Sea Turtles

Alex is interested in the oil spill in the Gulf coast.
He wants to know who did it and who the bad guy is.
He wants the bad guy dead.
Well if BP dies, it will cause major financial crisis in the UK which will eventually affect the US economy, but that is too complicated to explain to him.
So I agree that the bad guy should die.

Once we are happy about bad guys dying, we turn our attention to the victims.
He is worried about the Sea Turtles.
He is worried about good Sea Turtles dying.
I have not asked him about the bad Sea Turtles. That would be too complicated.
He wants to help the good Sea Turtles..
So we talked about donating our time or resources for the cause.
He is in Japan, attending school & camp so cannot physically go there to help.
I don't think they would find a 6yo much useful anyway but I keep that to myself.
He wants to send lots of Dawn washing liquid but I am sure Dawn takes care of that.
So we are left with sending money.

I explain to him how I send money to charitable organizations.
He becomes interested in my organizations but then realizes that none support wildlife.
He gives me grief for the entire time we are eating dinner why I do not help wildlife.
I agree to match his donation just so he shuts up.
I am totally losing this game.
I think he is going to grow up to be a great fundraiser.

So we find ways to raise money.
Selling cookies door to door does not seem to work.
The neighbors are not really a friendly bunch and some have told me straight out that they do not like children.
This coming from a country of people who are discreet and reserved.
These people have dogs instead, which is prohibited in this apartment building.
This coming from a country of people known to be honest.
Hmmmm.

So we look at his room and ponder how much space is left for him to fly his "Lego Republic Attack Cruiser built in 2 days without help" (that is the official name).
So much toys. And even more in storage.
We open his closet and 4 sweaters fall out.
So much clothes. And even more in storage.
We look at his bookshelf with overflowing books.
It's a lego / book sandwich everywhere. And more in storage.
We drag out the under-bed storage and find DVDs we have never watched, and will never watch in the future, with long-lost Lego pieces stuck among them. Do we have more in storage?

Time for belated spring cleaning.
Ken wants to get rid of the storage room too.
It's costing him a fortune now that I switched jobs to a lesser paying but nobler one.

We start with private placements.
Since Alex is comfortable with these people, he demands an outrageous price.
They fade away.
Shocked, he give some away free.
The he is shocked he is not making money.
He learns that doing business with friends is not easy.
A humbling experience at the ripe old age of 6.

Then we move onto Craigslist like sales.
Finally it's working.
He is aiming to raise US$ 200 for the Sea Turtles.
Since he is giving away 50% of his proceeds, that's going to take a heck of a long time.....

My Dinner - Yum!

My Lunch

Japanese lunch boxes by regular folks.

I have just compiled an album of my lunch box production just because I needed to kill time until they air the world cup soccer.

Ken has improved tremendously with his packing skills over just a few months. I am jealous.

Baking With Alex

"Mommy, is dinner ready yet?"

For someone who rushes home to release the babysitter of her duties and cooks dinner at the same time so we can start eating at 6:30 and Alex can fall asleep by 7:30, I don't need a reminder that I am falling behind schedule.

"Mommy, I am stahr-ving"

"mommmmmmmmm! foooooooooood!"

It's annoying as hell. I am doing my best.

"ew, you gave me tomato sauce. I hate tomato sauce. I'm not eating this"
That does it.

No dinner for you. Ever. 

Okay, that is not realistic.

I am explaining over and over that making meals take time.

"So then let's go to McDonalds"

No you need to eat real food.

"Then lets get delivery"

There is only so much sushi we can eat and I am not ordering Dominos.

It's not like this is NYC where you can order in any food you can imagine.

You can make your own damn dinner if you are so demanding.

And I had an epiphany.

That is it, have Alex cook something so he knows how difficult it is.

Breakfast is out of the question.

School bus picks Alex up at 7:20am which is a 10 to 15 minutes walk away from where we live. 

We only wake up at 6 so we don't have the luxury of enjoying Alex's sunny side up.

If Alex ruins dinner, that will ruin MY day, since dinner is the only time I get to eat something that resembles real food.

So have him make snack. If he burns it, it will still go in his backpack as his bus snack. He should be responsible for his own creation.

So we go through cookie recipes and he settles for "irresistible chocolate chip cookies".

We go buy the ingredients.

"Do I have to? Why don't you just go buy and I will stay home playing Legos"

Shopping is part of the cooking experience. No shopping, no bus snack.

He obliges.

We have trouble finding 12oz of chocolate chips. 

The modest Japanese do not dump in 12oz of chocolate chip for just 40 cookies.

Each bag of Chocolate chips is 1.7oz, or 50grams.

I need to get 7bags of these things?

They only had 4, so I buy all. We decide to settle for m&ms for the rest.

