A Fish Out of Water

Moving on

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Good-bye Summer

We had an extra-long summer this year, starting in Canada and finishing in Japan. Where I'm from it's considered summer if you can comfortably wear a t-shirt, whereas in Japan summer doesn't really start until the rainy season ends in mid-July. Right when we got back to Japan! Still, it feels like it's gone by too fast and we didn't get to do enough.

We spent a lot of time at the splash pool across the street and I ended up getting him some water guns, after vowing to never buy him any kind of gun-like toy. He was chasing around all the other kids though and trying to take their guns (after being out of kindergarten or daycare for three months he'd forgotten his social skills) it was easier to just get him one of his one. Luckily he ended up preferring his tube-shaped water shooter, so I think by next summer the guns will have somehow accidentally been thrown out. Oops.

We went to a fireworks show, and Shuma loved the first half and then fell asleep for the last half.

My niece Marya came over for a couple nights. We went to the movies and saw Doraemon: Stand By Me (a Japanese kid's animation), which I was able to mostly understand but really didn't like because it has some negative messages. It was Shuma's first time at the movies (not counting once when he was a baby) and he loved it and is now a fan of Doraemon (an earless blue cat robot from the future, if you were wondering).

Not many things are fun for both 3-year-olds and 9-year-olds, but anything with water seems to do the trick. We went to the splash pool and a regular pool too and exhausted ourselves.

The kids made their own pizzas- Marya carefully made this beautiful vegetable pattern while Shuma dumped a handful each of olives and pepperoni.

And bathtime is always more fun with an extra kid!

He was also happy to just have a new person to share his toys with. There isn't a whole lot of casual visiting in Japan so it's really rare to have a playmate over. Let's hope this happens again!

Next we went to Osaka to visit the in-laws. Marya and her brother Yuuki were there, and again Shuma was happy to have playmates.

Some old games and toys were dug out, including Hideaki's old pinball machine which the kids loved.

And this toy that was Hideaki's when he was little. Shuma just found it and started playing with it, and without hearing where it came from it became his favourite toy.

He insisted on sleeping with it every night and still likes to carry it around when we go out. Funny how he's so attached to something that his dad played with 40 years ago. And amazing that they kept it, and in such good condition!

While we were there all the kids took swimming lessons, with Shuma and Yuuki in the same class. That's Yuuki third from left and Shuma on the right, splashing water into the filter instead of listening to the teachers (he did this pretty much the whole week).

Yuuki was better than Shuma at paying attention, but he did like to do his own thing. I like how they have all the kids lined up on their bellies on the raft, with Yuuki lying on his back. Just chilling.

They both got certificates showing they'd completed the lowest level possible. Yay! All the other kids got higher levels, except for the 2-year-old who spent his first three days crying. Oh well, they had fun and that's what's important.

We went to a couple of amusement parks, where I didn't take many pictures because chasing around my child is kind of exhausting. At one of them Shuma and Yuuki got to touch a dolphin and Marya got to swim with them.

Back home we had some cool weather so spent more time at the playground than the splash pool.

 

The last weekend of August we stayed at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, since we weren't able to take a trip anywhere. We did the same thing three years ago and this time the view wasn't quite as good but Shuma did enjoy the trains.

 

The hotel has an aquarium and a pool, so we kept busy with those and then the next day took a couple of river cruises.

 

We finished with a ride on a choo-choo train, then a ride on a real train. Hideaki took this very flattering picture of me during the three minutes I fell asleep, which is so unfair because this is probably the first time I've slept on the train when we're out together. Whereas he sleeps every single time leaving me to keep our son quiet and amused. Sigh.

And the next day summer was over and Shuma was back in kindergarten. Usually it stays hot throughout September in Tokyo but it's been cool and truly feels like autumn has started. So between kindergarten and the weather this is the most abrupt end of summer I've experienced since I was in school myself. I don't like it, and in my next life I am requesting to come back as a bear (or maybe garter snake) so I can hibernate. Good-bye summer!

 

More summer pictures here if you're interested.

Fifteen Years

So as of September 3rd we've been married for 15 years. FIFTEEN YEARS! I just cannot look at these pictures and believe it's been that long. It doesn't even seem possible.

I've never done a post about our wedding, partly because the pictures are all packed away (yes, they are actual pictures printed on paper, this was 1999 remember). And also because every time I dig them out I end up crying.

