Parenting: Maybe Not Fun, But Worth It All The Same

The portrait area in the living room got a new set of lights to illuminate the pictures so that they could be seen clearly. In fact Yasunobu did the electrical work himself to install the lights without once getting zapped. But we still won't trust him with the hot-tub...that thing's a killer.

Fiona was gratified that her long-time friend was back and Sandi enjoyed using her new laptop to do stuff like play computer games. After eating breakfast, Molly went and made some key lime pie so that everyone could enjoy a nice dessert. After all, Haruo loved key lime pie too and so did Satoshi, her husband.

One of the benefits of a frozen-over lake was the ability to skate on it. And since the Chikamoris had a lovely lake from where they were able to fish lots of different types of fish from their own backyard, Molly just laced up a pair of skates and went out to enjoy herself on the lake.

Braden by this time knew exactly how to toddle over to the bathroom and do his business himself.

Of course, that meant telling an older person that he had gone so that they would clean it up or man, that bathroom would stink.

Of course Braden had a bit of a tyrannical streak as a toddler. When he was hungry he wanted to be fed NOW...and not in a few minutes...exactly...NOW. And it made for a headache-inducing morning.

...and the only thing that would shut him up would be to plunk a big bowl of semi-warm gruel in front of him that he would happily stick his hands into and grin while making a big mess out of himself which caused River to have to give him a bath.

River went back to painting while calling over her shoulder for Haruo to "Can you please get Braden from the high-chair?"

Haruo had no problem doing that and headed over to remove the little imp from his chair. He got Braden out of the high-chair and proceeded to bring him over to the painting area to keep an eye on him as well as to change his diaper.