Setting Goals for Our Bilingual Journey

Raising my son to be a bilingual (or multilingual) person has been on the list of our parenting goals for a long time but we haven't been able to be very strategic about it. This year, though, I have set my mind to change that. So when I heard about this 5 day 2017 Language Challenge over at Bilingual Avenue, I took this opportunity and signed myself up. I wasn't able to do it on time but I did complete it (yay!), and I'd like to share some of my thoughts that came up while working on this language challenge.

One of the major purposes of this challenge was to set goals for our bilingual journey. Of course, our ultimate goal is that my son would become equally confident in both languages in every aspect of his language skills and of his life. I've read many times, however, that this is one of the biggest myths about bilingual people, that they are two monolingual speakers in one, but why not aim high, right? :)

More realistically though, I want my son to be able to converse fluently with his family members and friends in Japanese, and to be able to get by on his own when we stay in Japan. Or possibly when he lives in Japan in the future. This includes not only conversational skills but also reading and writing in all three forms of letters, and learning its culture and customs. To achieve this I want him to finish at least 6th grade level at his Japanese language school.

Once I heard of a story of a Japanese person who grew up in an English speaking country. She came back to Japan hoping to get a job while she stayed there. She spoke just like any other Japanese speaking people, but unfortunately couldn't write or read kanjis (one of the three forms of letters in Japanese) very well so she wasn't qualified for most jobs in Japan. As a Japanese nationality, however, she wasn't qualified for those jobs that were open for foreigners either. She was stuck.

Now I hate to use someone else's story as a bad example, but I have to say I'd want my son to be able to use his full potential if he ever lives there without being restricted by his language skills.

To achieve these grand, rather abstract, goals, it'll be helpful to break them into smaller, more practical goals that we could work on an everyday basis and this is what I came up for our 2017 goals.

• Be able to speak his minority language more naturally with larger vocabulary and longer sentences
• Be able to write hiraganas (the first form of letters kids usually learn. He can read them already)
• Be able to read the second form of letters katakanas
• Be able to read basic children's books on his own

In my next post, I'd like to share some thoughts on how we can achieve these goals by looking at what worked and what didn't in our language journey so far.

On Bilingualism

Now that I have set my routine and secure some time for more or less regular blogging thanks in part to bullet journaling, I can finally write about something that is dear to my heart: raising a bilingual/multilingual child. I have wanted to write about this topic for a long time, but just couldn't get around to do it for various reasons.

I have always been interested in the process of learning/speaking different languages. I even study the subject for my postgraduate degree. I LOVE reading and talking about anything linguistics (my husband can tell you how many hours I have bored him with this linguistic stuff, haha).

So I had known a thing or two about how to raise a bilingual child even before I had my son . I knew there would be some issues ahead of us but in theory it seemed straightforward enough. I speak the minority language to my son. My husband speaks the community language (English) to him. We could do this.

Of course, just like any other parenting matters, the things that seem straightforward in theory often turn out to be anything but, and raising a bilingual child was no exception for me. I'd like to write about the issues I had faced in the past in a separate post but suffice it to say I'm terrible at this. My 4-year-old son's minority language skill is, I have to say, not as good as his friends of the same age (his English is perfectly fine). But I haven't given up.  Thankfully, where we live now has a Saturday school that teaches in my son's minority language and has been a tremendous help in the past year. And this year I'd like to make more conscious efforts to teach him his minority language. Then I thought one of the ways to make it more conscious is to write about our journey. I have always wanted to write about bilingualism so why not just go ahead and write about it, right?

As a start, here are my 3 personal reasons why I have chosen to raise my son in 2 languages (hopefully more) that can keep me personally accountable to my family's language goals (this prompt was given by Bilingual Avenue podcast episode 152).

