When I Grow Up

Daddy: When you grow up, Yoshi, do you think you want to be like Mommy and Daddy?

Me: No, I want to be like Yoshimi.

Neck

Mommy calls it a cowl. I call it a neck coat.

Inauguration, Chapter 3

I bet you probably thought I forgot about my trip to Washington DC for the Inauguration. This update is overdue, which means that books are late to the library. It also means that my story about DC is late.

I last left of finishing day Two of my trip. Here we go.

Day 3
January 19th
National Zoo

We spent Monday hanging out with Mommy and Daddy's friend Dan and his oldest son Isaac. He's three years old. Isaac, not Dan. Dan is much older because he's a grownup. Isaac's family lives in Germany and he knows how to speak German, English, and French. He also speaks 3-Year-Old, which I luckily can understand since I speak a very similar language of 5-Year-Old.


Isaac has a nifty wooden bike with no pedals that he brought from his house. He let me borrow it as we explored the National Zoo.



There are lots of neat things to see in the zoo. But it was very cold so many animals were not outside. I saw a fish frozen in a pond.

I did see a 9 day old baby gorilla and its Mommy. The baby looked cozy being held by Mama. I also saw a chimpanzee throw up and eat its own barf. And then his chimp friend did it too because it looked like so much fun. Animals are silly that way.

My favorite animals were the tiny hippos. They are much smaller than the regular hippos. But still too big to fit inside my bag to take home.

Here are some animals I saw:



After the zoo, we had a big group dinner. Dan's sister had a fancy ticket to the Inauguration and she let us look at it. Mommy wanted to steal it, but I told her that taking things without asking is bad.

Hinamatsuri

Today is Hinamatsuri. That's Japanese for Festival of Dolls. But we call it Girls Day. It's when little girls like me get to do fun things like have little parties with friends for our special dolls. On Saturday, I dressed up in my yukata (cotton kimono) and walked to Izzy's house for an early Girls Day celebration. We ate lots of yummy Japanese goodies. Pink, green, and yellow manju with cute, little, happy decorations on top. We also had rice crackers, sushi, miso soup made by Izzy's Bachan, and nigiri (rice balls) shaped like stars, bears, and hearts!



For dessert we had a super cute Girls Day cake topped with candy versions of the Emperor and Empress. My friend Lily's Mommy and Izzy sang a Girls Day song in Japanese. We blew out the candles. Then we licked the frosting off the candles. Then we ate the cake. Because it's yummy!



Lily's Mommy shared her tiny Hina Doll set. There was a beautiful Emperor and the Empress. It's made out of glass and porcelain. So it's fragile. And fancy.



Mommy made a paper Hina doll set for each of us girls. I love Mommy, but sometimes she goes a little crazy with her crafts.



And the best thing about Girls Day? No boys allowed!

Happy Hinamasturi!