Easter

I know, Easter was ages ago now, but I don't seem to have that much free time lately for some reason...

Easter isn't celebrated in Japan, even in the purely commercial way that Christmas and Hallowe'en are. I'm sure it won't be long until someone realises that it's a great opportunity to sell chocolate and then it'll become a big event, but for now it usually passes me by unless I happen to look at a calendar from overseas. This year I also had my parents and K's international pre-school to help me remember.

I hadn't planned on any Easter celebrations, but then thought it would be nice to do something. So on Saturday we boiled some eggs, got out the wax crayons and stickers...


... mixed up some food-colouring-and-vinegar dyes...


...and made a few Easter eggs. There were spots and stripes, random scribbles, the Easter bunny and Humpty Dumpty (that's his arm you can see there on the red egg at the bottom. Obviously.).

Sunday was pretty cold and windy but we headed outside for a little egg hunt anyway. Luckily I had some plastic eggs that K got at his pre-school's graduation party. Yes, mean Mum that I am, I kept them back, unopened, at the time; he did get lots of other snacks and little toys that day, so he wasn't completely deprived...

Anyway, K had a little note from the Easter Bunny instructing him to head out to the garden and look for 5 eggs and 5 little presents, one for each of us (Easter chocolates provided by Mum).

He really enjoyed it, and only needed a little bit of directing towards some of the treasures...

Then it was back inside to get down to the serious business of unwrapping his chocolate bunny and biting off its head. No time to waste on things like the taking off of coats!

Later in the afternoon there was time for one more little activity. A friend of Mum's had given her a decorate-your-own chocolate for K, and he had great fun squeezing out the yellow and green icing.

Most of the green icing ended up in one big heap, which he termed 'a mountain'...

To be honest I can't really say that I'm passing on my cultural heritage or important family traditions to K, as we didn't do egg hunts or egg decorating as kids, nor are we church-goers (did have the chocolate though!). But on the other hand, why not? We did some fun things together, indoors and out, that we wouldn't normally do. And there was chocolate involved - win-win, I say.

2 little monkeys

Little boy, big bed...

...and vice versa.

2 weeks have passed since little T and I came home from hospital. Where has all the time gone? T has already changed so much, and seems to no longer be the sleepy newborn he was a week ago. Last week we went back for a check-up and he was given the thumbs-up for both weight-gain and jaundice.

In general, Mum and Dad have been looking after K while I take care of T, and between us we deal with meals and laundry. Actually I think they have the harder job; T sleeps well and feeds well and doesn't cry much, while K is, well, a 3 year old...

We haven't really done anything much lately, which is what you'd expect I suppose :-) When Mum and Dad have been looking after K, I have had a couple of little outings with T, to English School, the play centre and a few shops. It's been fun to show him off to people; the first comment from those who know us is usually along the lines of 'He looks just like K!'.

The other common reaction is surprise that T is less than 3 weeks old and that we are out and about, as traditionally Japanese women stay at home until their baby is a month old. A lot of women go back and stay at their parents' house from late in their pregnancy until the the baby is a month old, even leaving their husbands behind if it's far away. Nowadays I suppose less people do that, but people are still surprised to see me being *so* active - wait until they hear I was driving a 2 ton truck loaded with wood back from the home centre yesterday...

A Family Day Out

Mum and Dad have been here for 2 weeks now but they have barely left the house, except to visit me in hospital last week or go to the supermarket. A trip to the home centre has probably been the biggest outing so far, so we thought we'd better make the effort to do something yesterday.

After lunch in town we drove out to Saihaku, about 30 minutes from home. The cherry blossoms along the river there were in full bloom, and the weather was better than it looks in some of these photos...

To coincide with the cherry blossoms, the town holds a small festival where townspeople display sculptures or models they have made using things from their house such as lacquer ware or ceramics. People make the displays in their homes and then open up the big windows onto the street so that everyone can see them. Here we have K studying a figure made of lacquer lunchboxes and bowls...

...and here are a couple of pandas made from baskets:

As this is the year of the rabbit, there were several rabbit-themed displays. This one shows rabbits pounding rice to make mochi. Whereas in the West we say there is a face visible in the full moon, in Japan the patterns on the moon are said to show rabbits making mochi. These rabbits here were made from traditional Japanese footwear: wooden geta sandals can be seen in the centre, the rabbits clothes are made from the colourful thongs of zori sandals and the white parts are tabi, the divided cotton socks worn with sandals.

In this prefecture there is a well-known folktale about a white rabbit, so he popped up a lot in the festival. This one is made from small bowls and dishes, wired together.


