Poor R, her hand slipped when she was on the playground swing today, and she went flying through the air. I think she landed on her head, since she almost had an epileptic fit when I tried to wash her hair tonight, and had similar reactions every time I went near her head. Just when I was proudly thinking she had completely mastered the big-girl swings.

I really have to get some shots of Tokyo playgrounds. They are sad: dark-chocolate mud ground, gravely concrete, rusting metal, flaking paint, murky sand pits that according to my husband double as litter boxes for the many roaming cats, swarms of mosquitoes due to the stagnant drains that catch the water-fountain runoff. The motif seems to be Seventies Ghetto, and there are no concessions to the below-three crowd. It's such a funny and extreme contrast from the playgrounds in Northern California, where we moved from: where there were always toddler swings, the sand pits were filled with this white satiny stuff you'd ordinarily find on a beach in Aruba, and everything practically glowed with the sheen of newness.

When we first arrived in Japan, R was around 15 months and her first few rounds with the big-kid swings always ended with her slamming spectacularly into the hard, stony ground. I am not a sadistic mother--R was the one who kept insisting we try the swings yet again. She finally learned to hold on tight to the metal chains and to keep her balance on the wide plank-like seats. And, most importantly, she learned to tell me when she'd had enough--versus just letting go mid-swing.

But today reminded me she's still pretty little. Guess we're going to have to go back to more gentle swing pushes, until she gets stronger.