Jamie and Liam Chew's Blog: 2009-01-01

2009-01-01 21:30 (John) Alissa came over to help clean up the house in the morning; Liam and I went to pick up Nobuko and Tomoko and the osechi (Japanese New Year's banquet food). Liam is very serious about helping with everything, though he can get distracted easily, say by packages of Anpanman rice crackers left carelessly lying about an apartment. He wanted to eat them, but also wanted to see the whole set before doing so, correctly inferring the hidden presence of a Baikinman package and asking for it until he got it. Liam carried a large bag of Anpanman character rice cracker packages to the car for us.

We all ate until we were very full, the cousins played with each other, Liam and Kristen on guitar accompanied Ted on violin. Ian helped Jamie unlock new Mario Kart Wii features.

Before bath, we watched some of Totoro on my laptop. Liam has been speaking more and more Japanese, learning more from video sources than I remember Jamie doing. Today, he was excitedly repeating "Taihen!", which may join "Otto!" among his favourite Japanese exclamations.

In the bath, Liam asked to be tickled. He likes to tickle and be tickled, and has a special mischievous when he tickles. He tickled me, he tickled the bath, and we took turns playing This Little Piggy. Jamie sat on the toilet for the longest time trying to whistle, achieving success for the first time after about a week's trying, and is rightfully proud. My dad taught me how to whistle in the bath when I was eight; I don't remember him stressing proper tongue placement (tip against lower front teeth, middle arched high), but thank goodness for Google and helpful web sites or Jamie would still just be blowing air out his lips.