K enjoyed looking at all the displays, and running around looking for the red lanterns and numbers which marked the participating houses. T, meanwhile, spent the entire afternoon sleeping in his pushchair...

Finally we made it back to the primary school, where we had parked the car, and there was just time for a quick go on the swings before we headed home again...

Hospital life

T was born in the early hours of Monday morning last week, and we stayed in the hospital until Friday. A stay of 4 or 5 days is the norm here, and people are usually quite shocked to hear how quickly you go home again in the UK. In fact, a lot of older people here still think a week is the usual length of time to stay in hospital, and consider 4 days to be rather short...

The new expanded Monkey family, 12 hours in

I had T (and K) at a small ob/gyn, not a general hospital. I had a private room (with washbasin, fridge, TV and DVD player) where I laboured before going to the delivery room. After T was born I rested in the delivery room for an hour or so before walking back to my room, where I spent most of the next few days.

Big brother cuddles

For the first day and night T stayed in the nursery and was brought to me when he wanted to feed. From the second day he was in my room with me, but the nurses and midwives often reminded me that I could leave him with them anytime if I needed a rest, or if I wanted to take a shower. Each morning the cleaning lady came in and cleaned the room, and brought me fresh pyjamas.

H, K and my parents came in to visit every afternoon, and several friends dropped by too. There weren't that many women in the hospital at the time I was there, so the staff always had time for a chat too if I had any concerns.

T was rather jaundiced and it was recommended that he have some UV light treatment. Usually that requires going back to the nursery and lying under a special lamp with a mask on to protect the eyes, but they just happened to have a new piece of equipment there on demonstration loan. This provided light from below and a naked T was fitted into the special cover-cum-pyjamas with just his head sticking out. This meant that he could stay in the room with me and didn't have to wear an eye mask.

His levels had improved by Friday and were even better again on Saturday when we went back to have them checked again. Tomorrow we'll be going back for a check-up again.

Now a big issue at hospitals is always the food, right? Before I went into hospital with K, I had heard that this clinic put a lot of emphasis on traditional, Japanese food. Now most of what I cook and eat at home is typical Japanese home cooking, but even so I was a bit worried that there was going to be a lot of oily fish, natto (fermented soybeans) and the like...

In fact, the food was fantastic, and so it was again this time! Here's what I had for dinner on the first night, along with a little 'congratulations' flower arrangement...

...and here's a typical lunch:

There was natto for breakfast one day, but H was there then, so he ate it :-)

Lots of people, Japanese and not, have asked me if I wouldn't have preferred to have given birth back in the UK. It's true that it would have been nice to at least have had the option of some pain-relief, and alternatives to the feet-in-the-stirrups delivery table, but overall I really liked the whole hospital experience here. Nice environment, lovely staff, delicious food... it was like a little holiday, with no cooking or housework to do. Oh, and did I mention the complementary aromatherapy foot massage?

Introducing...

... Taisei Noah Aoto, born at 4.14am on Monday 28th March, weighing 3830g.

He waited just long enough for his grandparents to get here first (mid-Sunday afternoon) and then was born on their wedding anniversary.

We had a false alarm on the Saturday night; contractions were coming every ten minutes but, after getting H's dad to look after K and then heading to the hospital, they stopped. They monitored me for a couple of hours, with just the occasional labour pain, served me breakfast and then sent me home again.

I had random contractions throughout Sunday and then, at bedtime, they started coming every 5 minutes. I didn't want to be sent home again so I waited around a bit more until I was absolutely sure, then woke H, arrived at the hospital at 1am and gave birth 3 hours later. Phew.

Taisei (pronounced Tie-say, from now on known as 'T') looks so much like K did as a newborn. I think I'll struggle to tell the difference in baby photos in the future. He's an enthusiastic feeder and I'm really pleased that I'm able to breastfeed him without bottle supplements, which we had to do with K. T is a bit jaundiced but after 24 hours on the light box his levels are much better now. We came home from the hospital yesterday, and all is well.

And the winner is....

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the raffle here. We didn't quite reach 100, but did manage to sell 97 tickets. In total, on my blog alone, you donated $268 (US), 122 pounds and $10 (Aus)! Wow! I can't wait to see the grand total from everyone involved in this.

But that's not really why you're here, is it?

I numbered each ticket in the order it was bought (eg MeeABee got 1 and 2) and then put the numbers into a random number generator. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to show that here on my blog (I know, I know...), but you trust me, right?

The winning number was... 29

... which means the winner is seeks!

Congratulations! I'll be emailing you now to see what kinds of fabrics you prefer.

Once again, thank you to everyone who entered, your donations will make a big difference in the lives of many people.