1. To be able to experience his other culture directly without relying on translations: I believe that speaking the language helps people understand the culture at a deeper level, and I want my son to experience this.
2. To be able to better communicate with his family members: actually my own parents speak good English so probably this is not a strong enough motivation for us but still I think it's better if my son could speak his minority language fluently.
3. To know that there is a bigger and exciting world out there: even if my son didn't end up speaking his minority language fluently, I think it's valuable for him to learn that people speak different languages and none of them is better or worse than another. 

I think we're in a pretty good position regarding 3. My son tells me excitingly who speaks what language at his school and seems proud that he could "speak" English, Japanese and Spanish :)

What are your 3 reasons? If you're raising a multilingual child or planning to, please let me know in the comment section.

Happy 4th birthday - Dora and Diego party

Little Guy turned 4 just the other day! Past years had a Sesame Street Party (2nd), a Thomas & Friends Party (3rd) and this year we decided to have a Dora and Diego party (they are his current favorites as written in this post). I found lots of inspirations on Pinterest, such as the "Swiper No Swiping" sign (to which I added Swiper's picture myself) and the favor bags that looked like Rescue Pack. I originally planned to make Backpack favor bags for the girls and Rescue Pack for the boys but unfortunately I couldn't find orange bags that were the right size. I used this template for the favor bags. Instead of printing in colored paper, though, I had Little Guy color the eyebrows and the mouth, adding a little personal touch from the birthday boy. The colors were not perfect but I liked it better. It turned out to be a really good idea to have him on board to prepare for the party. We had a lot of fun together and Little Guy seemed to have gotten more excited about his upcoming party. One thing I couldn't make it work was this idea where you draw eyes and a mouth on a cheese stick to make it look like the map. I couldn't find a pen that could write on a cheese stick wrapper. Too bad. It looked really cute on the picture on pinterest. And I used this recipe for the cupcakes, which were frosted with whipped cream with some orange and green sprinkles to match the theme.

The baby jaguar on the table was a present from us, like Diego's best friend :)

I prepared a few activities for the kids, suc as Dora & Diego masks, bubbles, origami paper, Dora & Diego coloring pages. One of these coloring pages, I rolled it and draw eyes and a mouth to make it looke like the map and put it in the favor bag. We also had some toy animals hidden in a room and gave the kids some toy telescopes (like the "spotting cope" that Diego has) to find the animals. But alas they didn't really play with these things, preferring to play with Little Guy's other toys they found in the play room. Oh well, as long as they had fun, that all matters. 

All in all we, both the kids and the parents, had a great time. Little Guy's so pround of being a big boy that he tells everybody he meets that he's four years old now. So cute. 

I compiled more ideas and inspirations for a Dora and/or Diego party on my "birthday party ideas" board on pinterest, some of which I didn't use for our party but still seem like a great idea. Please check it out if you're interested.

Weekly Favorites 10-10

(Almost) everyday, I share stories I found and liked on the Internet via  Facebook, Twitter and Flipboard, the topics ranging from Cats to Bilingualism to Early Childhood Education to Music and more. Here are those stories in a more convenient weekly roundup form for you. Hope you'll find something that interests you. If you liked these stories don't forget to follow me via one (or more!) of the social media sites above to get notified as soon as I share them:

Health

Get the Most Out of Your Practice (Yoga)

Parenting

Our Sleep Training Nightmare

Teaching Your Child Emotional Agility

Quotes

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."

- Hippolyte Taine, French critic and historian

Weekly Favorites 9-25

(Almost) everyday, I share stories I found and liked on the Internet via  Facebook, Twitter and Flipboard, the topics ranging from Cats to Bilingualism to Early Childhood Education to Music and more. Here are those stories in a more convenient weekly roundup form for you. Hope you'll find something that interests you. If you liked these stories don't forget to follow me via one (or more!) of the social media sites above to get notified as soon as I share them:

Bilingualism

Thomas Bak: Language lessons to help protect against dementia

Parenting

Is the Social-Emotional Development of Your Highly Sensitive Child Being Misread?

