This one is for Audible...

Honestly, my mind is a bit of a mess. There are many things I'd like to write about, but none of them are quite clear yet, so I decided to go with an easy one. I'd like to talk about how Audible changed my life for the better. It sounds silly, I know, but it's true.

I've been interested in signing up for Audible for a few years now, but felt it was too expensive to do so. Then last year, after the years of competition between my reading time and my knitting time have gotten too tiresome, and the pile of books I wanted to read have gotten sky high, I've decided that I would take just one more look. My birthday has just passed (without any presents), so I thought to myself that if I found at least a handful of books from my list, I would sign up. 

So I did, and it was one of my better decisions of late. It is really convenient and the narrators are generally great. Not to mention, the price thing has worked out well, too. To date I've spent 20 out of my yearly 24 credits, downloaded 97 books (not including my free daily NY Times subscription, and theatrical performances), and listened to 27. While 27 might seem quite small compared to 97, quite a few of the books that I've bought were books I've read or listened to prior to signing up for Audible, which I wanted to have because there's a high chance of me wanting to listen to them again in the future. Also, 27 books is more than 2 books a month on average. Before Audible, I was lucky to finish a single book in a couple of months, so I went from 3-6 books a year to 27 books. That extra 20 is why I love Audible so much.

True I could download a lot of the books for free from a torrent site, but when I divide up the $230 I've paid for my 24 credits with the 100 or so audiobooks I've got this past year, I've paid less for these books than most people pay for their morning coffee, or what I pay for my morning commute. And have I mentioned the quality and customer support? Another great thing about Audible is that while they provide listening samples of each book to help with the decision of purchasing something, if for some reason I'm not satisfied after I have bought a book, I can return it and get my money/credit back, no questions asked!

Anyways, this is my small love affair with Audible.

Let's Go to Kaiyukan!

Two weekends ago, there was a three-day weekend here, July 13th to 15th. Originally we planned to go and do some hiking at Sandankyo, but the weather forecast threatened rain and thunderstorms, and I hesitated too long to acquire lodgings. Since Rini enjoyed the Fukuyama Zoo so much, we decided instead to do only a day-trip and visit the aquarium at Osaka, called Kaiyukan.

To get to the aquarium from Fukuyama, we had to take the shinkansen for an hour to Shin-Osaka, then regular train and subway to Osakako for another half hour. Including waiting and transfer, it took two hours to get there. The aquarium was a comfortable 5 minute walk from Osakako station. If I remember correctly, it cost us roughly 7,000yen per person one way, making it a bit expensive, but that's nothing new in Japan.

Kaiyukan is open generally every day from 10 A.M to 8 P.M. We wanted to get there early, so we took the 8:30 A.M. train from our local stop, Bingo-Honjo station, which got us to Osakako by 10:30 A.M. There are earlier trains available, but Rini doesn't generally wake up until 7:30-8 o'clock, and we didn't want to wake her up earlier, in case she would be tired and cranky.

I'm a bit sad we missed out on it...

When we got to the aquarium, there was a really long line to the ticket machines. A friend of ours warned us that it would be crowded, especially because of the long weekend, but I guess I didn't expect it to be crowded quite as much this early. Luckily the line moved in a good pace, but after 10 minutes or so, Rini and I went to find some shade as the sun was really strong, and left James to get our tickets. Good thing that we did, too, because as soon as I got Rini in the shade, she passed right out for her nap. This worked out quite well, because we waited another 20 minutes for James to get our tickets, which were 2,300yen for adults, and free for children under 3. We could have bought tickets that included the huge Ferris wheel near-by for another 300-400yen per person, however we were a bit low on funds, and decided against it.

Anyways, with tickets in hand, off we went inside the cool aquarium. Rini kept sleeping for another ten minutes or so, which was just fine, as there were a lot of people and we moved slowly with our stroller. Once inside, we saw many awesome things, like:

Otters!!! I never quite realized how BIG they were.

