Two things happened on today’s 散歩 sanpo (dog and baby walk). We take a walk every day after the post man takes away the orders for the day. Things happen. Occasionally a big dog without a leash appears. He ignores us, but our little Tevye and Hana go crazy. Occasionally we stop to talk to our neighbors working in their yards. Things happen.

But today, other things happened.

1) It sounded like Makoto said ‘inu‘ and ‘dog‘ while pointing to Tevye. Makoto at 1 year and 3 months hasn’t spoken outside of ベビ語 bebi go (baby language). But it really sounded like he was making ‘inu‘ and ‘dog‘ sounds while referring to Tevye. I’ve heard him speak Korean and Chinese but never Japanese or English.

2) We’ve realized young children only notice the dogs and older adults only notice the baby. We pass a child and he inevitably says, “Nice doggies.” We pass an adult with one or more gray hairs, we hear, “Nice baby.” Today had this rule’s first exception. A grandma was walking with her granddaughter and said to the child, “Look at the nice dog.” What was she thinking? What about the baby? Was she under the influence of 孫パワー mago pawa- Grandchild Power?

Strange things indeed.