Miscellaneous

I hate making phone calls but this article makes me kind of nostalgic about phone calls: The Death of the Telephone Call

Books

Little Guy and I love this cute and unique ABC book: Apple pie ABC

What Little Guy Read This Month

I love books. Reading was one of my favorite activities in my childhood (still is but sadly little time to read). I even made myself a little reading nook in a closet for a comfortable, uninterrupted reading time since I shared a room with my brothers. I love that books can teach you many things, cultivate imagination and quite literally take you anywhere you'd like to go. One thing I definitely would like my son to take after me would be the love of reading (hopefully in both of his languages!), and naturally I enjoy our story time a lot. Luckily Little Guy seems to like reading too :)

So I've decided to share a few books Little Guy read and liked each month here on my blog. I've finally signed up for Goodreads and share the rest of the books he read, some of which he liked and some didn't so much. So please check those out too. I hope one of those books will turn out to be your favorite.

OK, without further ado, here are some of the books we enjoyed this month in no particular order. 

Goldy Luck and The Three Pandas by Natasha Yim

This is such a cute and funny book. As you can imagine it's based on the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story but the main girl in this book is a Chinese girl celebrating Chinese New Year, and the three bears are, naturally, pandas. I like that after making a mess at the panda family's house, Goldy regretted that she ran off and actually went back to their house to apologize and make amends. It's a feel good story for a new year and you can have a glimpse at how other culture celebrates New Year too. I'd think it's a little lengthy for really small children but for this one Little Guy didn't mind it at all. 

Snowmen at night by Caralyn Buehner

A little boy sees the snowman he built looked a bit "off" the next morning, and wonders what the snowman was doing all night. It turns out the snowmen around the neighborhood gathered together and had a lot of fun, like snowball fights, playing baseball etc. This is such a cute way to look at a sad part of making a snowman. Instead of feeling bad about it melting, children can imagine all kinds of activities the snowmen did and that is why they look a little different the next morning. When it was time to return this book to the library, Little Guy actually cried :(

 Hansel and Diesel by David Gordon

This is another one of those stories that's based on a fairy tale. I got this one out from the library because Little Guy likes the trucks and Diesel in Thomas & friends, and he liked the story a lot. The storyline is pretty much the same as Hansel and Gretel but instead of being abandoned in the woods, the brother and the sister decided to go find fuel on their own for the family, came across a fancy gas station and met the wicked winch. It's a funny adaptation of a fairy tale.

You're a Crab! A Moody Day Book by Jenny Whitehead

Last but not least, this is my current favorite :) The book illustrates different emotions comparing to sea animals, for example, crabby crab, silly jellyfish, mean shark, and mopey manatee. The best part I like is that when a child just feels like left alone, they can be a hermit crab and Mom will be one too and stay by their side until they feel better. When Little Guy feels a bit moody, we make a silly puffy fish face or do the octopus hug like in the book, which helps us a lot. Being able to learn names of sea animals is a plus too. The only thing I'd have to say about this book is, because the crab looks scary in the cover picture, Little Guy initially thought this was a scary monster type of book and took a lot of my effort to convince him to read it.

Please also check my goodreads page and Little Guy's "bookshelf" to find more books we read. Thanks.

Pipe Cleaner Christmas Ornaments

It's Christmas Eve. We've made Christmas cookies, We've read a few Christmas stories (e.g. Llama Llama Jingle Bells. Cute book). We've watched quite a few Thomas & friends Christmas episodes. And we've made lots of Christmas crafts at the library. Among them, Little Guy liked and was good at making these pipe cleaner ornaments, so I got the materials and we've been making lots more at home. I was impressed that he threaded the beads through with little difficulty and was actually enjoying doing it. This seems to be a good practice for fine motor skills and to learn colors. And the end results are beautiful ornaments. Love it.