Now, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go and have a baby...

What we've been up to lately

March was supposed to be the time for Doing Lots Of Things but, between bad weather and my bad back/hips, not that much was achieved. We have done a few fun things over the last few weeks though, so here's my report...

attempting to pick up H's parents' cat...

• K and I went to a classical music concert, his first! It was a performance by the Kansai Philharmonic, designed for small children; the poster said 'It's OK if they cry!'. The music was great of course, and they also spent time introducing the different instruments and letting volunteers conduct. A lot of the children did get fidgety, or fall asleep (it was nearly 2 hours long including the intermission), but K was great and seemed interested during the whole thing. The concert ended with a rousing performance of 'Land of Hope and Glory' which was really quite moving, especially when K turned to me part way through and said 'I like this song'.
  
  
• All 3 of us went to the City Art Museum the following day (it was clearly The Monkey Household Week of Culture) to see a display of artwork from the children's books Lisa and Gaspard, and Penelope. K didn't really know the characters very well, but he enjoyed looking at the picture books on display... and then had a total meltdown in the foyer, but the less said about that, the better.

• K has been brushing up in his computer skills. The other day I came into the living room to discover that he'd switched on the laptop, opened Internet Explorer, was playing a CD and browsing photos. I suppose he's preparing to help Grandad when he gets here...
  
  

  
  
  

• We've had several visits to the play centre (usually greeted by some variation of 'Haven't you had that baby yet?), including a special one yesterday where all the mums had a go at some flower arranging. K enjoys jumping on the trampoline and looking at the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and I like chatting with the other mums and the staff.
  
  
  

  K wishes you all a Happy St Patrick's Day!
  
  
  

• Lunch with Chieko last week, while K was at pre-school, and then, very decadently, afternoon tea with Lisa on Sunday! We had crepes at Giardinos and they were Very Nice, although we agreed that we could really have done with 2...
  
  
• The cowboy blanket I won in the MADE giveaway arrived! Yeah!
  
  
  
  
  
• K's pre-school had its graduation and end-of-school-year ceremony. Only one girl was actually 'graduating' and going on to primary school from April, but several other children were leaving to go to 'normal', Japanese kindergartens. The children sang songs and put on a play...

... and then each child was awarded a medal for their particular strong point. In the little ones class, children were praised for being able to say their name and age well in English, for always tidying up well, and so on. And K's award-winning talent? 'He has the loudest voice in the class'. Hmmm...




And of course, there have been various preparations for the baby, and for Mum and Dad coming. I think now, we're pretty much as ready as we ever will be...

No imminent arrivals...

Tomorrow is my due date, but it doesn't look like baby will be showing up quite yet. I had a check-up this morning and the doctor told me I'm about 2cm dilated. That sounds quite impressive, except for the fact that he's been telling me that for 2 weeks now!

And now we learn that our more reliably scheduled arrivals won't be getting here tomorrow either! Mum and Dad's flight from Heathrow to Tokyo has been cancelled... Apparently, so many people cancelled their tickets that the airline called off the flight. Boo! Now they'll be arriving on Sunday instead, so let's hope baby hangs on until then...

That'll give me time to draw the raffle too! There's still time to enter, go on, you know you want to!

Calling Kate!

Would Kate, who generously entered my raffle, please get in touch with me? You forgot to say how much you had donated so I don't know how many tickets to assign you. There's no e-mail address and your Blogger profile is private so I can't contact you that way either. I would hate for you to miss out on your chance!

There's still time to enter; so far at least 65 tickets have been sold! Isn't that great? I wonder if we can reach 100...

A message to raffle entrants

Thank you so much to all of you who have already entered the raffle. There have been so many generous donations and I'm excited to see how much we can raise in total. And of course there is still time to enter here!

I have just one request for you:

Please make sure I can contact you !

I have had several entries with neither an e-mail address nor a public Blogger profile. I have queries for a couple of people and can't get in touch with them and, of course, I need to be able to contact you if you win!

Don't forget that there are lots of other great raffle and actions going on too, each needing their own donation to enter. Jo has also posted about where the money is going; I think it's a great combination of emergency measures and long-term aid.

There are still a few places in Northern Japan where they don't have enough of basic supplies, but in most areas aid is getting through well now. The number of people in shelters has halved since I last wrote about it, as people become able to return to their homes or find family or friends who can help them. Electricity is still a problem for many, whether due to damaged supply lines or the nuclear plants being out of commission. Temporary accommodation is already being built and different areas around Japan are offering public housing to people who have lost their homes. Our neighbouring prefecture which, like many rural areas, is suffering from a distinct lack of young people, is offering free housing and a cash incentive to people who move there! There are a lot of sad stories on the news, but the discovery of an 80 year old woman and her 16 year old grandson, alive and uninjured in the rubble of their home, cheered us all.

