Our first son, Noah Zane Grey, was born today, arriving two weeks before the due date and weighing 6 pounds 2 ounces. He was born at 7:10 pm Japan time at the Shimizu Clinic (link in Japanese only) in Nagano. Both Tomomi and Noah are doing fine.



The whole event began at around 2:30 am on the 17th, when Tomomi began feeling labor pains. We went to the clinic right away, but the doctor said it would be a long time before delivery. Although we could have chosen to have Tomomi stay at the clinic during all that time, the doctor said she could just as well wait out the time at home, so that's what she did.

Until about 4pm, that is. By then, the contractions had grown in intensity so Tomomi's aunt drove her back to the clinic. I was in lessons at the time, and had another 40 minutes of a lesson to go when she called, saying she had just arrived at the clinic. This was 5:15pm.

At 5:30, I got out of my lesson and cancelled the rest of them for the evening. I busted out of the place and headed right for the clinic. I was almost too late, too. When I got there, I found Tomomi in the delivery room all strapped up and ready to push. Finally, at 7:10pm, Noah was born.

Noah is writtenwith each character for each syllable of the name. The name Noah was chosen because it is a Biblical name but can also be written easily in Japanese. The characters in this name, in order, mean "hope" and "us".

Tomomi will be in the clinic for the next five nights. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I will visit the clinic and get my first chance to hold my son in my arms. Looking forward to it.

Photos are being uploaded daily. To see them, click here.

UPDATE: Video of Noah is now up. You can see a clip of him here!

UPDATE: I have moved the somewhat icky birth photos to a new album here.

As spring arrives, I have been very busy working on a number of things. Preparing for the new baby, revamping the website (again) and building things to make this rental house more of a home.


Tomomi is ready for baby #3 to get out. Her belly is huge and since her due date is March 31, the baby could be here any day now. We're all looking forward to it, though we're not sure how Sara will handle it yet. We'll see.

In the mean time, we have been getting ready for having 5 people here rather than four. We bought a collapsible crib so the baby can sleep downstairs when we are not up in the bedrooms, and I have been building a toy box for all of Anri's toys. This toy box is the start of my plan to make this home a little more livable for us. I got a plan online at FurniturePlans.com, downloaded it, bought the wood and tools necessary, and built the thing. It is actually a blanket chest, but works well as a toy box. And it is really big.



It took a long time to build, but it is finally done, and now only needs to be painted. The color will be a very white pink, like the color of our soon-to-blossom cherries. I plan to dilute the paint with water and apply it, allowing the wood grain to be visible through it.

But I don't plan on stopping there. The next project, time allowing, will be a bunk bed for the girls: Anri on top and Sara below. The plan is from the same source, and based on what I have seen it looks easier to make than the toy box.

And as if that were not enough, I have also done a little fine tuning to the website. Namely this weblog. Until recently, I had been manually coding my own entries, taking a lot of time to do so. I just finished adapting the site to work with Thingamablog, an open-source blog tool. Now, things are a lot easier to do. I still have to input a lot of the older entries, though. I will put these in a little bit at a time until they are all done.

In the mean time, we're just waiting for the baby. We'll keep everyone posted!

Tomomi's due date is the 16th of November. By the looks of her, she is going to be having our second baby at any moment.



Despite the size of the baby she is carrying around, Tomomi is hangin' in there. Today, November 3rd, is Culture Day, a national holiday in Japan. That means festivals. The first was a rather raucus one at Anri's nursery school. Kids of all ages were there, as well as parents and grandparents. What did Anri like best of all? The bubbles some of the kids were blowing.



In the afternoon, it was on to the Mori Shogunzuka Matsuri, a festival on the grounds of the local history museum downhill from the ancient Mori Shogunzuka Keyhole Tomb. Though we usually hike 25 minutes on the trail to the top, the shuttle bus was free today, so we rode up. From the top, Anri was quick to spot Daddy's little white car in the parking lot below.