Ken made pasta for lunch so we used the still hot pasta pot and put a bowl over it to soften butter.

We dump in dark brown sugar to it, then scrape out vanilla beans from it's pod and dump it in too.

"ew, this is vanilla? it looks like dirt. why isn't it white?"

Why should it be white? This is the real deal. We use real ingredients for our real food.

"But vanilla ice cream is white"

Good, I am teaching him something. Vanilla is NOT white, the cream is!

So Alex starts mixing the sugar-butter mixture. 

I stress that the slower he works on his food, the yummier it gets.

He is careful not to spill anything and mixes really slowly and carefully.

I start mixing the flour, salt and baking soda and then allow Alex to break an egg to put into the sugar mixture.

He cracks, opens and drops half the shell.

I think Salmonella but then realize that we will be baking it anyway. Lets just cross our fingers.

I scoop out the shell and let him continue.

"Still mix slowly. Slow is king"

Amazingly, he is concentrating on what he is doing. He enjoys how the yolk breaks up and disappears.

We mix in the flour mix to the sugar mix and he keeps on whisking.

The mixture gets thicker but he is not backing out.

It's time for the chocolate to go in.

Alex is all starry-eyed with the prospect of a creation, or so I thought.

"Am I doing good?"

Yes, you are very careful, and have not rushed things. The dough looks awesome.

"Good, what is my prize"

Prize? What prize? We are baking here. It's not a contest. You will get to eat the cookie, that is the prize.

"Oh, I thought I'd get Optimus Prime or something"

Hope dashed, he is less enthusiastic about the last step.

We spoon the dough onto the baking sheet and start baking.

It only takes 12 minutes, and we can see the dough softening, melting down flat and then slightly rising.

Alex is fixated on the oven window, I am worried about the lifespan of the light bulb in the oven.

The timer goes off, it's ready.

"Mommy, this doesn't look like the picture on the recipe"

No, it doesn't. Sometimes these things turn out differently with a slight difference in ingredients or how you bake it.

"but I wanted the one on the picture"

He walks away, going back to his Lego.

Once the cookies are cooled down, I call him for a taste test.

Alex takes a bite.

"mommy, this isn't good, it's irresistible!!"

He realizes that the whole process took an hour.

"Yep, making cookies take time. Just like making dinner takes time"

"Yeah mommy, I know now. Now, I really know."

mission accomplished!!!

Alex is old enough to realize.....

Alex made a very interesting observation yesterday.

"Daddy is funny. He says important things to me but doesn't do them himself"

Ouch!!!

Daddy's gotta talk the talk and walk the walk!

Thank goodness I wasn't busted, yet.....

Oatmeal - the search

So we thought nothing of missing out on food from NY.

I have heard that food in Japan was awesome and what was Amazon for anyway?

Alex's love for McCaan's Irish Oatmeal saw no end.

He realized he started missing the stuff a few days into our live in Tokyo.

"Alex, I will get your oatmeal tomorrow" went on for weeks.

Alex was starting to suspect I was a liar.

So off I went to the supermarket to get one.

We scouted the cereal isle and found nothing.

Tokyo seemed to be in the midst of a granola fad and there were many nutty granolas.

As Alex is allergic to nuts, we had to avoid those.

We went to another supermarket.

Same thing.

We finally saw the word "oatmeal" at the third supermarket we went to.

Alas it was the horrid instant type.

One look at just the picture must have brought back memories in the Bahamas. He was gone in a flash.

Does it look that different? I would never know.

So I turn to our trusted Amazon.

And I find our trusted Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal.

I buy, and I get stuck.

I failed to see the warning "This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states"

Amazon dot com has a Japanese version that is Amazon dot co dot jp.

I go there and type in "oatmeal".

I see no steel cut.

I start to panic.

How are other people getting hold of steel cuts?

I e-mail some of Alex's classmate's moms.

The are mostly Japanese married to foreigners and have no idea what I am talking about.

The only American mom tells me I can find Quaker Oats at a supermarket in Hiroo.

I go ask on a message board for expat moms in Japan.

I get ignored.

The dire reality is setting in. We cannot eat steel cut oatmeal here?

I google frantically and find absolutely nothing. This cannot be happening. The internet has brought people and products closer than ever. You are supposed to be able to buy anything anywhere.

 I have to inform Alex of the unavoidable truth.

As long as we live here, he will not be able to eat steel cut Irish oatmeal.

Alex is crushed.

He goes to his room to cry quietly, recalling the texture, taste and aroma that has so eluded him.

Nearly a year into our life in Tokyo, I wander past a chi-chi supermarket in a chi-chi area. There I find the golden can. The real deal. I take as many as I could carry and then realize that all I have to do is come back here when I run out. So I buy 1 can and take it home.