Materials

12" Pipe cleaners (need three 6" pipe cleaners for each ornament)

Beads

String (if you hang from a tree)

How to Make

1. Cut a pipe cleaner in half by scissors and make three half pieces (Mama did this in our case)

2. Lay the three half-size pipe cleaners like a snowflake and twist them together at the center to keep its shape (Mama did this too)

3. String some beads

4. If hang from a tree, fold one end a bit to make a loop and put a string

That's it!

To my adult's mind, I thought clear sparkly beads on silver pipe cleaners would make the prettiest ornaments and suggested that we buy clear beads. But Little Guy insisted on colorful solid color ones, so I obliged. It seems Little Guy was right. What he made were most beautiful, if I do say so myself :)

I hope everyone will have a wonderful Christmas/winter holiday :)

Happy 3 Year Old!

I hope all of you are having a joyous holiday season :)

Our family celebrates one additional event during this fun but busy season, which is Little Guy's birthday! And he turned three! He's so proud he's three now and telling everyone he meets that he's three years old using his three little fingers. so cute.

If you've been following my facebook page or instagram account, it's quite apparent that Little Guy LOVES Thomas and his friends. So naturally this year's birthday theme was set to Thomas and his friends. I found a few Thomas themed cakes on pinterest, but Little Guy liked this one the most so we decided to make one. It turned out really fun and cute! 

Following the original picture, I used graham crackers and mini oreos for the trains to carry the cupcakes, a whole piece for the top base, two quarter pieces to connect the mini oreo wheels. Differently from the original, I used melted chocolate to connect all the pieces (and this was super yummy).

Little Guy's new train buddy, Stephen. Looks like he's quite a popular guy among Thomas fans. I heard a few boys saying "Look! Stephen!" when Little Guy was carrying Stephen while shopping.

For the main meal, I used this train onigiri kit we found on our recent trip to Japan to make some sushi to keep the train theme.

And a couple of train sandwiches, cut out by train shaped cookie cutters.

Little Guy loved his birthday so much that he kept saying "I love my birthday!" for the next few days. We're so happy he liked his birthday party. Happy Happy Birthday Little Guy.

Koi Fish Cookies for Children's Day

Many of you may be celebrating Cinco de Mayo today, but here at Crafty Mochi's house we're celebrating Children's Day that's held also on May 5th in Japan! As the name suggests, Children's day celebrates children's healthy growth and happiness. Typically koi fish streamers are displayed to celebrate this day, like the ones shown in the wall hanging below. And I made some koi fish cookies too!

I've made these koi fish cookies last year too with only chocolate icing, but this year I decided to make them more colorful. The green icing on the top koi fish uses matcha green tea. Isn't that a beautiful color? 

Little guy can't get enough of these cookies. Last year he was still too small to actually eat cookies (although his eyes were telling me he wanted to eat them. hehe.). What a difference one year can make!

Here's how I made the koi-shaped cookies. It's fairly simple.

Step 1: Make cookie dough following your favorite sugar cookie recipe. Roll out the dough. Cut the excess around the edges and make a rectangle. Cut in half lengthwise and cut also crosswise to make small rectangles. I just eyeballed the size of each rectangle but you can of course measure to make them precise. (I hear bakers tend to be precise. not me lol)

Step 2: Cut off a small triangle from one side of the rectangle piece to make a fish tail. I used my star-shaped cookie cutter to trim off the tail side but you can use a knife too. Don't put away these small triangles just yet (see step 3).

Step 3: Using the triangles cut off from the tail side of the rectangle piece, make a small ball and attach it to the head side of the fish. This will become the fish's eye. I made 2-3 eyes from one triangle piece.

Step 4: Bake according to your recipe's direction. Cool the baked cookies before starting to decorate.

Step 5: Now the decoration time!

Place a drop of your icing onto the center of the eye and write a "W" on the body. Pretty easy!

You can also spread clear or white icing over the fish and decorate with sprinkles too, like the third koi fish on the first photo. I used coloring pens for the second fish. I love the convenience of these pens! 