Penguins... Rini woke up just before we reached them.

A REALLY BIG fish.

Pretty underwater life...

It's hard to see, but the tiny blue fish were beautiful.

Rini really liked these blue fish. She sat here the longest.

Looking at the pretty fish with daddy.

My favorites were the dolphins. Closest I've been to one.

Rini wasn't quite sure about the bigger animals...

As long as they were far, it was fine, but when they came close, she wanted to leave.

As we headed deeper, we saw the penguins again, this time, swimming.

I think one of James's favorites was this huge turtle.

One of Ursula's minions also made an appearance.

These king crabs were awesome, but Rini was not going to have any of it.
She wouldn't even stay for a photo.

These guys were swimming above us. Quite cute, I think.

Just to up the level of cuteness, we picked up Rini for a photo.
Of course, after us, everyone was trying to take the same picture of their child.

James's favorite was this GIGANTIC jelly fish.
It was twice as big as a human head!

More pretty jelly fish. I learned that the longer their tails are (between species),
the more likely they will hurt to touch.

We got to look at a few penguins up close at the end.

Rini pointing out the penguin we just saw.

It's a bit big... and to think we only caught half its horn on camera.

Size of humans (bottom left) versus different sharks.

After seeing this, I've decided I'd rather not be eaten by a shark.

A family photo at the end of the day.

And this is all. The whole thing took about 3 hours from start to finish, although I'm sure it would have taken longer would we have gotten one of those English digital guides. We also saw many people using their Nintendo DS at various points throughout the aquarium. It seemed like another way to get more information about the animals we saw, and to engage children more as well. Just before leaving we took a few more photos, and visited the gift shop. There were a few interesting things, but it was mainly plushies of all sizes of the various tenants of the aquarium. Once again, Rini only seemed interested in the tags of the various gifts, not really the gifts themselves, except for the penguins, so we got a tiny one that had a magnet sewn into its body. If it were up to Rini she would have taken two of the same thing, but alas she had to make do with one.
When we were done, we made our way to the food court in the plaza next door for some late lunch.
On our way home we found this pretty little manhole cover. These are all over Japan, with designs specific to its town or city. I always want to take a picture of them whenever we're at a new place, but most times forget to do so. I think it'd be a cool way to keep track of one's travels within Japan, but alas it'll have to be someone else, as I doubt we'll have a chance to return to any of the places we've seen until now.

Riding the shinkansen home, Rini sporting a crazy hairdo after her hair-ties got removed.

Overall, it was a great day and I'm glad we went. I hope we'll be able to take many more day- and weekend-trips during our last year in Japan.

Sweet 16... months...

Looking cute with pigtails!

I think this is starting to become a monthly post of which I am glad, though knowing me, I will not hold my breath, just in case.

Height: 78 cm

Weight: 9.5 kg

Clothing size: 80cm

Shoes size: 11.5cm (or 3 in the US)

Diaper size: medium

Teeth: I don't know where they came from but this past Wednesday (the 10th) I looked into Rini's mouth and she had 2 new teeth, another's point just poking out, and one more right under the gums! More specifically, Rini's 7th and 8th teeth are her Top Right and Top Left #4s, which are halfway out. Her 9th tooth is her Bottom Right #2, which by yesterday had a nice thin line showing, and her 10th tooth is suspected to be the Bottom Left #3 or #4, but can't really tell yet, since she only has #1 on that side. I think one of the reasons we didn't see them coming was because on top she already has 4 teeth, concealing things in the back. Also, while she did have a slight (mommy-instinct-only) fever a few weeks back, she also had a bit of a cold soon after, so we just chalked it up to that.
Anyways, the point is, this girl doesn't do anything in bits and pieces it seems. She grew her first 6 teeth within a month and a half, then nothing for 5 months or so, and now here are another 3, with the 4th expected to be out by the end of summer for sure. I must keep a better watch, lest she sneaks another 2 or 3 by me, while I'm not looking.

