18 May 08

We'd decided to attend a mass family picnic in Yoyogi Park, organised by La Leche League. Our intention was to be there at 10.30 as it kicked off with an open air yoga session, but we napped with Emily first, and she slept for over an hour and a half. We weren't complaining!


We located the event easily enough in the big park, as there were about 200 people scattered around in groups on their picnic sheets. We were determined to use the picnic to meet other parents, but felt uncomfortable about just tacking onto a party, so pitched up our mat near a few other lone families. After a few minutes I spied Tracy and she joined us with Lottie (James had just left for a business trip to the UK, unfortunately, so yet again he and Nick failed to meet).



After we'd eaten people started coming by and introducing themselves. One lone Aussie woman called Lari latched onto us and set up camp on our rug with her 3 month old Verona. She was quite down to earth and easy to get on with, though like most Aussies she was a bit full-on. She explained that her first child had died and I didn't quite know what to say. Verona was a lot smaller than Lottie, though the same age. The event organiser, also an Aussie though called Iona McNab, told us about a mother and baby group that she runs fornightly that I would like to go to.


As part of the fundraising they were running a silent auction, and I ended up with a 'natural weaning' book (basically, let your child decide when they will stop breastfeeding, even if they are 10!) and a gaily-coloured Guatemalan Maya sling. These are really popular in Japan, and look like a great way to carry even quite large toddlers, butI fear that I may have left it a bit late to start Emily on it. She's pretty adaptable though, so hope we can get to grips with using it.