The tea table has arrived.

The tea table we 'welcomed' in the latter half of June arrived on Sunday, and the baby chair to go with it arrived yesterday.

I vacuumed the whole room, opened the cardboard packaging, and unveiled them. My wife and I both cheered 'Oh!' at the shiny chair and table.

I asked my mother for the chair from 'Nakayoshi Library,' the same company that makes our slider toy.

The cardboard packaging was cute, and when I touched it, the wood surface was smooth and shiny, which was wonderful. Since it's a chair for children up to three years old, I had requested 'no name engraving' because I wanted to pass it on to someone else after our baby outgrew it, but for some reason, the baby's name was adorably engraved on the back. I was actually happy to see the name, and I like it even more now. I even started to think that it might have been better to have the name on it after all. So, we decided to use it as is. We can think about the future when the time comes.

As for the tea table, it is made of solid cherry wood, fulfilling my wife's request who kept insisting, 'The tabletop! The tabletop!' It is heavy and solid, and I'm told the color will deepen as we use it over time. It is slightly larger than our current cafe table, so it doesn't seem like it will feel cramped when we lay out our meals.

We lined up the cherry wood tea table and the chair, laid out floor cushions, and my wife made me a Calpis with ice to drink. Drinking Calpis while sitting on the floor felt completely different from using our usual cafe table. It somehow tasted like a rich summer.

We placed the cafe table and Stokke high chair we had been using in an open space in the room. They will eventually leave our home. With the height of the table and chairs in the center of the living room lowered, the room feels much more like a nursery environment, and it has become more spacious and easier to walk around in.

'Our lifestyle is changing, isn't it,' my wife said. It really is. I feel that by living with this tea table and chair (with floor cushions for us adults), what we feel, think, and even the taste of our meals will change. It wasn't a cheap purchase, but I felt glad that we took the plunge.

The baby is at daycare again today, so they haven't seen this scene yet. I wonder what kind of face they will make when they come home tonight. I wonder if they will eat their meal properly at the tea table. I'm looking forward to it!