Eyes: I think I will remove this section from now on, and comment only, if we notice something change.

Food: It was the cutest thing when a few days ago (maybe Thursday), while my husband was slicing some lemons for dinner, Rini became curious and asked to taste the half lemon on the table. Seeing as she's well past her first birthday, the age before which people advise to steer clear of citrus fruits, I saw no harm of her tasting it a bit. What came next was a bit of a surprise as instead of taking a lick and making a frowning face because of the intense sourness of it, she went ahead and happily sucked and licked away, sometimes making an "AAAH" sound, like the one we tend to make after drinking a refreshing cold beverage on a hot day. In the end we gave her a thin slice of lemon, no rind, and she ate it all up, with a few more slices after that. I'm really glad that she's more adventurous than not when it comes to food, and I hope she will keep this as a trait in the future.

Nursing: A few months back, I read somewhere that one way to gently discourage night-time feeding, especially when the family shares a bed, is to let the father sleep between the mother and child. This way, supposedly the child doesn't smell the scent of the mother as easily, and will not wake just for the sake of nursing and comfort. We tried this method before going back to NYC and saw positive results.
Now that we're definitely back in our usual sleep routine, we decided to give it a try once more. We moved our futons around a bit and changed positions, where now I sleep next to the wall, my husband next to me, and Rini on her little futon next to him. We also decided to once again stick to our predetermined nursing times of bedtime/after midnight/after 2AM/after 4AM, with the understanding that if Rini wakes up around 1:30AM or so for the first time to nurse, she can, and the next time will be after 4AM. When it is time to nurse, Daddy would hand her over to my side, and Rini would sleep between me and the wall for the rest of the night, unless we were awake enough to put her back to her futon after she was done nursing. If Rini woke up any other time, Daddy would take charge and offer her water and soothe her back to sleep.
This past month she's been nursing 2 to 3 times a night (bedtime, 1-2AM, maybe 4-5AM), with bits of water in-between. Although we have the A/C running on low at night, I don't fault her for being thirsty, as I am thirsty as well. I also realize now, that the past month's frequent feeding might have had something to do with her teething, so I guess we're doing much better overall that I thought.

Sleeping: Now Rini sleeps 12-13 hours at night, waking up roughly 3 times, out of which, at least one is for water only. More often than not, she wakes up as I wrote above, gradually going from 3 feedings down to 2, including the one at bedtime. This has helped me to get a much better night's rest, especially when I decide to just go to bed when she does. I'm hoping that by the time she's 18 months old, we could count on a single feeding through the night, and by 21 months, have only the bedtime feeding and her sleeping through the night officially. Finally, we'll stop bedtime nursing once she turns two, I think.
As for naps, she still naps for a relatively short time, I think on average from 30 minutes to an hour once a day. Would this be a new occurrence, I might be worried, but even as a teeny-tiny baby she didn't nap longer than 15 to maybe 30 minutes, so I guess that's just the way she is.
Also, we finally set up her crib, and she seems to really like it. She likes to play in it for quite a while, and often asks us to put her in it. Not to mention, after she falls asleep on her Daddy, he's able to put her into the crib without a hitch, and she doesn't get frightened when she wakes up there. Maybe someday we'll try and see if she could sleep there at night, too, but we're in no rush.

Milestones: She's walking now like it's no one's business. She has picked up some speed too, so going for a walk is much more about the walk itself, than walking practice, if this makes sense. I wouldn't say she can run yet, more like just taking quick steps, but I'm sure we'll be there sooner rather than later.

