It's suspected that someone I knew may have committed suicide this past weekend. It reminded me that no matter how happy or successful someone might seem to be, there is pain that we might not recognize under the surface. My heart goes out to May's family and close friends.
There are certain things that I really hope to do with Abby some day. Some of these dreams might be put under the category "Crazy Asian Mom" like helping her with calculus problem sets or proof-reading her physics project paper or attending her first piano recital. Others come from my own memories of childhood like going on hikes and collecting bugs or helping my mom wrap dumplings. I put Afternoon Tea under this latter category. My mother is a bona fide tea addict. She loves to sit down and have some tea. When I lived at home briefly after college, my parents and I would sit down almost every night for tea and we would just talk about our day. As many asian families will most likely note, tea is not simply a beverage in our culture. Particularly in Japanese culture, it is central to social interactions. My five year old niece who goes to pre-school in Japan drinks tea everyday at school. So when Michele visited earlier this month, I wanted to show her how tea is served in Western culture so I took her to a tea shop close to my house for some girlie time while my mom watched Abby.
Although Michele didn't have tea, she got to have hot chocolate. She also ate half of my tea sandwiches, soup and most of the dessert. Like any proud woman in the Miura family, she has the appetite of a small bear waking up from hibernation.
Michele prepares to demolish the dessert
My mother reports that upon getting back to Japan, Michele bragged to all of her classmates how cute her cousin Miyuki is. I like that Michele calls Abby by her full Japanese name. Everyone else seems to shorten it to Yuki but Michele insists we use the full name.
Ma-chan, it's not just Yuki! It's Miyuki. Miyuki is so much more special than just plain Yuki!
Michele is Miyuki's advocate in our family. Hopefully, Michele knows that she has many advocates within our family too.
A good day used to mean a bike ride on a spectacularly sunny day and dinner in the city with a group of friends. A good day used to be swimming in Lover's Cove in Monterey or shopping with girlfriends in Berkeley. Who knew that good days would mean something so drastically different today? I had a friend who once told me that she and her husband used to do such fun things before they had kids and once they had kids those fun things they used to do were a distant memory. Instead, the days are filled with things they do with their kids but for her, this too is a lot of fun.
A pensive Abby
In a similar way, my good days are really good but in a different way. Today, a good day is when Abby has a solid nap when I have time to clean the house, catch up on email and upload some of the more recent photos. Some times, I might even have an extra minute to start looking at papers relevant to my research. A good day is interacting with Abby and wondering if what I saw was her first smile or not. A good day is eating dinner in peace with Albert because Abby is loving the new swing we borrowed from Cathy. I love my good days. It may not involve any physical activity yet but as Abby's neck gets stronger, I can almost see the day when I can plop her into the BOB stroller and go for a leisurely jog up Sand Hill Road. That too will be a good day.
Happy 2007 to our friends and family! We haven't had much of a chance to update the blog in the last few weeks. You can imagine that things have been quite busy with baby Abby and with our family visiting! It's been so busy that Albert hasn't taken many photos. I was so surprised when I downloaded the photos on the camera and discovered there were less than 50 to download over the last two weeks - and most of those were taken by me! 
Abby feeling festive
Christmas and New Years flew by in a blur. We managed to buy a 4 foot Christmas tree which was Abby's first outing ever. We got out our annual Christmas newsletter with our baby announcement. I even baked two batches of cookies! Somewhere along the line, Abby gained over 2 pounds and my mom-in-law and sister-in-law came for a visit. 
Abby with the in-laws
Christmas came and went without much hoopla. We had dinner at my parents' house with Julie and Bob. I made a roast beef and my mom made a stuffed salmon. Abby slept through most of the meal. We weren't so lucky with New Years. Abby decided this would be the opportune moment to ring in the new year with lungs ablazing. I suppose she also wanted to share with Julie and Bob exactly what is in store for them in a couple of months. She did a very good job.
Abby and Al
Albert has his own strategy for dealing with an Abby meltdown. It involves the Bose noise cancelling headphones. I guess we shouldn't be calling our daughter's cries "noise" but if you heard her, you would agree that she has not exactly inherited her parents' quiet voices... ok ok we both have loud voices so we both take the blame equally.
