"Tsukinami desu."

It's rather ordinary.

This past Friday, I took the Pumpkin Princess for her 18 month checkup. I took the entire day off, took the Pumpkin Princess to day care, did laundry, cleaned a bit, went to the farmer's market for some vegetables, had lunch (instant ramen noodles and a homemade banana milkshake), went to pick up the Pumpkin Princess, and headed for the City Health Center.

The exam started with an interview with nurses (I'm not quite sure what the English term for them is, they put in an extra year after nursing school and become certified to do things like public health care and managing home health care). Pumpkin City is known for being very strict about this interview. If a child doesn't do the things she's supposed to be doing at 18 months, like have a speaking vocabulary of four or more words or play with the building blocks on the table in front of her or show interest in the pictures of a car and a lion and a rabbit and a cat and an apple, they're required to follow up with a pediatrician. The Pumpkin Princess, as posted previously, boasts a hefty vocabulary that's more like 40 words than four words, but she wouldn't play with the blocks. She plays with them all the time at home, and there was no point in going to the pediatrician for a problem she didn't have, so I got sneaky and casually put one on top of another while discussing her eating habits with the nurse. When she saw what she was supposed to be doing, she did the same until all six cube-shaped blocks were on top of another. She then proceeded to topple her handiwork.

The rest of the exam was very ordinary. A quick height and weight and head circumference check, a very quick exam by a pediatrician, a dental exam, and dental hygene counseling (I hadn't known that 18 month-olds were supposed to use dental floss).

What was even more ordinary was that on the way home, we went to the grocery store for some additional shopping, got home, and watched TV together for a bit. The I let the Pumpkin Princess watch some more by herself while I cooked dinner and fed her. The Pumpkin Daddy got home at around 6:30, took a bath with her, and the two of us had dinner together and were finished before eight. Having dinner waiting for him on a weekday seemed, well, so normal and so ordinary. It was nice, but with the lifestyle I have chosen, it's not happening on a regular basis, so we enjoyed it when we had it.