Jr's first birthday

Our little guy turned one year old! I can't believe he's already one. Time indeed flies. I'm so blessed that he's been growing strong and healthy without major injuries or sickness. At his 12 month checkup he's 32 1/4 inches tall, which is at the top of the growth chart. wow! He's slim for his height but still weighs about the average for his age. well done little guy!

On his birthday, we had to head out to my in-laws' that was 4 hours away so we decided to have a little birthday lunch at home then another one at the in-laws'. We started off his birthday with blueberry pancakes with coconut cream (the above). These pancakes were made without egg but turned out to be pretty fluffy and delicious :)

And then we had pizza for lunch. I made shaped pizzas for the little guy using cookie cutters. I'm glad they turned out so cute! The pizzas were made thick and soft, more like bread, so he could enjoy it as well.

I've read elsewhere that it's fun to decorate baby's high chair because most photos will be taken while the baby is on it so I used the chevron patterned buntings in the photos to decorate his high chair.

These are called "issho mochi". It is a Japanese tradition to have baby carry these mochi on his back on his birthday. The unit for weight "issho" is a homophone of the word "one's whole life" in Japanese. It's kind of like a word play but, therefore, these mochi represent one's whole life. It's believed that if a baby can carry such heavy items (about 3 pounds), he'll grow strong and healthy for the rest of his life. Fun, huh?

How did our little guy do?

yay, he did it! :)

I love mixing up Japanese traditions into American lifestyles a little bit.

After a long drive to the in-laws' we were welcomed by this beautifully decorated room.

And lots of presents.

Thanks to my MIL, we really had a wonderful birthday for LO. He loved his first real cake (and his grammy's pumpkin pie on Thanksgivings)!

Jr's First Trick-Or-Treating

I hope you all had a fun Halloween, if you celebrate! It was Jr's first Halloween and he was oh so cute in his costume. Husband and I, both being fans of making things, wanted to make his costume too but we were just so busy during the month of October that we couldn't manage it. Instead, we just picked up a Superman costume at a party store. But that's ok cause he was freaking cute :)

I realized that we didn't have a container to collect Halloween candy so I whipped up this little paper bag on the day of Halloween.

I used 12 x 12 pattern paper and stamped those bats and the "Happy Halloween" phrase (the stamps are from the Halloween and Thanksgiving stamp set from Stampabilities). I love this font! The bag wouldn't be big enough for a typical trick-or-treating but since he was only a baby I figured this would be big enough for this year.

Unfortunately, the total amount of candy was so heavy that the bag fell apart at the end :( Well, that may be good news, I guess.

babyfood 10 month old

Starting this month, the baby's food was getting more adventurous and fun with the introduction of herbs and spices. Our meals are getting more similar and sometimes we're even able to share some of our meals, which is awesome.

quinoa, chickpeas
Now Baby can eat two of my favorite foods too. yay. I love that quinoa can be the main grains of a meal as well as the protein source.

I used to serve pureed beans just as it is but I started to spread the puree on toasts this month. He seems to like it.

Udon
Udon is a type of Japanese noodles made of wheat. It is usually introduced at a fairly early stage of babyfood in Japan and I thought of introducing it earlier. But I didn't have a chance to go to an Asian grocery until this time. Since they are long like spaghetti, I break them into pieces before cooking and cook longer than what it says in the package till the noodles become really soft.

Herbs/Spices (Garlic, Cinnamon, Sage)
I love adding herbs and spices to babyfood. They can add tastes without making the food salty. For example, Baby doesn't like oatmeal very much probably because it's bland, but with cinnamon, he'll eat it. The same goes for steamed broccoli. Although he used to like broccoli, he's started to dislike it (ugh). He picks it up and throws it out from his high chair! But when I saute broccoli with a tiny amount of olive oil and garlic and/or sage, it becomes his favorite food. yay.

