Zach awry in Japan

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12 August 2009 Genbo Turns Five

Today is Genbo’s birthday. Five years ago today he obligingly came into the world five minutes before his due date of Friday the 13th. We did the cake thing yesterday, since Maki was home early that day, and he got one present then and one present today.

Last year I took photos with a flash (an external flash, bounced off the ceiling, of course), but this year I tried using my light-sucking 35/1.8 with just natural light. They both have their good qualities, although I think that maybe judicious use of flash in the end produces better photos, despite the fact that non-flash gives better ambience. (With flash the average quality of all indoor photos is probably higher, although without it you probably get better outliers.)

Genbo loves all things oceanic, so I bought a cool scientific ocean pop-up book. He found it interesting, but not nearly as engrossing as the present he asked for: a light-and-sound producing sword from some Power-Rangers knockoff currently popular. We definitely don’t show him that stuff, but he’s exposed to it at daycare.

Not exactly what I would have selected myself for him, but nor was it bad enough to refuse.

It appears that my Jewish genes effectively cancel out the sword-wielding half of his genetic makeup:

(I’m aware that in the States people have (often elaborate) birthday parties for children this age, but they definitely do not in Japan. This is one relatively rare instance where the Japanese way just makes more sense to me.)