Back on our 11th anniversary, just a few weeks before Shuma was born, I wanted to post about our wedding so I photographed a bunch of the pictures (we didn't have a scanner at the time) and put them in this album. I was unable to actually write the post due to pregnancy-related brain fog (and the usual sadness brought on by viewing the pictures). So I've just scanned some more (yay for cheap printer/scanner/copy machines!) and aim to have them all up soon. Or at least in time our next significant anniversary.

What makes me cry when I look at my wedding pictures? Well, it was a small wedding, just a couple dozen family members and friends who were kind enough to travel all the way to Las Vegas. And out of that small number of people the faces of those who are no longer with us really stand out.

This picture in particular always gets me. All of these dear women are gone. On the left is Judy, a family friend who died in 2007. In the middle is Mary, the mother of my sister's first husband (who himself had died the year before), who died a few years after wedding. On the right is my aunt Jean, who died in 2004. The wedding was the last time I saw them all, except for a brief visit with Jean shortly before she died. During the early years of my marriage it seemed like I had all the time in the world to visit friends and family. I figured I'd eventually move back to Toronto, or at least somewhere in North America, where I'd be near everyone. Or maybe I could tack visits on to my trips home to see my parents. The future seemed limitless back then and I never imagined people I loved would die before I got a chance to see them again. But now 15 years have gone by, and I've lost one more person in my wedding videos.

So when I looked through the pictures recently I was prepared to have a very hard time. I didn't. Much to my surprise I was able to look through them without crying for the first time in a decade. Maybe I'm all cried out? I know that the opening vignette of the movie "Up" made me bawl like a baby every single time I watched it (watch it here if you dare). And then a week after my mom died Shuma wanted to watch the movie, and I was able to get through it without a tear. Same goes for the book Love You Forever, which used to turn me into such a wreck I'd be unable to finish reading it, but I can do it just fine now. I'm not saying I never cry, but now it's real memories that do it and not fiction.

And the list has grown longer. I was prepared to have a hard time looking at these pictures today, but in fact it was the first time I'd seen them in a decade without crying. Maybe I'm all cried out, maybe I've grown stronger, I don't know. Maybe I'm starting to look at death differently. Maybe I'm paying more attention to the other pictures.

And something that really helped was focusing on the children, grandchildren, and friends left behind. Because there are so many other pictures, and thinking about where everyone is today reminds me that life goes on. I know it will for me too, and while I'm not quite ready to let go of the past I am starting to see a future.

 

Mom

I mentioned in the Canada post back in April that I was feeling sad from an attack of nostalgia, and if you happened to have read that you probably thought as little of it as I did. I often feel sad thinking about the life I left behind to come to Japan, and homesick for my home and family in Canada. On the morning of April 12 it was about as bad as it gets, but after more than 16 years in Japan I am pretty much used to it and didn't place much importance on it.

The only reason I managed to write a post at all that morning (I never have both the time and the patience to blog these days) was because I was waiting for my parents to log on to Skype so we could have a video chat. My parents finally learned how to Skype, after years of me pestering them to, after Shuma was born and now we have a video chat every few weeks, always on a Saturday morning (Friday evening their time- often with Joe's Pizza on the way). But on that morning I waited and waited but there was no sign of them. It was especially disappointing as the last time we Skyped they'd caught me before I finished my morning routine, and were subjected to my puffy unwashed face, scraggly hair and disheveled pajamas. And I'd been distracted with a major kitchen de-cluttering, with getting Shuma ready for Kindergarten, and with an upcoming Easter party. I hadn't gotten the chance to ask about their upcoming trip to Africa (the trip of a lifetime, my mom called it). This time I was all ready for them: freshly showered, fully dressed, hair combed, and face made-up. But they never showed up and I eventually, still feeling blue, got on with my day.

The next morning I woke up to an email from my dad telling me that my mom had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance the day before. This has happened before. She had been through a good number of health problems, and just last year had survived Legionnaire's disease, had a pacemaker implanted, and sliced open her knee in a tumble out of her tour bus in England. The nature of my dad's email led me to think this was not something to be terribly worried about, and I tried not to be. I didn't have to try very hard, as I was preoccupied with other things (see: Shuma starting kindergarten; also I was planning our trip to Canada this summer). And I was actually on the Air Canada website the next morning about to buy tickets home when I got an email from my brother and letting me know that this was in fact something to be worried about. Soon followed by a call from my dad. So I changed the dates on the tickets I'd been about to buy. There was still time to take a flight that day but it sounded like she was at least stable for the time being so I chose to leave the next day. That would give me more time to pack and prepare Shuma for the long flight.