She also holds her cups really well, and rarely spills her drinks. She's great at holding her spoon and fork, and bringing food to her mouth, though I probably should have mentioned this a couple months ago already. What surprised me mostly in this though, was the way she has been holding her spoon and fork. She never just grabbed it full handed like we expect most babies/toddlers to do, but instead holds them almost like an adult would, resting the handle between her thumb and pointing finger, and using the rest of her fingers to help as necessary.
Next, we're either becoming better at understanding what she wants or her communication skills are getting much better, or maybe it's a bit of both, but there seems to be a much better understanding between all of us. For example, she understands and follows simple commands in both Hungarian and English. So far I've noticed her doing this when we tell her to come here, to stand up or sit down, when I tell her to give something to Daddy, or give something to me, when we tell her it's time to bathe (we don't have to do anything except tell her, and she heads to the shower area on her own), or that she shouldn't put something in her mouth. She also goes and sits into her little feeding chair when it's time to eat, without any prompting from us most times.
She doesn't like to respond to the general "No," but she has a pretty good understanding of what's allowed and what's not. This is especially apparent, when we walk in on her doing something that's generally not allowed, and she get flustered a bit, and smilingly stops what she's doing or tries to give us the object, like that's all she ever planned on doing. She's quite sneaky. (^_^)
Speaking of bathing, she also lifts her legs and steps out of her pants now, and holds her hands up when we take her shirt off. And while brushing her teeth, which we started doing nightly a bit before her first tooth came in, is generally not one of her favorite things to do, there are days when she moves the toothbrush around in a way that gets most of the job done.
Finally, something I've noticed a week or so ago is that she stacks blocks! Not just 2 or 3, but I saw her stacking as high as 7! I can't wait to get her Legos soon! (Maybe for Christmas?)
Edit to add: I completely forgot to mention that she can stay on a swing by herself quite comfortably, and enjoys it whenever we go to the park.
Here's a video from June 22nd:

Words: Few days ago, Daddy heard Rini saying "mommy" quite clearly. Otherwise, she's just generally more active in trying to imitate whatever words we say, to the point where I could recognize some things (like kitty in Hungarian), as she repeats it, but she doesn't use these words on her own yet. I can't be sure, but I think I have heard her say "add ide," meaning "give me" in Hungarian, and at the correct situation too, but I'm hesitant to believe it, as I generally use the more polite (and complicated) form of "kérem szépen" when I ask for something from her. Regardless, she's definitely trying her best to communicate with whatever means she can.

Favorite toys: Lately, blocks have been quite a favorite, as well as her "cell phone" and this little blue singing bear that we got from our good friends.She also likes the detachable stars from her crib, and plays with them quite a while as long as we're willing to attach it back for her, so she can pull them off again.
We recently bought her a little drawing mat, which works buy putting a bit of water into the accompanying pens and the mat turns from white to pink where it gets wet, to go back to white as it dries. It's a no fuss way for her to draw and she seems to enjoy it well enough.
Finally, she has a couple shapes-into-holes toys she likes, even though she's not very good with it yet. She manages to put the circle and square into their appropriate holes, but not much else yet, so while she wants to play with them, she gets frustrated easily and asks us to do it for her.

Now what is this that I've found?

Likes: Orange juice is a big hit! She loves being on the swing, too, and can hold herself pretty well, as I gently push her. Rini also enjoys when I put things on her head for her to balance, which she in turn tries to put on mine. Other times, we act silly by passing a ruler to each other with our mouths, and other games like that.

Dislikes: Brushing her teeth, most times; changing her diaper, sometimes... It's hard to tell, as there are not many things. Even her recent fear of water has been getting better. Though she still refuses to sit in water, she at least plays with water in the basin. I'm hoping that by visiting some pools and beaches this summer we can befriend her to swimming.

Mommy/baby update: The biggest change I think this month has been how she doesn't cry as much when I leave the house, as she used to. So much so, that a few times she even happily waved bye to me and went back to playing. This is great, if for no other reason than I won't have to sneak out of the house in the morning in case she wakes up before I leave.

Knitting Update #3 - Rosie's Blanket

Finished blanket.