Alex and Irish oatmeal are united. He eats it every day that the can is empty within a month.

I go out for another one, but of course, it's sold out. The store does not intent get anymore since procedures for grain import in Japan is a royal pain and the trade company just stopped doing it.

Alex does not understand why I cannot produce another can.

I am not trying hard enough, he claims. I should never give up. Persistence is the key. Keep trying.

Ugh, the things you tell your kids that come back to haunt you.

I am still trying.

Oatmeal - the introduction

We have brought up Alex on oatmeal.
Well, actually our babysitter, Joan, did. One day after Alex started solids, she recommended that oatmeal will be perfect for him.

I have had bad experience with oatmeal. I could not imagine dealing with that mushy stuff.
But still, life was all about making Alex happy so I went out and sought the best looking oatmeal possible. I didn't understand the taste, so I went for the looks.

I didn't like boxes. Imagine, the grain touching the inside of a box that you have no idea how it was made and where it was stored. Okay, maybe the grains are contained in a plastic bag that went in the box but still, I had phobia about food in boxes after I found something bad, really bad, in a box full of food when I was 18.

So in the isles of Citarella, there was this cool looking can that screamed "I'm traditional, I'm the real deal, I'm good". I liked the look of it, so it came home with me.

My mother abhorred cereal and anything related to that. I had to sneak in a box of chocolate Rice Krispies in the cart in the hopes that it will pass through the cashier (ah, those innocent times when boxed food was gold). I have had shouting matches at supermarkets and dramatic "you don't love me"s over sugary breakfast carbs. She considered instant oatmeal to be in the same category. "Bad food". To prove that, she made a tasteless one for me. Needless to say, I hated it. And now, I have turned into my mother.

So Joan, whom I am sure raised an eyebrow at the lack of normal household (boxed) food, must have been happy to see the shining can.
She made it the day she saw it and Alex was, as she had predicted, delighted. The can was big so it lasted quite a while, but I could tell Joan was feeding Alex this every day.

We taught Alex sign language for "more", when he couldn't talk. It's clicking all your fingertips together, and Joan would tell me he would do that obsessively when he sees just the can.

So we travel to the Bahamas and they serve all you can eat breakfasts at the hotel. I find Quaker Oats instant oatmeal with banana or something and think this will do for our trip. At least it is in a plastic container and not in a box.
I add warm milk and a few minutes later, it seemed to be done.
I put it in front of Alex.
He looks at it warily.
"what's this?" he asks.
"oatmeal" I answer.
He looks puzzled but takes a sip.
"no" he protests.
"yes" I reply.
"NO" he shouts.
"yes" I say irritated.
"NOOOO!!" he screams and bangs his fist on the table.
Quaker Oats spill.

"Alex, this is oatmeal. Remember that thing Joan feeds you every day? The one you sign 'more'?"
"no, no, no! This not oatmeal!!"

What in the world was Joan feeding him? Or did I do something wrong by choosing the banana taste? Or did I just make it the wrong way?

I taste what is left in the plastic bowl. It brings back horrible memories with artificial banana added on. Okay, so it was the banana.

I go back to find one without artificial taste. I make it again.
I force a distraught Alex to try it again since the banana is gone now.
He puts a spoonful in his mouth and proceeds to spit it out.
"NOT OATMEAL"

What am I doing wrong here?
Ken persuades me to give up on the oatmeal battle, and Alex goes on happily eating real banana.

On the way out of the restaurant, he is traumatized by the sight of Quaker Oats instant.
"ahhhhh! not oatmeal!"
He is close to tears.

We go back to New York and check out our oatmeal.
The can is almost empty and I am sure Joan is making it, not throwing it away. So I decide to make it and feed it to Alex, just to see if it has to be made by Joan.

It looks different than the Quaker Oats one.
Can't I just dump warm milk on it and wait 30 seconds?
I look at the instruction.
"Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes"
WHAT?
Isn't this oatmeal?
Isn't oatmeal suppose to be instant?
And this 30 minutes thing is AFTER I have to continuously stir until it's thick.
I spend nearly an hour tackling this.

I serve it to Alex, forgetting to sweeten it.

He gobbles it up like there is no tomorrow.
"mmmmmmmm. oatmeal."
He is a happy camper.

I look at the can again.
It says "steel cut" "Irish Oatmeal" "Uniformity of Granulation"
I look it up online.
Apparently they are completely different from the instant stuff.
I eat a spoonful.
It's nutty with a soft yet distinct solid feel.
Nothing like my mother served.
I am floored.
At the same time I am surprised at how Alex was able to tell the difference at 1.5 yo.
From then on, there was no looking back.
It was McCaan's Irish Oatmeal all the way.

Until we moved to Japan where grain import is a PITA.