A Bit of Life's Blind Luck

Contemplating the "luck of the Irish" (of which I'm a quarter) on this St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd look back at the role it has played in my life to date. While most of the life my family shares can be ascribed to careful decision making and hard work, there have been moments, instances of blind luck, that genuinely changed our lives and, in at least one case, actually set them in motion.

There was luck in my childhood, but it was of the typical kind. I had parents who looked after me and provided for me. I was able to go to school. Perhaps the most uniquely lucky aspect of my first twenty years is that I met a group of friends (15 or so) that still get together every year, despite living all over the country. Odd that so many strange souls who would call me a friend lived in the same town, but this bit of luck was nothing compared to what happened in college.

The greatest piece of luck I have ever experienced was being hired as a music librarian for my work study job at UC Davis. I felt I was lucky to have the job from the beginning, but it would take a year and a half to discover just how fortuitous my hiring had been.

In my second year, a beautiful woman entered the library. I'd seen her before. She handed me her student ID in exchange for a CD that she was going to listen to in preparation for a concert coming up. She was part of the student orchestra. Two minutes later, she came back to ask me how to work the CD player (this being her second visit, it was the second time she'd asked for help). When she finished, we ended up talking. And we're still talking twenty years later. If I hand't gotten that music library job, chances are I never would've met my future wife and experienced all the adventures that have come with it. In recognition of this, I still ensure that all our audio equipment is overly complicated so that she still needs to seek me out to get it going. It's my little insurance policy.

That music library job led to meeting Sumie and, three years later, resulted in the next stroke of luck. Sumie had come to UC Davis in the middle of getting her law degree in Japan. She finished her school work in California, and then, instead of just staying here in the US, she decided to finish up her degree in Japan. As a result, I ended up having the best year of my life teaching English to a wacky group of kids.

Before I left for Japan I had some very close friends, but they were all on the west coast. After a year in Japan, I came back to California with life-long friends from all over the world. That decision to live abroad had the lucky impact of opening up the world and helping me to take chances. As a result, I wouldn't stay in California for long.

Another instance of luck was that Sumie was accepted to study medicine in New York. For a while, we were looking at living in Hershey Pennsylvania. I could very well have ended up working as a chocolate historian. But as things worked out, we ended up moving to what would become our favorite city in the world. We discovered our first apartment that we actually lived in together on the Upper West Side...

...and fell in love with a tiny apartment, the first real estate we ever bought, on the Upper East Side.

We even had a little girl along the way.

After ten years on the east coast, we thought we'd be there pretty much forever. But then luck stepped into our path again. Sumie was set to sign a contract with a nephrology group back east, but the contract had been delayed by the group's attorney. As a result, when she was contacted by a medical group out here in California, we thought we might as well at least hear them out. Five days later, we'd decided to move to the Bay Area. Virtually blind luck again, but what can I say, it's been good to us.

That little girl in New York has now grown into a toothless 1st grader...

...who has interesting ideas about hats,

but can work hard when she wants to. She recently graduated Japanese Kindergarten.

Over the years, Mimi has been joined by Christopher, our little Kuri. He's the only three year old who can pull off a bomber jacket with shorts and strawberry rubber boots.

He's also very good at looking tough hanging out the top of a 911.

And lastly, there's Mariko, who though only a year old, already has complete control over the entire family. She is the puppet master.

Somehow, amazingly, all of this goes back to that random day when someone thought I'd make a decent music librarian. And, as such, though it paid the least, it will always be the job for which I'm most thankful.

Happy First Birthday, Mariko! (I think...)

Three hundred and sixty-four days ago, we welcomed our third child, little Mariko, to the world. The challenge for the past week, though, has been just how to celebrate her first year. Mari was born on February 29th. I've argued for March 1st as the special day, but Sumie has been a hardliner for the 28th. Given that this post is coming to you on the 28th, you can guess who won. But I suppose this argument is all slightly irrelevant as we celebrated her birthday on the 26th.

 

Our baby with the unique birthday has provided us with an equally unique year. Somewhat hard to believe that we began prepping for her arrival well over 12 months ago. With two kids already in place, there wasn't much we needed to procure. The primary work to be done was prepping the kids for a new attention taker-awayer and toy disrupter. Mimi was excited and offered to test the bassinet.

Kuri wasn't quite as interested in helping, so his Papa spent some extra time with him. He even let him drive the Porsche.

The kids were pretty much ready, and by February 29th, so was Mari. She arrived healthy and, thankfully, not quite as loudly as her older sister.

Mimi was excited, but Kuri, despite all the extra trips and time spent with Papa, still had his doubts. He didn't quite know what to make of this very tiny person.

As with any newborn, sleep was at a premium for the first few months.

But there was plenty of cuddling to make up for it.

Mimi quickly got into the role of looking after her baby sister.

For the first month or two, Mariko was our little monkey...

...but she soon started to develop a mischievous personality...

...an appreciation for being surprised...

...and even a sense of wonder.

Despite only being a year old, Mari is already rather well-traveled. She's been all over California with us, including sites like the Jelly Belly Factory.

But her biggest, and earliest trip was to Japan. That required booking tickets before she was born (something rather difficult to do when one of the passengers doesn't yet exist) and getting passport photos done at the ripe old age of 5 days.

Reading has always played a large role in our family...

...and as the kids have gotten older, they're reading more and more independently.

 But that hasn't stopped them from taking some time to read to their baby sister...

...though sometimes a book is just too good to share and the baby has to play on her own.

And how has Kuri done when it comes to accepting his baby sister? Well, he's done a full 180. She's one of his favorite playthings, especially now that she can crawl. Except for the occasional destruction of his train set at her hands, he loves having her around.