And while the future of the nuclear reactors is still unsure and worrying, H told me some reassuring information about the current situation. News reports of double the usual radiation level in Tokyo sound bad but apparently the usual, background radiation level in Rome is 6 times the current level in Tokyo! It all depends on what you define as 'normal'...

One week to go...

...until the raffle to win 25 fat quarters of lovely Japanese fabric. Thank you so much to all the people who have already donated to the earthquake relief fund and entered the raffle. There are still tickets available though, so have a look here if you are interested. Jo has put together a Master List of all the raffle and auctions going on, which you can see here, there are lots of wonderful things you could win so please do check it out.

And less than a week to go until The Arrivals! Mum and Dad will be getting here on the 25th (Friday), which also just so happens to be this baby's due date. I wonder who will make an appearance first? When I was expecting K, Mum and Dad arrived 3 days before his due date, but he didn't bother to join us until about 10 days after it. Even then he was in no hurry; the birth was induced, which only seemed to result in an extra-long labour as the baby still hadn't dropped down into position. Hopefully this baby will make an appearance before the doctor wants to induce, but ideally not until Mum and Dad are here to look after K...

H took some pictures of me at the park on K's birthday, 2 weeks ago. From the front it's not too shocking...


...but side-on you get the full, watermelon-up-the-jumper effect:


At that time I was having a lot of pain in my lower back and hips, but I'm very glad to report that that has improved somewhat. It's not as painful as before, and the type of pain has changed too. I still feel it every time I walk or move in any way really, and turning over in bed can be excruciating, but at least H isn't finding me sitting on the kitchen floor in tears anymore...

Apart from that (!), I'm feeling fine. The doctor told me that I was about 2cm dilated 10 days ago which prompted a slight panic, but he said the same again on Wednesday so maybe I can relax a little. When I was expecting K I was walking for an hour every day, but this time I'm getting no exercise at all and I can feel the difference. Just going upstairs leaves me feeling quite tired out, so I'm not sure how prepared I am for the task of giving birth!

feeling the baby move, a few days ago


Dr K checks on my baby...

...and his!

At least now I am starting to feel somewhat prepared. This week I did my last private lessons and finished off the transcription work I had, and from now on there is nothing marked on the calendar at all. K is now on spring break from pre-school too, so we don't even have to get up at a particular time. H has brought all the baby stuff down from the loft and is getting it all cleaned up, and I have washed and sorted all the old clothes and bought a few new bits and pieces. I finally packed a hospital bag for me, and a bag for K in case he has to go to H's parents at short notice. The hospital admittance form has been filled in, the cot is set up and I've even managed to make something for the new baby!

OK, so it's only a couple of squares of material with a bit of crinkly plastic in the middle and some little ribbon loops around the outside, but I made it and it is finished. Which is more than I can say for the blanket I'm crocheting, so we'll move swiftly on...

All that's left to do now is get ready for Mum and Dad to arrive, which basically means housework. Oh joy. I'm torn between 'must get everything clean and tidy before they get here' and 'they'll need something to do once they're here, right?'. I know that they wouldn't want me to be worrying about housework on their behalf, but, on the other hand, they don't know quite how bad it is and I don't really want them to either. At the very least I must go through the cupboards and throw out food which expired before K was born, and sew the buttons on the pyjamas that Mum helped me make (everything finished except for, yup, the buttons) in summer 2008...

Spring?

Will you excuse a frivolous, non-earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis post? Actually, after reading this explanation of the situation by the British government's Chief Scientific Officer, I'm feeling quite reassured. You don't need a degree in nuclear physics to understand it (or even a GCSE in Science), and it's definitely worth a read if you're concerned.

So, is it spring yet?

I thought so. In fact, I started writing a blog post in late February about the change in seasons. The sasanqua was blooming beneath a blue sky...

...the snowdrops were flowering...


... and so were the first of the crocuses.

But then at the end of February we had some flurries of snow, and my declaration of spring seemed premature. At the beginning of March the daffodils (rescued from Tim's old garden) started to flower...

... but then we had a few snowflakes once again. This week though, it must be spring. On Monday it was 20 degrees. 20! K enjoyed playing in the park, and there was not a coat in sight. By then we had a full complement of flowering crocuses, yellow, white and purple, more daffodils and even the plum tree was starting to bloom.

So where are all those flowers now? Under a couple of inches of snow. After a 20 degree day on Monday, today it reached 2...