Giggling Benjamin on Christmas Day

Going for a walk with his brand-new winter jacket and hat, Christmas gifts from his grandparents in Japan, and new mittens from his Nanny

Walking in the snow

Hope you all had a happy Christmas day.

We had a great Christmas here, with Amar's Mom (AND Benjamin's Nanny) visiting us over Christmas.

Here is one short video clip from our Christmas Day - Benjamin playing "Inai Inai Ba" (= Japanese version of "Peek-a-boo") game with his Daddy and his favorite cuddly toy "Baa Baa Sheep".

Enjoy!




Some Christmas Photos...

Christmas Day Breakfast - Michiko's Sourdough Pancakes

Christmas Dinner - Roasted Chicken stuffed with ham, hazelnuts and herbs

Amar and Christine (Amar's Mom) did most of the cooking - umm, what a lucky wife I am!

New Trike, which turned out to become his best favorite Christmas gift (from Nanny)

Christmas gift from us parents was this Wooden Train Blocks (below). He loved this toy too!
(Look at his serious face :-)

The black object in front (in the photo above) is a Wooden miniature toy of London Taxi, from Grandad Colin and Grandma Kerry. Benjamin loved this AS WELL!!! Thank you!!

Morning Cuddle

Benjamin loves to cuddle his cuddly toys.
He always goes to bed with one or two (or sometimes even three!) of his favorite cuddly toys, and when he wakes up in the morning, the first thing he does is to find and cuddle his friends.

Banana!!

His favorite food - it is BANANAs.

Dancing Baby

Enjoy :-)

(Daddy is dancing on the other side of the camera - so you cannot see it in the video, but Benjamin is actually dancing with his daddy.)

Copycat Benjamin

Benjamin is such a copycat these days.
One of the funniest he has been copying lately is, "Ho-ne--y!!", as he copies the way Mommy tells off Daddy. So, when Mommy tries to tell off Benjamin, saying "Taku-chan!!", Benjamin says, "Ho-ney!" or "Da-ddy!" Apparently he thinks it's a game! (laugh and sigh;-)

Benjamin tries to play with a girl

Benjamin is now walking everywhere

These video clips were taken 10 days after he took his very "first steps" (see the previous post).

And boy, now he is walking everywhere on his own!!

　↑　He sees a dog off (says "wan-wan!" [= "bow-wow" in Japanese]) , and then he picks up something and brings it to me, saying "dozo" [="Here you are" in Japanese]. To that I answer, "Oh how sweet. Thank you very much. --- oops, it's some rubbish someone threw away."

　↑　He goes up the big hill all on his own.

　↑　He first tries to go down the hill, but he gets distracted by a bench. He climbs and crawls on that, and at the end of the bench he climbs down it very skillfully (>proud Mom ;-).

　↑　Now he goes down the hill and walks up to the play gym, where he finds other babies and kids playing. Nothing can stop him now, of course! :-)

Benjamin's first steps

Here are two video clips of Benjamin's first steps. (He had already walked his very first step the day before, to be exact, but I think we can call this "his first steps".

I took this video with my father's video camera, and it was not compatible with my mac computer. I uploaded this from my father's Windows computer, and for some reason the sound is lost in this uploaded video clips.

But I hope you will enjoy at least watching his tiny (but giant) first steps.

Benjamin is 11 months old

Benjamin turned 11 months old yesterday (3.17). It is unbelievable that he will be 1 year old in just a month!!

Benjamin at the end of his 11th month (10-month old):


Benjamin's recent favorite plays:

(Left: He likes to put this (or anything he has at the time) to his mouth and make "ababababa..." sound.) (Right: He's already started playing with a computer, clicking a mouth and touching a keyboard!"


He finds so many different ways to play with a basket - putting it on his head like a hat, seeing it through the sunlight, inspecting it from different angles, and so on......


He likes to swish, swoosh, a long stick at the air:



Somehow, most of Benjamin's playdates are with girls :-)
(Left: Maya, 15 months old, is stroking Benjamin's head [this is a gesture of "You're good boy, good boy" in Japanese]. Right: on a day when we had a playdate with Lara, 8 months old)


Maya's snack time - as soon as he noticed that Maya is going to eat something, he ran to the high chair and tried to reach for the food (^ ^ ;)

"Princess Maya, please give me one, too." "OK... I'll give you just one then."


"Here you go."


"What? Do you want one more? If you really want, see if you can take it from me."


"OK then. ..........I got it!!!"

Benjamin is 10 months old

Benjamin turned 10 months old last week, on Feb. 17th.

It was on this very day that he started standing up by himself (without any support) and momentarily hold himself in a standing position! Now one wonders when he will take his first step forward. ^^

Since he can stand on his own only momentarily and so I need to keep vigilant beside him, I haven't been able to get any shot of him standing by himself yet. But I have a few photos in which he is about to stand up, and he is standing against the window (instead of a piece of furniture such as a table or a sofa).

I actually took these photos when we were at the BABS playgroup.
(I could take some photos when Benjamin was trying to stand up because there were other adults around.)

Benjamin playing with Ivan (12 months old)

Benjamin playing with Bennet (10.5 months - and he started walking just a week ago, his Mom said.)

Benjamin trying to stand up

Here he is standing on his own ↓

Other recent favorite photos...

He usually finds himself on his Mom's back toward the end of the day.

But Mom! I want to see what you are doing!!

Cheeky Benjamin's recent favorite play ... open the cupboards and pull out everything!

At the BABS (taken by a friend photographer, using my camera)

Playtime with Daddy is a very special time every evening

Eating (or smashing into his mouth) a piece of French Toast (or what it was supposed to be **)

His big smile as he always has during a meal time

Please take a note to his lower front teeth :-)