Hannah at 10 months - cruising

Well I have my life back again after 2 challenging weeks at work. So I can update the blog.



I think that is enough about me.

Over the last month Hannah has really developed her confidence in moving around. As well as crawling she is standing up with help, and 'cruising' - walking around holding on to something.



This video is one of the first of Hannah cruising. It was taken shortly after she turned 10 months.


The next two videos are from a few days ago. Hannah cruising with the Ottoman. A few days ago she fell-down onto the edge of it, and bruised her left cheek quite badly.


Cruising with the chairs. I get the feeling she has the balance skills to stand or even walk but most of the time she doesn't want to push herself.


Hannah now stands up confidently get access to things she is interested in. Here she is liberating some rice biscuits from Mum's bag.


She enjoys climbing in and out of her high chair several times each meal.


A couple of times Hannah has become so absorbed in what she's doing with her hands that she has stood unsupported without realizing it. This is the first time we caught it on video.


But Hannah still prefers to crawl when she can. She is now confident in her techniques for getting up onto the sofa and back down again, and is threatening to crawl over the top.






She was a bit scared of the drop from the living room to the patio, and didn't attempt to cross it. But today she navigated it successfully for the first time.

More hannah at 10 months.

Over the last months we have seen real improvements in Hannahs skills in many areas

Verbal communication. Her favorite word at the moment is "All-ow" ("Hello").





Non-verbal communication.


Social skills




Manual Dexterity. She can drink with a straw....




....and play the castanets




...and use the remote control to change channels.


Shopping. She now likes to help carry our basket at the supermarket, and to carry the bags home.





And choosing the right accessories.

Cat massage

Hannah's most unexpected new skill is cat massage.



She does this quite often. I think Minimi pays her half a bowl of dry food per session.

Cats

Minimi sitting on our new 'Tansu'. (Second-hand old-style chest of drawers).


Minimi and I sharing a romantic moment





Minimu and Sasukue.



Around bonus time I splurged ona flat-panel TV. And as a result I must say I now feel more complete as a man, even though I don't watch it. But some other members of the family seem addicted to it already.


Minimi especially enjoys nature programs and news items about bird flu. In fact, it is difficult to watch anything without him sitting directly in-front of the screen, and pawing any small moving objects.


This is Minimi watching a slide-show on family photos Look how he gets excited when he sees a photo of himself!



So this is Minimi's new favorite place.


It doesn't hurt that the satellite TV decoder is one of the warmest spots in the house and also safely out of Hannah's reach.


Another favourits place - sleeping on Dad.

Little Monster

Hannah screaming at in the bath at Ikadaba.


Harassing Minimi






Harassing Minimi 2.


What can you do when you are too excited to sleep? ... harass Dad and Minimi.

May

Hannah and me on the train coming back from Ikadaba 2 weeks ago.




Family group at home


Hannah and Kyo-chan.


Hannah still isn't showing much interest in walling although she is pretty comfortable standing. This shot is an exception and I don't think she expected the chair to move like this.


Hannah playing with the musical book. She has now realised how to push the big red button to make it play noises.


Having a conversation with Dad. Ive heard her say 'DaDa', 'Mama', 'He-lo' and once 'Sa-su-ke'. But she doesn't seem to use any of these systematically.

Taue - Rice Planting

This post is about the process of planting rice.

It started at the end of March. The rice-fields were ploughed and checked for leaks. And the rice was seeded in trays. The trays were inti tally placed in a warm incubator and after a couple of weeks they were placed outside in the sun to grow.



So after a month we are ready for planting. The first step is to flood the fields and let water sink into the ground to make mud. The next step is to spread fertilizer over the fields. The old way is to squelch across the field flinging the fertilizer around. But now we thave a 'ghostbusters' machine which can fire the fertilizer across the field from the edges. This is Masahiko-san with the 'ghostbusters' machine in the lower fields.




Then the field is ploughed twice to turn it into smooth mud. This is Takashi-san on the tractor with Naomi supervising.




This is Takashi-san again doing the second round of ploughing in the upper field. The rake behind the tractor is smoothing out the mud.


Then the field needs to be smoothed out to eliminate any peaks or troughs. This is hard work because the mud is heavy but very important. The the rice is planted a couple of centimeters under water. If the field is uneven some of the rice will be too deep or to shallow and won't grow properly.






Now the field is ready for the rice seedlings which have been happily growing in their trays and are now about 5cm tall. Before they are planted they get a dusting of 'magic powder' (fungicide and insecticide) and a final watering to spread it around.






And now for the really cool part. In the old days the rice seedlings was planted by hand which much have been a horrible job. Now we have a cute little machine which pretty much does everything except drink the beer at the end of the day.

As you can see here.







To load the machine, the 'turfs' of rice seedlings are unrolled from their trays and rolled onto the magazine at the back. The magazine slides sideways a bit like like a typewriter and 4 mechanical hands pick out little squares of seedlings and place them into the mud at precise depth and intervals.


This is me driving the cute rice-planting machine. ('Cute' really is the brand of the machine).




The machine even has a guide rail that makes a furrow in the mud at the precise distance for the next pass so all you have to do is aim the machine at it. And it beeps when its time to reload.


Its also a good spot for watching frogs.


The final step is to fill in any gaps by planting by hand.


In the backgound you can see Masahiko-san as Yasuyo fixing up the fence. The upper field is right by the edge of the forest and needs a high fence to stop wild deer and pigs trampling the field and eating the rice plants.


I noticed frogs hiding in the fence-posts.


At 5 o'clock the village public-address system plays a tune to tell everyone its time to finish work and go home for a cold beer. You can hear the frogs applauding our work.