off for 10 days!

We are going back to California for 10 days! What a treat. Pat has a cancer conference at the convention center. Supposedly, the conference will be attended by 18,ooo people. What do you do with so many people? In the mean time, Terran and I will wonder around Los Angeles. We plan to get together with my sister and also some friends, and spend a few days doing this and that. Terran is so into train these days so I am thinking of taking him to the Grove to ride on the tram. Then we are off to the Bay Area for another half of our vacation where Pat really gets to spend some time with us. Yay! Since we've got his parents there, so we are planning to do more grown up things at night like eating out and going to Yoshi's. We hardly do things like that any more, and that's ok but it will be nice to go on a date with Pat again. Then, we will come home and crash of exhaustion since we are not used to being up late these days! How we've changed since our non-parenting days....
I am excited to go to California but I am most excited about not having to cook for the next 10 days. I am so tired of cooking. It will definitely be a nice break. Hurray!

Terran is not a gai-jin

My attempt to bring Japanese naturally into his language has been pitifully failing so far. I mostly use English with everyone so I haven't been so careful and conscious about switching to Japanese with him. However,today, I've discovered the most basic yet the core of Japanese essence in Terran. It's a cultural characteristic which is deeply rooted within us: the love of natto!
Natto is goowy fermented soy beans which (according to Pat) stinks like someone's nasty feet. Natto always come in little styrofoam box. To obtain the perfect goowy texture, one must add a bit of soy sauce, some mustard, and mix like crazy. The mixture releases the perfect scent (or odor), and it's ready to be put on top of hot bowl of rice. When I eat it, Pat yells: "are you eating that shit again?" "I can smell it from upstairs".... So I quietly, and somewhat shamefully, eat one of my favorite food in the world. These days, they actually sell reduced-smell natto. I bought that instead of my usual brand and Pat was pleased with the results.
Anyway, I was happily eating my natto today when Terran saw (perhaps smelled) them in my bowl. I had achieved perfection with my natto today with just the right amount of soy sauce, mustard, some dashi, and lots of mixing. Terran is usually not so adventurous with food but he really wanted to try them. So I put a mouthful in his mouth, expecting him to spit it out and walk away. But he swallowed and wanted more. And more and more. He finished my bowl and absolutely loved it.
I just laughed and told Terran how funny and surprising that was. Pat was just shoked. Terran has once again proven to be my offspring.