a cute ($28!) Stitch ice cream cake.  I was also able to find some candles, balloons, hats and plates from various places for their party.  Japanese people don't celebrate birthdays in this way traditionally; so, these items aren't really readily available.  BR did their names in Katakana, which I thought was cool, and then I found some candles spelling out "tanjoubi" (birthday in Japanese).  The boys loved the cake of course and got very upset at the fact that they had to wait through A WHOLE HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG and blowing out candles to eat it!  Max did a great job blowing out the candles -- he just did little dog woofing sounds and was able to blow them out.  So cute!  We had Ashley, Jon and Jack over for the party.  For their birthday, we bought them new balance bikes (no pedals), and the boys have been having fun trying them out and riding them around the living room.   We also ate a few pizzas at Pizza Hut (for $70!!!), and they were delicious of course.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY SWEET BUGS!
お誕生日おめでとうございます

Moving In!

We had a lot of big changes the last few weeks -- we moved into our new place last weekend in Minami-Azabu/Hiroo and the boys turned 2 (separate post)!  We also transitioned them to "big boy" beds AND separate rooms at the same time!  The boys are handling the transition pretty well -- although Zac had a hard time the first night.  And, although the apartment came with black-out curtains -- they're really not blacking out much.  THE SUN RISES HERE AT 4:30AM.  It's probably the most annoying thing about living in Tokyo (they don't recognize a DST here).  So, now, the boys will always get up at around 5, and want us to go in there and then they usually only fall asleep for another hour or so.  Pretty painful.  I'm sure that's why there is a Starbucks or Tulley's on every corner here.  But, other than that, I'm really loving our place.  It's about 1,600 sq ft, so it's pretty big by Tokyo standards and has a large open space in the living/dining area; so, the boys are able to run around freely and play.   We don't get our furniture until 7/15, so we're leasing furniture until then, and we bought a few items from IKEA a few weeks ago.  Greg had A BLAST putting all that together last weekend!  :-)  All the appliances are pretty much western-style/size, which has been a nice change from our temporary apartment at the Oakwood (it took all day to wash and dry one small load of laundry in the small combo unit...and it still came out damp).  Our apartment is in an excellent location -- pretty much right across the street from the big Arisagawa Park, the National Azabu Market (where you can get real Cheerios for $11!), and the Hiroo train station.  I've already met some really cool moms that have been great about giving advice and sharing resources; so, that's been great for me.  We've already taken advantage of our outdoor pool here several times -- there is a nice big kiddie pool area, which is GREAT.  The boys love it and get more confident every time.

Boys like that we have no furniture!

View from our balcony

View from our master bedroom

Our lovely new IKEA table

Boys have already taken over the place!

Carp feeding fest at Arisagawa Park