Today was Friday and everyone woke up a bit early. I don't know maybe we all felt refreshed or what! I made my usual homemade pizza with those little sauce packets I blogged about last month, I think. The mozzarella cheese and some peperoni. Two chicken cutlets and some fries and 1 steamed broccoli for Branden's veggie of the afternoon, lol. And some fruit, which was mikan! It was a quick lunch to make and Noboru and my dad sat at the table and drank coffee together while chewing the fat over something or other, while I was preparing B's lunch! : )
Today the rain was so bad, his raincoat alone wouldn't do, so we had to pull out Branden's umbrella! I was debating if he should wear his rain boots or not, I let him wear his school mandatory yochien shoes. But in the afternoon when it actually poured rain nonstop, I regretted not insisting him to wear his rain boots, ha ha ha! Mistake # 5 billion, I'm sure, oh well! : )
Grandpa walks Branden to the bus stop every morning and picks him up at the same bus stop every afternoon, unless we pick him up at the school instead though. This was B, this morning before grandpa walked Branden down this morning! We also told the school, we have to pick up B from school early today because his brother Noah has his 18 moth old check up today and it's at the same time Branden gets out of school, so it's better if we pick him up early. So we picked up Branden this afternoon at 12:15 pm. And then we rushed home and unpacked his yochien stuff and headed out in the pouring rain to the "cattle call" type heath check, you know where they throw you in a room with about 30 other, 18 month old's all at the same time? LOL! My god, those things are nuts, aren't they?
Since it was just my dad and I, they used easy Japanese for me, to easily understand and also used bits of English thrown in as well. But I tried my best and that is what counts! They measured Noah's weight, head, chest, height etc. Then we went to a different area and they checked his teeth by some dentist lady or whatever. She was checking for any tooth decay or cavities. Since Noah isn't allowed much sweets or anything stronger then a 20% diluted apple juice or diluted oolong tea, I wasn't worried a bit. B has perfect teeth too, so again, I wasn't worried. She said...shiroi, meaning white, and she said that for each tooth. And she he has perfect teeth and then we went to the next booth, lol. And there they listened to his heart and looked up his nose and peeked at his private parts down there and Noah was *not* crazy about them peeking inside his diaper at all and seeing the "family jewels!" Ha ha ha, but he didn't fuss or anything which was pretty amazing. Next we all sat in 1 big gigantic tatami room with all the other mom's and kids. This cute little girl....do you see her in the picture? She was wearing the brown overalls with piggy tails? Noah was wearing the pale yellow cheap 340 yen, nishimatsuya shirt closest the camera. Anyway, this girl had somehow fixated on Noah and she followed him everywhere, she even tried to kiss him, which her mom had to pull the little girl away and the mom gomen nasai-ed me. Noah didn't quite know what to do. I told the mom, it was okay, I wasn't upset in the least, I mean it's just a teeny tiny little kid kissing another teeny tiny little kid and they're both just 18 month's old. It wasn't like she was a maniac or anything, so yeah I really didn't see the big deal about it. She really liked Noah no big deal, ha ha ha. But, Noah was more interested in playing with the book,and with his brother B. It was sorta funny though, poor Noah got an unexpected smooch-a roo, a chu chu! : )
Then they called us for some talk about immunizations. And she tested him some more with block and tested his speech ability as well. First came the talk about the immunizations. Now we all know, I immunize in the states, but the BCG we did get in Japan. However since many of the shots he does have, aren't marked in the Japanese healthbook thing, I guessed she assumed we didn't get those shots. So she said, I see you don't have a measles and rubella immunization and also a DTP immunization as well. I pulled out my American records and I showed her and again my Japanese isn't great. So, I said, "we immunize in America"....."ippai ippai shots" meaning he actually has been vaccinated more then they do in Japan. So not to worry, is what I meant. And I'm not saying the Japanese way is wrong and there isn't anything wrong with it at all. But for me personally, I prefer immunize in America for my kids and it's a personal choice. I showed her, we actually have DTAP and he has 3, mitsu, Polio, again mitsu, MMR futatsu meaning 2. I went down the whole list showing her what Noah had. HepB, mitsu and more. Honestly? She was pretty impressed, so much so, that she asked if she could make a photo copy of Noah's American immunization record, I said, sure and she did. Next the lady who just discussed immunizations with me tested his language and stuff. She pulled out some blocks and stacked them one on top of each other showing him. Next she put them down and asked him to do it himself. Noah did it exactly! I wasn't worried so much, only because he plays that game with his brother at home all the time but in their game at home they like to crash and knock the blocks down, lol, boys! Next she pulled out the cards and she asked him if he could tell her what it was. She pulled out a card with a nice shiny ball on it. Knowing full well, we just bought him that Anpanman ball last month remember? He knows exactly what it is. Noah looked at it and I told Noah, go ahead tell her what it is, Noah said "ball", next she showed a picture of a baby yellow chicken. She asked Noah what is this, Noah said, "chickie peep peep", a bunch of the mom's and a grandmother in particular looked on (this is the hard part, because only 3 mom's and kids go up at a time, meanwhile the other 30 sets of mom's and kids all stare and watch the 3 unfortunate souls who go up first or when it's their turn, yikes! Megumi and I watched and stared at all the ones who went before us too) And the lady told me personally and she also wrote it down in the healthbook, which Noboru read when he got home, she said "Noah is very smart and his language skill is fantastic!" She wrote this in Japanese of course, Noboru was really happy about that. She also told me, we were now free to move to the final test and gave me my health hand book back at this point. I thanked her and we went to the next area. The final stage after all that, was they showed us how to brush our child's teeth. Mother's who have had a second child really should be exempt from this part, because like I said, we've already been there going on an hour and a half already sheesh. It was taking forever. So we went in there and she told me to brush Noah's teeth, she watched me brush his teeth, she said I did it fine, nothing really to say. Oh yes, she suggested I use shorter strokes?, ha ha ha! I said okay. Meanwhile she liked Noah's toothbrush because it has ducks on it. And she loved his cup, which I thought was sorta funny. She said his teeth were kirei (sp?) meaning beautiful (which was pretty nice of her to say I guess) and then we left, finally finishing all the little examinations, boy was it a long day and we were thrilled to be out of there!!! It was still raining buckets after all that, can you believe it? My dad and I were a bit hungry so we went to the karaoke place we went to the other night, not for singing. They do pizza take-out as well. And we loved their pizza. So we ordered a medium pizza to go. The owner guy, was so nice while we waited for the pizza to be done, he gave us a free drink bar while we waited. I had a Hi-C slushy. My dad had iced coffee, and Branden had Hi-C slushy as well. Noah munched on plain ice, lol. We paid and took our hot pizza to the car in the pouring rain and I drove home and we ate our pizza in our comfy clothes. When Noboru came home from work around 7:00 pm, I warmed up the sukiyaki leftovers we had from last night and we all ate the left over sukiyaki! So that was our Friday in a nut shell, you guys! : )
Side notes of the whole mass check up thing. One of my girlfriends (Megumi) was there as well. Her child is Noah's age and is a little girl. So Megumi and my dad and I, were chatting while Noah and her daughter and B played together. So it was actually a pinch sociable, ha ha ha! It wasn't so bad! But man so many parents and so many kids all thrown in 1 room together, it can get a bit nuts!
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