More Tomone for the family

Tomone at breakfast yesterday. She is growing up incredibly fast. She, of course, can not talk yet, but she is trying to communicate. A few minutes before this picture was taken I was holding her in my lap and we were playing. All of a sudden she put on a sad face and stared into my eyes. She then put her fingers into her mouth and started sucking. She did this a second time and then reached out and put her fingers in my mouth. I said "mimi?", which is Japanese baby talk for "milk?" and she stopped looking at me and looked at the kitchen. I said "mimi?" again and she stopped moving around and smiled.

Also for the last two days, when I say "Do you want to come to me?" and hold out my hands, she holds out her hands in imitation. She seems to have gotten the idea.

Today, Sunday, Masayo and I took Tomone and Naomi to Sendai Station and put them on a Shinkansen train to Tokyo. They will stay at home for a week, coming back a week from Monday. Naomi is using this as a trial period to see how she does without Grandmother to help out. If she has no serious problems,after she comes back, she will pack up her and the baby's stuff and move back home before the middle of November.

I was thinking that I would have a nice quiet week to rest while they were away, but things just do not work out that way. Tomorrow Masayo is meeting friends for lunch so I have to get home from my classes by myself. This involves a bus, the subway, and a couple of kilometers of walking. My classes are over at noon, but I do not expect to be home until close to one thirty. Then in the evening I will go to the Sendai Book Club. We are discussing The Remains of the Day.

Tuesday, Masayo and I have to have health checkups in the morning, then I have two classes in the afternoon, following which I walk home - only about 30 minutes.

Wednesday, I walk with Ian in the morning and have three classes in the afternoon, following which I walk the six kilometers home. I'll walk a total of about 24 kilometers during the day.

Thursday, I have a class from 8:50 to 10:10 and then, after coffee with one of the other teachers, I'll walk home, again six kilometers. In the evening I leave home at about 4:45 and teach from 6:00 to 7:30 and then walk home.

Fridays are a day off, but I frequently go for a short walk (5+ kilometers), wearing my backpack.

Nothing special on the weekend, except that Sunday morning Ian and I walk about 18 kilometers. I hope to get some drawing done.

So as you can see, my quiet week is actually going to be quite busy.

Finally, so far this month I have walk 200 kilometers, the most in any 19 days since I started.