When I heard that good friends of ours were expecting their third baby, I knew I had to make something for the little one. Usually I go for baby hats or something along those lines, since it's quick and they'll outgrow it anyways in a few weeks. (Also, because I'm still not very confident in making garments for babies... I'll have to work on that.

Anyways, my point is, I have lot to thank these friends of ours, especially the mom, as without her, I honestly believe we would not have fared half as well during our pregnancy and first year with our daughter. So I've decided that, why not, I'll make another baby blanket. This was back in January, and the baby wasn't due until June, so I knew I had time. Even though I promised never to make another baby blanket for anyone else, other than my own children, I had so much fun making my daughters circular blanket and it was so fast, I was really looking forward to making this one.

I did my research diligently, first looking into what yarn I should choose, by reading through a lot of forum threads on Ravelry. I knew I wanted something that could be washed in the washing machine, yet I refuse to use acrylic. Since the baby was due in June, I was hoping to find a cotton blend, because summers in Fukuyama tend to be well above 30 degrees Celsius and really humid, except for the rainy season,when it's quite cool at night. Finally, just to prove that I wasn't a crazy person, I promised myself to look at worsted weight or thicker yarn only.
In the end, I settled on Sweater by Spud & Chloë. It is a worsted weight wool/cotton blend yarn that is machine washable. It is also organic, which is always a nice plus. Because it is 45% cotton, people mentioned that it doesn't hold the blocking really well, but in my opinion, that's OK with a blanket.

Next came the pattern. Around this time, we found out that the new baby will be a girl, which doubled my efforts in finding just the right project, as I could add lace, making the search much easier. Searching through all the circular blankets and shawls, there were a few I really liked. There were two reasons that made me decide on the Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood in the end. First, I also found out that the baby's name will be Rosie, so I thought the center would be a nice touch, and second, this was a blanket I considered making our child, only we never knew her gender while pregnant, so it got out-voted.

I ordered my yarn online: 4 skeins of pink (Tiny Dancer 7526) and 2 skeins of purple (Jelly Bean 7513). It arrived in the beginning of February, and I began to knit right away. Here are my notes from Ravelry:

1. February 21st: I used up the first skein of yarn in row 12 of the feather and fan section, so according to my calculations I estimate the skein “holding” at least 6130 stitches. If that’s true, my 2nd ball should run out around row 34, the 3rd around row 48, the fourth around row 60, and I’d still have one skein left for the blanket. So far so good.
   
2. February 26th: Math for the WIN! 2nd skein ran out as expected just after finishing row 33. I’m planning on knitting until row 80, then bind off.
   
3. March 3rd: Math for the WIN, once again! 3rd skein ran out after finishing row 48. Started purple and looking good.
4. (Here I should mention that I was ready to bind off in April. However, I had a feeling I didn't quite have enough yarn, and decided to wait until after we came back from NYC, at which point I become super busy with work. Needless to say, I wasn't able to start trying to actually bind off until mid-May, much later than I had hoped.)
5. June 16th:

   

   It's hard to see, but it did pucker...

   After trying to bind off, to run out of yarn, to frog, to bind off again, like 5 times, it is finally done. In the end I had to take off my last repeat of the feather and fan section to have enough yarn to use the bind off described in the pattern. That means, I used up probably 6-7 row’s worth of yarn. To be fair, while the blanket was knit with US#8 needles, I did the bind off with US#9. Still have a tiny amount of yarn left, enough for a tiny swatch to use as a test in the washing machine. Blocked relatively well, though the last 4 repeats of the pattern or so puckered, so should be knit with bigger needles. Unfortunately, I read those suggestions too late.

Overall, I really enjoyed making this blanket. The yarn was nice to work with and shed only a little as I worked with it. The pattern wasn't too difficult, though I had to tink back a few times in the beginning while I was getting used to the pattern. I would like to make this blanket again in the future, using its intended yarn (Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool), and following people's suggestions about increasing needle sizes on the way. Final blocked size turned out to be 125 cm across from one point to another. I do not think I measured gauge before blocking.