I previously posted a video of Rikuto at 3 weeks old, believing it was the earliest footage of our son that we had. However, the other day I was playing with my phone when I discovered, buried deep within its memory banks, a video I had taken just 24 hours after he was born! I guess I’m becoming really forgetful in my thirties. 
Here is never before seen footage of our son at one day old.
If you can’t view the video, you can see it here on YouTube.
It’s been a month since Mami last went to the maternity clinic, but she went back today for another check-up, and everything is fine. I wish I could have gone with her, but I can’t deny my students their weekly English class! Nevertheless, I got to see the latest video of Rikuto, the baby formerly known as “Peanut”.
Since we found out that Peanut is a boy, it wasn’t hard choosing a name. We had pretty much decided long before Mami got pregnant what we would call our first child. If it were a girl, she would have been named after my Italian grandmother Liliana, but since Peanut is a boy, he gets the name Rikuto. We both liked this name because my name in Japanese is pronounced Ni-koo, and he will be Ri-koo.
Of course, Rikuto could be used in English as Richard, Ricky, Rick, Rich, or even little Dicky, if he takes after his father! Okay, so whether a girl or a boy, Peanut’s first name would have been influenced by my own or my grandmother’s name. He will of course take Mami’s Japanese surname, mostly out of convenience, but also to keep the family name alive. Unfortunately, it will sound much less glitzy than Ricky Ramsay!
Before we could be sure that the name Rikuto was suitable, we had to find some characters to represent his name. We eventually chose the Japanese characters for land and person. Therefore Rikuto means “Land Person”, or “Person of Continents”, which seems appropriate considering he will be both European and Asian.
These are the latest pictures. The quality this time is pretty poor, but it’s only four more months before I fill this blog with baby photos!
Since I found out that I’m gonna be daddy, I’ve been posting pictures of the progress Peanut has been making. Today, Mami and I found out that Peanut is a boy! Neither of us minded either way, but I’m quite excited about the prospect of teaching him to ride a bike and play soccer.
We got loads of baby clothes from friends of Mami’s mum, but they’re all pink! Oh dear, Peanut, please forgive us! Hmm… maybe this will help him dance like his old man.
The best thing about today was I got to see a video of our little 12cm baby moving around inside Mami’s tummy. Because of work I couldn’t go to the maternity clinic with Mami, so seeing a videotape of him was great. If I can figure out a way to get the footage from the video player downstairs to my computer upstairs, I’ll post it on the net for you all to see. In the meantime, here are a couple of new pictures:
Peanut at 17 weeks
