Step up cooking course.

Yesterday, I went back to the 'health centre' building for part two of my cooking course. As we weren't told to bring aprons or anything this time (just the boshitecho and 100yen) I figured that we weren't cooking. I was, embarrassingly, 15mins late for the course (due to being held up at the post office), however luckily they didn't seem to mind as they are understanding of people with babies. I think another lady just came a few minutes before me. I don't know if the saying "better late than never" applies in Japan though.

We didn't cook, and luckily our babies could be with us (very lucky, as Pichan has TERRIBLE separation anxiety these days- more on that another time though). The lady running the course is very lovely, and knows my Japanese isn't great so she was speaking nice and slowly for my benefit. It made it very easy to understand.

In a nutshell, what I got out of the meeting was that we need to feed our babies a variety of foods, and don't be afraid to mix things in to get a good flavour. Apparently, babies like the 'umami' flavour, so we were encouraged to give it our best. We had to try a few different dishes, such as boiled carrot and potato so that we would know how soft it needs to be, as our babies can eat chunky foods now. We also received a hand out that had a few recipes, and how much of what foods to feed our baby. It is all in Japanese though, so partially helpful. I really need to study more, and harder.

The class took an hour, and afterwards we went upstairs to the 'denden mushi' playgroup (free to join). There were lots of bubs, and heaps of toys. Pichan had a blast putting each and every toy in his mouth. That boy is going to develop some great immunities. It was also nice meeting other mums too, and if I was staying in Ninomiya, I would completely go again and try to socialise a bit.

But we are moving! To Tsurumi. The moving has keep me super busy and stressed, with the moving company coming next Tuesday (I still need to START packing). In the meantime, I now have a few ideas of food to make for little Pi. I made him a lovely (rice) pasta bolognase last night. And also meatballs too with the left over mince- though both the pasta and the meatballs were mainly make up of carrot and onion. Yummy yummy. In fact, I even at his left over pasta for my lunch today after I had already frozen a ton of it.

 (bought off of I-herb)