Now that Mari's a bit older, we can do a lot of things together, like shopping at Costco...

...where Kuri works hard to protect his baby sister whenever there's any danger, like rain.

Even little trips up the road to Petaluma are special with these three.

The best times, though, are usually spent just hanging out at home, be it on the living room floor...

...or on Mama and Papa's bed.

And they really love to plan how to make Mama and Papa's lives a bit more, um, interesting.

It's been a wonderful first year. Mari may not be a walker yet, but she's crawling pretty much everywhere, though our slippery wood and tile floors often reduce her to a belly crawl, which at least helps to keep the floor clean.

One of our favorite things about little Mari is her amazing ear for language. She has a number of words now, including all the members of her family and, unfortunately, "no." She loves to babble with us, often taking part in full conversations. The only thing keeping her back from saying more than she does already are those two middle fingers on her left hand that constantly end up in her mouth.

Happy First Birthday, my little Marichan. I had no idea just how much you'd change our lives and how consistently you'd make us smile.

Adventure, 1920! The Mixed-up Mind of a Boy About to Turn Three

There's something magical that goes on in the heads of kids when they're two or three years old. They're imprinting and integrating just about everything they come across into their own, often deeply twisted and esoteric, world views. Of course, the same goes for Christopher. 

Every night we read stories together. And while he can't read, he has taken to sharing his own stories with us, quite passionately. Two nights ago, he picked up and pencil and, channeling the voice of a 1930s narrator, shared the following epic with us.

Adventure! 1920!

The guys went into mountains.

They saw Bulbasaur. "Pokeball, go!"

Team Rocket, blast off speed of light.

Somebody died.

The other night, for my sister on the phone, he provided the abridged version while using a baby monitor as his mic.

Adventure! 1920!

Everybody died.

Tomorrow is Christopher's 3rd birthday. Our little Kuri has come a long way, but he's still, definitely, half baked. For his first year, he was a pretty awesome baby. He slept through the night at 2 months. He didn't care much for strangers, but he also didn't cry very often. He kind of kept to himself, and we weren't quite sure what he'd be like in the years to come.

His personality really began to come out when he was about 1.5 years old. He also started to get impatient. The terrible twos were beginning and he was just starting to talk with us. As such, he'd become tremendously frustrated when we couldn't repeat back what he said (this, occasionally, still happens, especially when he sees a car he likes). Thankfully, this has been balanced by his obstinate, irrepressible goofiness.

Kuri is the only child I know who can have you tearing out your own hair one minute, then falling on the floor laughing the next. As time has moved forward, he's begun to use this talent for his own nefarious purposes. It's become a lot harder to put him in time out when halfway to the time out chair you're trying not to crack up.

I still have no idea how this boy's mind works. He's definitely a sponge, but his system for cataloging what he takes in seems completely devoid of logic, order, or scope. As such, facts, stories, words, emotions, requests, and endearments come out when you least expect them and in such a way that makes you think, "What the hell? Where is this coming from?" Perhaps this is why I'm falling over so much when he's around.

Here's an example. Kuri knows what it means to smile. He knows how to smile. He knows that you're supposed to smile for pictures. However, when you ask him to smile for a picture, this is his first inclination: eat the seatbelt.

Kuri also tends to have an agenda. Two weeks ago, Mimi was Star of the Week in her class. Her job was to take the special bear around and take pictures so she could show her classmates what a normal week is like. We took the bear to Japanese School, where we were going to take a picture with a giant fish. Kuri saw the bear on the fish and this, I suppose, must've have been going through his head, "Mimi put her bear on the fish. I must put my burp cloth on the fish. All my life has been leading to this. Putting a burp cloth on a fish. Once this is done, I will be victorious. All will be right with the world. Nothing must stand in my way." As we tried to take the picture, Kuri ran for the fish and began shoving Mimi and her friend out of the way. We had no idea what he was doing. We though he just wanted to be in the middle. His agenda wasn't clear until the bear flew off the fish and was triumphantly replaced with the burp cloth.

As with most kids his age, Kuri's desires change quickly. The day I went on Amazon to order his Halloween costume, he was sure he wanted to be Pikachu. By the time the costume arrived, he had decided the world would end if he wasn't Bulbasaur. Hence his reaction to his new "surprise" costume.

Mimi was able to make the most of the situation, though, as her baby sister looked on. She's six years old and can still wear a toddler's romper costume.

Although Kuri's mind is a bit of a mystery, there is one thing we can count on: he looks out for his baby sister. Mari loves sitting in her bumble chair playing with her kitchen and munching on pieces of plastic road. Sometimes, however, even this delightful pastime can get a bit boring for her. Kuri noticed this and built her a track with Thomas. It absolutely made her day.

Unfortunately for his father, Kuri is not as entertained by the track layouts he creates. As such, I often come to the rescue. We spend half an hour devising a new layout and my reward is, "That's so cool, Papa!" And then he runs off and demands chocolate milk.

For some reason, Kuri is an excellent shopper. He tends to behave in the cart.

But then again, I guess he always has.

Unlike with his little sister, Kuri doesn't always enjoying sharing with Mimi. But like Kuri is with Mari, she's very patient and caring, and I think he knows it. After all, she's been looking out for him since the beginning.

I may never fully understand the workings of this little guy's mind, but he's an amazing part of this family. Sometimes he's the glue, providing the middle ground between Mimi's busy schedule and Mari's feeding and food throwing. Sometimes he's the pressure valve, causing us all to crack up when we're frustrated or distracted by something that, in hindsight, is quite trivial. And sometimes, quite simply, he's the guy who wants nothing more than to go to Cars and Coffee with his Papa.

Happy Birthday, Kuri! I can't wait to see where the next year takes you and and where you take all of us.