Onion
Actually, my husband and I hate onion. I could eat it if it's cooked really well, in the form of onion rings, or red onion in a small amount, but husband doesn't at all. So naturally we don't buy onion. However, when my parents were here, they bought some and left it in our fridge. Then I thought, why not. This would be a great chance for Baby to try onion. It turned out he loved it! I guess there's no reason to believe that he wouldn't like it just because both his parents hate it, right? I think I'll buy some time and again, since onion makes his food interesting too.

Butternut Squash
I would have introduced this earlier but since butternut squash is a fall vegetable, I waited till this time. I think it's important to eat seasonal produce even if baby doesn't know yet :)

Miso
I made a very weak miso soup so he could get used to the taste. Weak because otherwise it'll be too salty for babies. He loves it. In fact, I couldn't eat enough of miso soup when I was pregnant. Maybe baby wanted it before he was even born :)

Cheerios
I read again and again that doughnut shaped cereals are one of the best first finger foods for babies, so I've decided to give cheerios to him. He loves it. I think he thinks he's eating cookies or something :) Now cheerios became his regular breakfast along with fruits and soy yoghurt.

Next month, I'm planning to try seaweeds, some more herbs and spices, and perhaps mushrooms? It's going to be fun!

Baby food - 8 & 9 months old

I wrote about what Baby and I ate most of the days of the last month when we had the vegan month of food event, which you can see it here. And here's the list of the new foods Baby tried during his 8 and 9 months.

8 months old
yoghurt
I know. this is not vegan. I couldn't find soy yoghurt that did not contain sugar, so I was going to wait until he was able to eat yoghurt with fruits and sugar. However, when my MIL came to visit us, she also brought her plain yoghurt (she knew we didn't have any at home). She offered us some and I thought hmm maybe it was a chance for Baby to try some since I didn't have any intention of buying dairy food.

The face he made was so cute though :) He looked as if he bit into a lemon or something because it was rather sour. Anyways, currently he's happily consuming silk soy yoghurt, the peach and mango kind. This is the only variety he can eat, since I haven't introduced other fruits yet. I give him only a portion of it at a time because I'm still reluctant to give him food with sugar.

prune juice
yes. he was constipating. casual google research told me that prune juice was effective to relieve constipation, so I gave him about a tablespoon every morning. I don't know if it worked but he liked it :)

edamame, green beans, grapes, broccoli

around this time, he started to grab his food and bring it to his mouth on his own. so the food was getting chunkier and thicker. sometimes I gave him diced foods so he could practice his pincer grasp.

well, I can tell you letting him grasp his rice will result in a huuuge mess lol

9 months old
my goal this month was to introduce beans, wheat and olive oil. I've also introduced napa cabbage.

beans
black beans and lentils were successfully introduced and Baby loved them, as seen in this baby shepherd's pie.

And we tried Natto! :)

Natto is fermented soybeans. Just like other fermented foods, it has a distinctive pungent smell. And it's sticky and slimy. you may wonder why we eat such stuff but it tastes good (perhaps if you regularly had some when you grew up) and it's good for ya.

Baby didn't like it at first but with a tiny amount of soy sauce he ate it all! I didn't want to use soy sauce yet but I admit it's hard to eat natto without any taste so a little bit should be ok. Natto is a popular food for Japanese babies in Japan.

wheat
Baby had pasta and homemade bread. For him to be able to eat pasta or bread makes it a lot easier for mama to carry snacks when we go out. yay. As I mentioned in those posts, he loves both pasta and bread, especially the bread.

[vegan mofo day 28 & 29] Chinese takeout and seared tofu

Day 28
We had a Chinese takeout

We shared several meals but I had Mapo Tofu over rice and vegetable fried rice (asked to leave out the egg). For some reasons I'm fond of those Chinese takeout boxes. They're so cute :) We don't see this type of Chinese takeout very much in Japan so my parents also enjoyed it. Takeout is great especially with a little one.

