Thursday 30 August 2007

Millie Sophia Henington

Well finally she has arrived! After a lot of waiting around and false starts Millie Sophia Henington finally made her debut on the 28th August at 3:39pm. She weighed 3934g and was 53cm long.

In the end it took 2 days of being induced and a great deal of physical effort from everyone in the delivery room (apart from me) to get Millie out.

She got stuck right at the last moment and it got very tense - The doctor was pulling the suction/ventuce thingy and the midwifes/nurses were pushing hard on Aiko's stomach to force the body out. Millie's shoulders got stuck so she was neither in or out but certainly in trouble so it was a huge emotion release when she came out. Aiko was in a lot of pain afterwards and is still recovering.

Millie is doing well but seems to be a noiser baby than Archie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MpL-527M_w
Archie is warming to her slowly as you can see but he wsn't best pleased when he first saw her. Aiko should be home next monday and then we can start to be a happy family....who don't sleep much. I'm already in training as Archie has been getting and poking and prodding me until I wake up- this morning I awoke to find him trying to push a roll of sellotape onto my nose!!!

Tuesday 14 August 2007

House Husband

With Aiko soon to be out of action and staying in a hospital for a week (hurry up) John has tried his hand at a bit of cooking and more cleaning up. So far no reported cases of food poisoning but can Archie survive a whole week?...




Lala Port-Okonomiyaki for dinner

Anyone who knows our eating habits in detail knows we are partial to a bit of Okonomiyaki- Hiroshima style! This egg, noodle, cabbage creation is always top of our list especially when we add Kimuchi - Korean spicy cabbage!

Sadly moving from Hiroshima has meant that some searching was needed to find something a bit closer to Yokohama and 'luckily' there is a place at Lalaport- our favourite shopping mall just 20 minutes away.

This means frequent visits where we can also enjoy our other pastimes of buying stuff that we don't know how we will use (put it in the cupboard until we find a use) and chasing children in and out of shops (don't touch that!!)








Thursday 9 August 2007

39 Weeks

At one point we thought we wouldn't get this far but no sign of her yet. Only 1 week to go!! Aiko is hopeful she will be early!

AJ's Exercise

It's a sign of how much and how often he watches the same things on TV but we still can't help but be amused by AJ's renditions of his favourite programs. This is from the infamous Anpanman again but it's an exercise routine- come on everyone join in!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Pbnng5arE

Ice Cream Time

Haven't managed to catch him on video having 'ice cream head' yet but it's only a matter of time.

Still when he isn't bursting into tears spontaneaously after eating too much he really enjoys his ice creams- wonder where he gets his sweet tooth from!

Must point out that these are quite small, milky treats and we protect him from over endulging by eating far more than him!








Photo exhibition of AJ

Perhaps one final series of photos of Archie before attention gets partially diverted to our Daughter!

AJ behind bullet proof glass (a lie) at teh Anpanman museum.














John tried to insert some Anpanman castenets into AJ's ear at the Anpanman museum...


















AJ gets ready for nursery and does his 'yay!!!' pose. It seems strange looking at this picture as it wasn't long ago that he refused to wear a hat of any kind but Mummy bought a similar one as well and the rest is history!!!



















The Boys coming down the stairs after some serious Anpanman action...Respec!

Anpanman Museum

Finally it had to happen... As John had taken the end of
the week off from work (but still proceeded to send e-mails and call India most days from home) we decided to go to the Anpanman Museum.

Those familiar to this character will know all about this firm kids favourite but if not he's a super hero with a head that is made from bread that has sweet beans inside- how normal.

AJ is obsessed and watching Anpanman is a great bribe to make him do anything round the flat- cleaning teeth, changing nappy, doing the dishes...well not that YET!

As we went on a weekday there wasn't a bad queue but it was still busy and lots of Children running around acting like fools- John felt he was in heaven...Aiko was just embrassed watching her
husband 'interact' with things whilst AJ had moved on somewhere else...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMKBXqBmrP4












Sunday 5 August 2007

Kodomo no kuni again















Perhaps our last day trip a bit further afield before the next Henington arrives, last Sunday we decided to go back to Kodomonokuni. This time we gave ourselves a few more hours to go to the pool and maybe do some other things.

Boy-o-boy was it hot and with Aiko carrying a large load around as well the pool seemed a good idea. It was pretty crowded- outside looked like push chair carpark and inside a bit like a penguin colony in Antartica; always one parent left behind looking after the towels whilst the others go off hunting....or queueing for waterslides.