And the next day, April 15th, I was taking a break from packing to prepare a little package of Easter stuff to send to my sister-in-law and her family, for the party we wouldn't be attending. It was mostly things that my mother had sent me the week before, chocolate eggs and bunnies and an egg dyeing kit. I was crying as I transferred each item from the box my mom had sent into the package for my sister-in-law, knowing that this was almost certainly the last care package I would get from my mother. And then my sister called to tell me that mom had died.

I don't remember what we said, or what my dad said when he came on the line, but after I hung up Hideaki came and held me and then I got on with my packing and I do remember all the things that went through my mind then. All sorts of things, like wondering what and how to tell Shuma. And realizing that almost all the clothes I was packing for him were bought by my mom, and that soon he'd outgrow them and there would be no more little wearable reminders of her. And feeling awful about delaying the trip by a day, telling myself we should have rushed to the airport without worrying about the stupid packing. Even thinking I should close the windows so as not to alarm the neighbors.

I managed to finish getting ready and Hideaki and I went out to meet Shuma's school bus, and then Shuma and I were on the way to the airport. I didn't tell him why, but I'd mentioned a few days before that grandma was sick in the hospital so he asked about that. I was able to stay surprisingly composed and maybe that sort of numb calmness is an early stage in the grieving process, but I think having Shuma with me helped. I had to stay calm for his sake. It was only when we were about to walk off the plane, then again when we were about to exit the airport doors, that I lost it. I had managed to stay so calm that it hadn't felt real, but somehow walking off of the airplane and out of the airport would make it real.

And of course it was real, and my dad drove us home to my family, and for a short strange time we were all together, but not quite. Soon we were surrounded by friends and more family, who took care of us in a way that I can't ever imagine being able to repay. (Hideaki came too, but that's a story in itself.) They fed us, kept the house clean, shared memories, and managed to cheer us up to an almost weird degree. The atmosphere was almost festive at times, especially at the memorial we held at home (in lieu of a funeral). It was very casual, only one short speech culminating in a toast to my mom with her favourite drink: rum and Coke. In my mom's version it's Bacardi white rum and Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, and if you imagine that tasting awful you are absolutely right. So the toast went "To Joanne", followed by a chorus of "blech". Not very dignified, and quite possibly not the send-off she would have wanted, but somehow I think that my mom, who loved to entertain and was once known for her excellent parties, would have gotten a kick out of it.

This is my mother's obituary, written by my sister:

Joanne B-
1943 – 2014

Joanne was married almost 48 years to Jim B-. Beloved Mom to Julie, Amy and Greg, and very special Gramma to Aaron, Zoe and Shuma. She was wife, mother, sister, aunt, mother-in-law, friend and Gramma; she was the center of our lives. We called her our Mothership. She organized, planned, listed, inspired and created special events out of the smallest and largest occasions. Her gifts to those she loved are crystal-clear in the dear memories we have of childhood treasure hunts, week-long birthday celebrations, cards for every event and always on time, odd memories of Swedish Christmas music and giddy imitations of the Muppets Swedish Chef.
Joanne loved to travel. We have many fond memories of her on the beach in Negril, surrounded by family, friends and glorp castles with the villas festooned in Valentine’s Day hearts, cupids and lights. She and Jim had many road trips through Canada and the US with the Burgesses, as well as several fine cruises through the Mediterranean, Aegean, Baltic and Central America, and a 2013 tour of the UK.
Jo’s intelligence, her serene capacity to make people at ease, her gift of making so many occasions special and her gentle ability in organizing a family of strong personalities are the gifts we’ll miss the most.

First Day of School

Here's Shuma this morning, before his first day of school! Well not really his first day, but it kind of feels like it. He had his first real day way back in April, and attended one week of half days, but then we went to Canada for three months so he missed the rest of the first term. Why we went back to Canada (and why I've been absent for months) is the post I should be writing, but I'm not quite ready for it yet so I'll do a kindergarten post instead.

