New Serna Baby

蕃椒

I know you don’t speak Japanese (course you don’t speak much English right now either), and neither do I.  Well, I do know a few phrases such as: Thank you very much, yummy sushi, greetings.  But mostly those are just to sound cool when at a sushi bar.  I know you haven’t tried sushi yet, but that’s not the direction I’m going here.

I wanted to introduce your fuzzy friend, Chili.  I know you know who Chili is, he’s been around almost since you were born.  Actually he’s about a month older than you, but he didn’t join our little family until about a month after you were born.  Like you he was very new to the world, and we had to teach him how to be gentle with you just like mom’s been teaching you how to be gentle with him.

He was a lot more mobile than you, and we had to teach him what things he can play with and which things he can’t.  I’m know your mom has been starting to teach you the same thing now that you’ve become a master of your own destiny with this new crawling thing you’ve learned.  But he’s growing up much faster than you, and he’s supposed to.  That’s his job - to look after you as you grow up.  He’s there to play with you.  He’s there to protect you from danger.  He’s there to be your friend.

And I hope you can be his friend.  He’s going to love you unconditionally his whole life, and I hope you can learn about love and life from his example.  I have no doubt you’ll come to understand why every little boy needs a dog in his life.

So that’s his name up there.  Those Kanji characters mean ‘Chili’ in Japanese, pronounced ‘Banshou’.  Japanese, of course, ’cause he’s a Japanese Akita.  It also happens that Banshou means ‘Evening Sun’.  Both good descriptions of your little red dog.

蕃椒…AKA Banshou, AKA Evening Sun, AKA Chili… yes, that’s correct… Chilidog.  He’s a ninja, by the way.

蕃椒