I learned some new words today:

唾液腺daekisensalivary gland お多福風邪otafukukazemumps 雀suzumesparrow 蝗虫battagrasshopper

The first two I learned because one side of Anthony's face was swollen and painful this morning, as if a balloon under his ear was slightly inflated. That's apparently a classic symptom of mumps, as the salivary glands enlarge (so I find out during this continuing-education class known as "parenthood").

Anthony has had all of his US immunizations, which include MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) but apparently (according to our doctor here) that even those immunized can contract mumps over and over, if you seem prone to it. That doesn't [...]
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Anthony is getting to the age where he'll start preschool soon, so we've started to evaluate a number of them. Japanese pre-school, called youchien (幼稚園) and sometimes "kindergarten", generally goes for three years starting during the school year in which they turn three years old. (In the US, of course, "kindergarten" is generally a half a day for one school year at about age four or five.)

Each school has its own formal uniforms that the kids wear on the way to/from school. Being very formal (jacket, vest, shirt) but for kids (short pants and short-sleeve shirt), they're generally quite [...]

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Chatting with Anthony while he played with a dump truck toy, and trying to expose the idea of Japanese and English as being two separate languages (a concept I'm told that he'll not necessarily truly understand for many more years), I said:

Daddy calls that a "dump truck", and Mommy calls it a "ダンプ (danpu)".

He then responded (in English):

Daddy say "dump truck". Mommy say "ダンプ". Anthony say "ダンプ". Only one people say "dump truck". Only two people say "ダンプカー (danpu ka- -- longer version meaning the same thing)".
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When Anthony first started talking, one of his first phrases was "carry you" (meaning "carry me"). He didn't understand the grammar, of course, but just took the parts from "Do you want me to carry you, Anthony?" as the sounds to make when he wanted to communicate the idea.

Now, a year later, he's still saying "carry you", and I'm starting to wonder how you teach first and second person personal pronouns. "When Anthony says 'you', it means Daddy, and when Daddy says 'you', it means Anthony." hasn't worked yet.

These days, when he says "carry you", I respond [...]

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Anthony is often quite sleepy/fussy by the time his nap time rolls around, which makes getting him down all the more challenging. Today was no different, but it was wonderful three hours later when he awoke and came into the living room and said...

"I slept a long time. I had a good nap. I feel happy."

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