Theo's First Theater Performance

This morning, Mommy D and I attended Theo's school-sponsored show to watch him dance in his first ever theater performance. These photos below were taken from the back of the gym about 50 meters away from the stage, so I had to use a long lens and without flash. Of the tens of photos that I had taken, only these made the cut, but they somehow capture all the energy and gusto that he showed during his first ever theater performance.

Getting Ready for X'mas

Christmas is always a fun time, esp. for children, and now that Christmas is just a few weeks away, Theo is already starting to feel the Christmas air. Here he is wearing the colors of the season, with a plastic bag labeled "Merry X'mas" on his head, hehehe...

While Mommy D was busy doing some household chores yesterday, Theo and I went to Ueno Park on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Here he is standing in front of a stall that sells one of his favorite snacks...

....which he asked me to buy for him. It was just a few hours after he had lunch but he was already hungry. Recently, we have noticed a surge in his appetite.


We capped our afternoon together by renting a boat in Shinobazu Pond. Theo always enjoys this boat ride, and yesterday was particularly unique because we gave some of his snacks to the wild ducks. Surely, we left some for Mommy D.

Happy Halloween!

Like most parts of the world, Tokyo has been fever pitch with the Halloween season these past few days, particularly with children. Not to be left out, our little Theo, with her trusty yaya (Mommy D, of course), went trick-or-treating at Ueno, where many stores within a huge shopping complex dished out treats for kids of Theo's age. Not surprisingly, most of the older women within the complex found him pretty cute in this costume. (The clip above is one of his favorites in YouTube this Halloween season.)

Well, who else but Freddie Kruger came out of Hard Rock cafe for a photo-op with "The Cat". By this time, Theo's bag of treats is brimming.

They went trick-or-treating just after school last Friday, and while waiting for the bus, Theo found a new friend: a policeman stationed at the police box (koban) near his school. The policeman found him even more delightful when Theo told him, "Omawari-san naritai desu!" (I want to become a policeman.)

Okay, so here's a start...

While Mommy D took some time out for herself last Saturday, Theo and I went to Yoyogi Park, a very huge park somewhere near Meiji Shrine. For someone his age and with so much energy, Theo has to be in wide open spaces. We played ball for some time before exploring the park. Here he is checking out the roses.

Like most parks in Japan, there's always a pond, and this one has a fountain. It was very windy that morning; thus, as you can see behind him, the wind turned the fountain's solitary spout into a wall of rain.

After many hours of running around, by about 2 pm, Theo was beat! We took the long trip home a few minutes after I took this shot; Theo fell asleep on the train and I had to carry him home. (By this time, he's really heavy!) But as soon as we arrived, he woke up and started running around again.

Somehow, I just had to put this funny photo of him in this blog. This facial expression of his comes out when and only when he's... (need I say more?)

Purble Place

For those using Windows Vista, this game (Purble Place) should be quite familiar. As stated here, "The goal of Purble Pairs is to remove all the tiles from the board by finding matching pairs. To begin, click on a tile. Click on another tile to see if the pair matches. If the tiles match, they will be removed. If not, try to remember what each tile is, so you can find matching pairs on future turns."

In other words, it's quite a demanding memory game, one that would probably prove difficult for an almost 4-year-old kid. However, this weekend, I watched Theo playing this game on our PC and I was just so amazed at his memory. This was quite a revelation for me, given that at times when I thought he was wrong, he was actually right.

This screen capture shows you his score after eight (8) games. At this level (5x5 grid), he got the highest rank of "Champion in Logic". With a 5x5 grid, you have 25 cards. And as you can see in this screen shot, his "average tiles turned per game" is 53, and his "average turns per match" in the last game is 2! To get these stats after 8 trials, you either have to be very lucky or have a very good memory. Not that he's my son, but given that he's not even 4 years old and yet performing this well in this memory game somehow just blew me away! Really!