Day 29

The omnivores ate some non-vegan main meal so I made seared tofu steak-style. I didn't add any seasonings, just splashed some soy sauce before eating, but it tasted great. The side dishes were chickpea salad, corn on the cob, sauteed asparagus (not shown in the picture) and rice, made by my mother. Baby had the same seared tofu but he hasn't tried any of the ingredients in the side dishes yet, so he had broccoli and carrots instead. I thought the amount of rice was too much but he ate it all! I can't believe how much he eats now. The amount increased a lot even during this month alone. It's fun to be able to see the changes in his diet from the pictures I took and for that also I'm glad I joined vegan mofo this year.

[vegan mofo day 17] potato pancakes, stir fried tofu and green beans

 

The other day I bought a 5lb bag of potatoes for less than $2. Great deal! So we're having many potato dishes, one of which was the shepherd's pie I made the other night.

And for this meal, I made potato pancakes. I chopped the raw potato and cabbage into tiny pieces in a food processor, mixed in about 1/4C of flour, made it into patties and fry them up. Served with vegenaise and sriracha sauce. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, they were pretty good :) I'd add some seasonings and herbs next time I'll make though. I'm thinking chives, perhaps? Hubby said cilantro will go well. Sounds good!

Baby's potato pancake was made by frying the mashed potato that was shaped into a patty. When it comes to the foods that were on the dirty dozen list, I try to buy organic as much as possible if I'm going to feed them to my son. I'd love it if I could buy organic for us adults too but we cannot afford them at the moment :( Besides, our local grocery stores carry only limited varieties of organic produce, which is way too expensive even for organic fruits and vegetables. Anyways, I didn't want to use the same patties I made for us since our potatoes are not organic. Luckily I had some mashed potato I made using organic potatoes in the freezer.

Other foods on the plates are stir fried tofu and green beans. I dusted tofu with corn starch to make it more crispy. Baby had kale on rice and mashed edamame. Edamame is a bagged frozen one but this is also organic. I'm trying to avoid GMO soy when I can.

How often do you buy organic fruits and vegetables?

[vegan mofo day 4] baby's first pasta night

Now that Baby can eat several kinds of vegetables & fruits and protein sources (like tofu, beans, edamame) I try to put the same (or similar) food items as we eat on baby's plate. I'm not really a fan of "kid's meal", and this is my attempt to get him used to the taste of the foods we eat (fingers crossed!). I also want him to get used to the Japanese(-esque) food I make and I grew up with, despite the fact that Japan is thousands of miles away.

I usually decide what we will eat for dinner first, then pick a couple of the ingredients from what eat and prepare them differently. This time, however, I wanted to introduce pasta into his diet, so we went along and had a pasta dish also. His pasta is with tomato and eggplant. Ours is arrabiatta with artichoke and broccoli. He seemed to have enjoyed it a lot :)

Baby food - 7 month old

We've introduced many new foods this month. Some LO loves, some he doesn't :( Here are the summary of the foods he tried this month.

Oatmeal cereal

LO didn't like it at first - probably because it's bland? - but he likes it when it's mixed with fruit. Phew. I really wanted him to like this cause rice cereal seems to have a constipating effect on him. Oatmeal cereal became a staple for his breakfast. We love Earth's Best Organic Oatmeal Cereal!

Tofu

He didn't seem to enjoy it at first :( He should've been used to the taste of soy from soy based formula, though. I thought, perhaps it was the texture he didn't like because I gave him pureed firm tofu (I couldn't find silken tofu at that time), which was drier and less smooth than silken tofu.

And I was right! I found silken tofu at a different store, pureed it and gave it to him, and this time he loved it :) I'm glad because tofu will become one of the important protein foods if I'm going to feed him vegetarian meals.

I usually microwave tofu for a minute or two, and process it in my baby bullet. At the time of this writing - the age of 8 month - I just mash it with a fork instead of making it really smooth.