So a little background: the Japanese school year starts in April and runs until March, with vacations during the summer, new years, and spring. There are public and private kindergartens, and neither are free. There are three years of kindergarten and all of them are optional, so some kids go for two years but most go for all three. (Rarely kids will go for one year, but they are most likely returning from overseas or transferring from daycare. Homeschooling is pretty much unheard of and it's rare for a child to start the first grade without ever having been in kindergarten or daycare). For kids doing the full three years, they start the year they turn 4. The school day runs from about 9 to 2, and often there is one half day per week.

In Shuma's case, we don't have a public daycare nearby so we had to go the private route, but luckily my ward subsidises private kindergarten so it's not terribly expensive. We had a huge choice of kindergartens, none of which were perfect, but Shuma eventually got accepted into the place of our choice (through a combination of interview and lottery, which is standard here). His kindergarten has bus service, a big yard with a great playground, and is play-based rather than education-focused (most private kindergartens tend to be educational). What I didn't like is that it seems to require a high level of parental involvement, higher even than the average (which is a lot). And no school lunch service, so I will have to make bentos every day. But he hasn't attended long enough for me to actually get a feel as to what it's like.

But I think I can expect a lot of work, especially compared to a Canadian kindergarten. Take the bags as an example. Japanese kindergarten students need several bags and they are expected to be hand-made by the mother, using fabric that appeals to her child and following instructions unique to each kindergarten. These are Shuma's bags: a large one to hold weekly supplies and four smaller ones to hold his indoor shoes, a change of clothes, a cup and his lunch box. Also needed are home-made lunch mats, and cleaning rags, and then a smock, handkerchiefs, pocket tissue covers, and a number of other things which can be bought. Not to mention the uniform (both winter and summer versions), back pack, indoor shoes, name tag, outdoor hat, stationary supplies and bunch of other stuff I missed while we were away. So much stuff to buy, and so much work keeping it clean (for example, the indoor shoes are sent home Friday afternoon to be washed and brought back looking spick-and-span on Monday morning). Of course I cheated and had my bags made (and I think in many cases it's a grandma making the bags rather than the mom), although I did sew the lunch mats and ended up having to re-do the big bag myself since I used the wrong type of fabric (according to one of those unwritten rules that everyone seems to know except me).

So kindergarten begins with an entrance ceremony (the Japanese are very big on ceremonies) which is attended by parents and a major event in a child's- and parent's- life. This happened on the first Friday of April and we made it through without any major screw-ups. Which was a relief because there are thousands of little rules, both real ones and unwritten ones, that are not easy for me to figure out. And we got the requisite shot beside the sign at the school gate- doesn't he look happy!. (The sign just says "Entrance Ceremony" with the date and school name.)

Both Hideaki and I attended and as you can see, it's a dress-up event. Shuma doesn't look as spiffy as most of the other kids, who had formal pants or skirts and formal black shoes (and shirts tucked in!), but that's one of those unwritten rules that I didn't know about. Oh well.

Here he is in a slightly better mood, having just had a celebratory sushi lunch.

Then his first proper day of kindergarten was the following Monday. Here he is on our way to the bus stop, with his hat, backpack and school bag. Since most kids are starting kindergarten with no daycare experience the days are short at first, so the first few weeks they only go for a couple of hours and they don't have to wear their uniforms. Those days also went all right, except for the first morning when Shuma tripped just as the bus pulled up, and I tripped over him, and there we were sprawled out on the pavement when the bus door opened and his teacher gave a cheery "Good morning!". Great first impression! And then a week later we were gone, and today is his first day back.

Here he is in his summer uniform. It's just a straw hat and light sailor jacket, both of which are taken off as soon as he gets to school. And below he's got his backpack and school bag.

So this morning everything went well and once he was gone I was congratulating myself on a job well done and looking forward to several hours of alone time. And then I got a call from his kindergarten saying he doesn't need his bento because today is a half day. Because of course I wasn't able to decipher the mountain of papers to figure out that he has half days until Thursday, and neither was my husband (who claims to be Japanese but, going by his Japanese reading ability, I'm starting to doubt). Oh well, an unnecessary bento is better than forgetting something, and at least I don't have to worry about what to feed him for lunch. Let's hope all my future mistakes are minor ones like this.

See more pictures in his kindergarten album.