i-sako.com

Somehow, the bride managed to overcome her reservations and answered with an affirmative “I do”. I’m very glad she did, because today marks our fifth anniversary as geek and wife!

I’m sure she wonders almost daily how she has managed to put up with my habits for this long, but I am grateful for her tolerance and her companionship.

Anniversary gifts

Apparently, the traditional gift for one’s fifth wedding anniversary is something made of wood. I had to think about this for a while, because it was difficult imagine a romantic, wooden gift. Aside from furniture, what useful things are made of wood?

Fortunately for me, traditions seem to have changed a bit; more modern gifts are acceptable now—like silverware! On the other hand, we’ve already got plenty of silverware… (Who comes up with these lists, anyway? Do they think we’ve been eating with our fingers for the last several years or something?!)

So, tell me, what do you get for the girl who has more geek than she wants?

In your response, should you care to leave one, feel free to tell us about the most romantic gift you have ever received (or given), especially if it was made of wood.

You know what I wrote earlier about not having much time for blogging? A lot of that is because of my daughter, who requires about as much constant attention as an impending nuclear crisis.

I took her to Kodomo-no-kuni, an amusement park for kids, on Saturday, thinking that I could put some pictures up for her Grandma far away, but even preparing the handful of thumbnails below has taken much longer than it should—mostly because each bit of photo editing has to be interspersed with a chapter or two of Curious George to satisfy a three-year-old’s insatiable need to know what George and the man in the yellow hat are up to.

For now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to stop with just the thumbnails below. I’m being told that it’s now story time—again.

Today was our daughter’s first day at pre-school. I had to leave for work before the bus came to pick her up (so I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures to commemorate the occasion), but she apparently got on the bus with no hesitation. That came as a surprise to me, because she’s never rode a bus by herself before. How quickly they grow up and become independent, huh? I expected this to happen someday, but not at age 3.

In other news

It seems that we are expecting again. Yuko went to a clinic on Monday and confirmed what we had been expecting for a while now: She’s two months pregnant. Time to start thinking of baby names...got any suggestions?

Reika adamantly defies the notion that another child is on the way. She gets really angry and yells, “There is NO baby in Mommy’s belly, you got that?!”

Someone very near and dear to us turned three today, so I thought I would post a few pictures in honor of the occasion.

Here’s the birthday girl with her mommy…


...jumping rope at the park…


...explaining the theoretical underpinnings of the universe…


...making faces…


...and generally being wonderful.

Just got back from a refreshing weekend getaway in Hakone. It was a really great trip--great weather, great location, great everything! We had a lot of fun.

We learned many things about our daughter on this trip, among them:

1.) She’s not good at mazes. We walked around inside a maze at the Hakone Open-Air Museum (a really neat place to go, by the way) and she led us in the same circle about five times.

2.) She’s not ready to sleep in a bed. She fell out of bed five times Saturday night; three of those times she managed to get herself pinned between the edge of the bed and the neighboring sofa, with her little legs sticking straight up in the air, kicking frantically. We usually sleep on futons at home, so if she rolls out of bed there it’s no problem--she’s already on the floor! This, I think, has led to very reckless sleep habits on her part.

3.) She loves onsen. Yuko took her into several of these spa-like baths at our hotel. Reika loved it, especially the one that bubbled like a whirlpool. She was stomping around in the bath like a two-year-old Godzilla.