1 September 2010

Though the thermostat was still hovering around 35C, today felt hotter, though perhaps a little less humid. Still, it's enough to make me crotchety and drove us back home earlier than I would normally have returned.

We met Jo and Bettina and the kids in Ebisu. Again, the weather affected plans as I would normally have taken Emily on the bus, but as that involves a five minute uphill walk I knew I would end up carrying her and all our things, so that was ruled out and the buggy was deployed.
After a quick smoothie we moved on to the small park and playground a few minutes away along the tracks, which has a water feature to keep us all cool. The three children had fun splashing, and Emily collected various flora and fauna (empty cicada skins) in her bucket. We had a picnic on the decking afterwards, though none of them ate very well. They wanted to go in the adjacent playground afterwards, but the slide and rocker had been in the scorching heat all day and would have scalded them. We called it a day soon after and went our separate ways.

Having decided to stay at home for the afternoon, I had to entertain Emily. I hit upon getting her to assist me in the kitchen and thereby get ahead with dinner as well. She really enjoyed helping me to make a quiche and was involved in all stages so felt very proud of the end result. At last, after six days, she finally did a large poo, and in the potty to boot. The Movicol is making it a lot softer but that doesn't seem to have an effect on the frequency, alas.

Any good vibes I felt from her turn on the potty were cancelled out when she would not eat the bean casserole I gave her; she went to bed with only a few reluctant spoonfuls of rice and beans and no pre-bath Youtube clips. I haven't tried her with any new dishes for ages so was really hoping she would like the casserole as there is so little we can eat together, her main meals often being meat based.

From the evening news I learned that this has been the hottest summer in Tokyo in more than 100 years, so we definitely did the right thing in avoiding most of it, though it looks like the misery is set to continue for a while yet.