Due to her condition the stationary role was largely performed by Aiko. At least we had a good spot next to a wet shiny patch where lots of kids slipped over as they ran past- live entertainment. No major injuries I hasten to add...but they shouldn't be running anyway, grumble grumble - grumpy old man..tssk where were their parents...

Anyway this, of course, left me to take AJ to the water....first we tried the 30cm pool and that was a bit boring so we then went to the 95cm pool. Now I must just mention that AJ is only about 100cm tall anyway (And I'm not much more) and both of us misjudged the entry somewhat. The end result was a spluttering son who now wanted to go back to Mum!!

Sometime later he got his courage back and we went off to a water slide where we had to queue for about an hour for one go. For a 2 and a bit year old AJ was quite patient and , whilst a bit embarassing, pinching the nipples of the boy next to him provided some entertainment to pass the time. The slide wasn't that great and resulted in the same spluttering AJ but he wanted to have more- I however was too bored with another hour wait....

We then went on a different slide with a shorter queue and using my engineering prowess was able to get a good bit of speed up which , painfully, translated into a heavy impact with the bottom of the pool....seriously!!!

A visit to the doctor is needed to patch me up for labour of Henington child #2 -not sure I can take all that pushing, pulling and punching in my current state.

Paddling Pool














It's summer and Archie is old enough so we thought it was a good time for us to buy our first paddling pool. Of course we went to our favourite shopping mall 'lalaport' to find it and went without knowing our size limitations. Luckily we managed to pick one that just squeezes into to our tiny balcony and in no time Archie was having fun.

Thursday 2 August 2007

AJ to Hoikuen (Nursery)


















For many reasons it seemed like a good idea to get Archie out of the apartment for a few mornings a week. It would give Aiko a break (important in the weeks to come with a new baby) and it would also give Archie a chance to mix with other kids and have some fun. So we found a local place nearby and he goes 3 times a week in the mornings.

As you can see we kit him out properly- bit OTT for going up the road; not a walk into the outback!!

Actually it's taken a while for us to get this far with the hat as he tends not to want to wear it as he didn't wear one when he was a baby (lesson learned).

This photo was possible becuase Mummy was also wearing her new hat so he wanted to join in!

Also as expected within the first week he caught "something" off another child and got a fever around 40degC. As this was his first in over 2 years it was a bit of a shock but all facts considered he wasn't too bad... just made him MORE sweaty! Actually I think we were more worried than he was as so far he's been pretty indestructible!!!


Photo exhibition of AJ

Just another round of various photos of Archie out and about....and er semi naked. Apart from being totally mischievous (as you can see) he also has a good "range" of faces that he can pull- the only difficulty is being able to capture them on camera- as soon as he see's the camera he want to "help".

This is today- popped out to see if we can buy a paddling pool for the balcony but ended up buying G&T for Dad and Ice Cream for all of us. Archie actually had sorbet but was soon on the beg for ours. Aiko had Chocolate and soo we found we had a Mexican son!! Gringo Henington!!



















Here's Archie with Daddy's headphones- good training for those long flights/car journeys when we hope to put him in front of a DVD player with headphones whilst we get some kip (unless we're driving of course)





















Whilst Mummy goes to have her scans sometimes Daddy looks after Archie at a nearby park.














I think his pride is intact but this is his "eee" pose- which sadly is one of our favourties- not sure who will be more embarassed abou this in the future him or us. Anyway to cut a long story short he does this pose and goes "eeee!" bizarre kid we know!



















Archie down a nearby park, sporting a recent scab on his forehead...from jumping down 3 flights of steps- a favourite hobby of his.....as you can see from a previous video





















Finally at his Japanese Granparents- just chilling...and looking a bit like a monkey













Kodomo no kuni














Despite the imminent arrival of baby No.2 and sweltering temperatures we decided to visit 'somewhere'. We recently bought a book of things to do in Kanagawa-ken (our county) and we picked Kodomo no kuni or Childrens Country/Kids land. Basically it's a large park which has a swimning pool, a 100m slide and lots of things to do for kids.

It also is on the end of a train line as well so all in all it's a very well organised (typically Japanese) place.

When you consider the cost of land and how houses are often squeezed in it's always interesting to see how these places manage to stay around.

It's only £3.00 to get in per adult so it's not at all pricey whcih is good news really as in typical Henington fashion by the time we decided to go, got ready and were on our way it was about 3pm... on the way we discovered it closed at 5pm.

We'll go again for sure and it's just as well as we only saw a few things and John is definitely up for the 100m slide and will be preparing a sheet of cardboard into some racing style device to prevent rear heat build up on the way down.

Also quite clear in these photos is that Archie certainly has his Dad's sweaty genes- even allowing for the high temperatures the boy is a sweat machine- aren't we proud....