Carrots, peach, daikon radish

He loves them all :) Daikon radish becomes sweet when steamed for 15-20 minutes, which makes a fun baby food IMHO. It's a staple baby food (and beyond) in Japan.

Spinach

LO liked it at first, but after a few sittings, he started to show dislikes to it. Now he doesn't eat it at all even if mixed with rice or other vegetables :(

Kale

However, he likes kale! I thought kale would taste more bitter and he'd prefer spinach to kale but the reverse was true for him. Maybe because I ate a lot of kale (but not spinach because there were some food poisoning incidents) during my pregnancy?

I was teased that our baby loves tofu and kale - yup, it sounds like my son! lol

By the way, we took him for his first swimming the other day.

Isn't this adorable?

oh and huggies swim diapers are awesome!

baby food - 6 months old

Month 2 of starting vegetables and fruits!

This month we started bananas. I thought kids love bananas, but to my surprise, he didn't! He made this sour face like "what on earth are you giving me mama?!" lol Later, I learned that mixing avocado with banana will work when kids don't eat bananas, so I tried. It worked. It had an interesting taste to me, like melon cream? But he liked it. That all matters.

But he got constipated (bananas are known for causing constipation), so I didn't give him bananas any longer. I don't think it's necessary at this stage anyway.

We've also started barley tea (mugicha) this month. At this stage, I was instructed to give him some other fluid than breastmilk or formula. Little J, however, didn't take water as much as I'd like probably because it doesn't have much taste. I don't want to give him juice yet because I think juice contains too much sugar. I was wondering what would be a good alternative to water....

Then I remember. My twitter mommy friends back in Japan give their little ones barley tea! Barley tea does have some flavor (like roasted taste, which I love) and doesn't have sugar or caffeine. That would be perfect. I had a stock of barley tea bags at hand so I made a pot of it. I poured some into his newly introduced straw mug, thinned it down with water (about 1:1) and to my relief, he drank it more than water!

And now that he mastered drinking from a straw, he loves gulping his tea :)

Next month, we're going to try tofu (yay!), carrots, peaches, green beans and potatoes. I hope he'd love his veggies and tofu. He's a tofu loving veggie mom's son, he's gotta love tofu!

ps. Needless to say if you thought barley tea is a good idea too and are thinking about giving it to your little one, please make sure with your pediatrician first :)

What I made for LO so far

Here are some of the things I made for my LO while pregnant (which I finally get around to post). In no particular order...

Playful Baby Loop Rattle

 Cowboy Boot-ies

I added this star mark for fun (per hubby's suggestion)

Isn't this cute on him? Unfortunately, though, they were difficult to put on because the ankle sections were a bit small. Oh well, they're really cute just to look at. Totally worth making them. I'd like to make a size that fits him now and a matching cowboy hat.

b19-31 Jacket with raglan sleeves, hat, and booties with cables

sleeves in making. Look how small they are!

These are in 3 month old size. However, since LO was advised not to go outside for the first two months (it was a flu season), there weren't many chances he needed a sweater like this. I should've made them in 6 month old size. I still love them though :)

Berry Baby Hat

I wanted to make this hat even before I was pregnant! So it was definitely on my to-make list. I chose purplish blue to make it like a blueberry but everyone says it's an eggplant hat LOL

oh well....

Stripes and Dots Blanket

There aren't many projects that I chose the exact (or almost exact) colors that the pattern calls for, but these colors are just so perfect I just used the colors in the pattern. And I love it!

I actually had a lot more projects in my queue. But because 1) I had no idea what the baby would use and 2) I was sick for the first couple of months and then was really tired for the last few weeks, I couldn't make as much as I wanted. Babies grow so fast. A few projects I wanted to make wouldn't fit in terms of size and needs anymore, which is too bad. Especially my LO is a tall baby - he's already as tall as an average 9 month old baby at the age of 6 months! But there are a lot of cute patterns for a year old and up. I look forward to make those in the near future :)