At exactly 8 pm, I always run the bath and get Shosei ready for his evening bath. Now that he can stand up, supported by a wall or by putting his arms around my neck and shoulders, it is so easy to undress him. He knows it's a routine and enjoys having his bath. Recently, I started incorporating teeth brushing into the routine. He has 8 teeth. 4 on top, 4 on the bottom. Routine is good for a baby. Routine is good for me. I live by routines. I tend to get out of whack when something out of the ordinary happens during the day. But I've gotten better.
When I was a child, I would stay in the bath and get completely warmed up before bravely stepping out into the cold rooms of my house during the winter months. I used to count to twenty in 3 languages. Japanese, English and in Spanish.
Now, for my son, I count to ten in 4 languages! The latter, plus in Chinese. He is always so content, warm, and sleepy and ready for his evening bottle of warm milk.
It was a fun Christmas Eve for Shosei this year and for his parents as well. We celebrated with a nice homemade Eve dinner of fish meuniere with a topping of cooked bell peppers and capers, fresh green salad, onion soup, bread, large oven roasted shrimp, roasted asparagus, and some cheese and olives as appetizers. Oh, and we opened a bottle of sparkling wine that was a complimentary gift from the resort we stayed in when we went to Gunma. Fortunate for us, we have a view of the still under construction tall radio tower from our balcony and it was lit up in a splendid silvery illumination around Christmas. Shosei was excited to see the Christmas tree lit up on our balcony. He was also happy to receive a cool book from Grandpa in Seattle. It was a special book which you can record your own voice and the reader can follow the story by listening to the recording. Note: Hallmark sells this kind of cool book.
New Years Day is fast approaching! A new year, a new day, another new resolution! My resolution for this year is to keep the resolution from 2011 and get better at it.
