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.....

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 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.

A new puppy

I've always wanted a pet.
A cat or a dog, it didn't matter which.
But my mom was allergic to animals so no pets for me.
I thought of getting one when I got married but the it turned out I was allergic to felines and canines.
But these days I am thinking to hell with allergies.
What's the worst that could happen? Watery eyes? Itchy arms?
Alex begs for a pet all the time as well.
Guess what dear. You are allergic to cats and dogs too!
Still a puppy would be great for this household.
We already have a goldfish and I've managed to keep it alive for months.
I think I can do a puppy too.

One sunny Sunday I hear scratching behind the door.
I open and see - him.
Small with dark hair, all bright eyes, wet nose and excited heavy breathing.
He is bouncy and lively and surely would be wagging his tail 24/7 if he had one.

I give him water and decide to take him for a walk.
He runs in front of me, hiding in the bushes, smelling flowers and other stuff.
I come to a park bench, sit down and open a bag of biscuits.
I take one out and hold it in my hand wondering if he would eat one.
I decide no, but he's already next to me licking the biscuit.
Ewww, now I can't eat it!
Here, it's yours.

After a few biscuits he's off and finds someone's dog to play with.
They are rolling in the grass and having a grand time.
Some other dogs join in and it's visibly becoming dusty.

He comes back for water panting, drinking from the spout of the bottle, all dusty with grass in his hair.
I am thinking what a nightmare it will be to wash him down.
He's still energetic and goes back to the group of dogs.

They eventually disperse, with their owners pulling their dogs away and he decides to come back to me.
I walk home while he runs excitedly around me.

While I am fumbling for my keys in front of the door, he walks between my legs, rubbing his neck, head and shoulder against me.
Is he itchy or something?
Is he trying to transfer some bugs onto me?
Then he looks right at me with the cute innocent looking puppy eyes and wet nose and I decide to deal with the bugs.

We are inside and he runs to the bathroom leaving a trail of dirty footprints all over the carpet.
Now that annoys me.
Who's going to clean this mess up?

Ken showers him down and now he is all fresh and clean.
His puppy eyes and wet nose are still the same but he looks somewhat like a human being now.
"Okay, Alex. Lets clean your dirty footprints and let's wipe your nose cos' it's all sweaty".

I guess I don't need a puppy.
One human puppy is enough.

How to talk to kids so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk

After we kissed Alex goodnight, he came out to the living room and planted himself next to Ken on the sofa. Alex explained that he wanted to sleep in our bed. Ken and I kept telling him that he needed to sleep in his own bed because of A,B, and C.

Then Alex said, “No, I’ll go to my bed when mommy and daddy go to bed”

I don’t think it’s a good idea to wake you and move you to your bed.

“That’s not what I am saying”

So you are staying up until then? I don’t think that is a good idea.

“no mommy, you don’t understand”.

I do, sweetie. You want to sleep in our bed, right?

“No, I’ll go to my bed when mommy and daddy go to bed”

Well what are you going to do until then? Stay awake? You need to sleep dear. You need to grow!

Alex shouts “You don’t understand!” then ran past Ken and rushed to his room.

Ken was satisfied. “Look, he says he doesn’t want to do something, but he does. He went to his room and in his bed. He understands. He has very good comprehension”.

But as I heard Alex’s muffled cry, something told me that this wasn’t right.

So after pondering for a few minutes, I went to his room.

I sit next to Alex wondering what to say.

He talks first.

“mommy, you don’t understand what I’m saying”

I think I do. You are saying you want to stay up until mommy and daddy go to sleep.

“No”

Okay, then I think you are saying that you want to sleep in mommy and daddy bed until we go to sleep.

“No mommy, no. I’m saying I will go to sleep in my bed when mommy and daddy go to bed”

Okay, so you are going to sleep in your room when mommy and daddy go to bed, right?

“yes”

But what are you going to do until then?

“No, mommy, I am saying I will go to my own bed when you go to bed”

Yes, I understand that part. You are going to bed when I go to bed. But what are you doing until------ no, um, what is a better word --- before, that? Before mommy and daddy go to bed? We go to bed very late.

“Oh. Um… Okay, mommy and daddy work and I will read a book next to you”

So that was it. The culprit was the word “until”.

He didn’t know what it meant, so didn’t understand what I was saying.

He also didn’t have the concept of time before mommy and daddy went to sleep.

He was all worked up and fixated on the notion of going to bed only when his parents went to bed.

I explain to him that he needs to sleep so he can grow and that as grown-ups, mommy and daddy are pretty much done with growing.

“but mommy, mommy and daddy need to grow until 100”

Alex had the concept of growing and getting old mixed up as well.

I explain that when I say “grow”, I mean getting taller and stronger and smarter, while getting to be 100 means getting old.

“Oh…. Okay, I know what you are saying mommy. You’re a grown up so you only need to grow little, but I need to grow big because I’m still small”

That’s right.

“But how about 100?”

I hope we all get to be 100.

Alex is all bright eyes and smiling now.

“I want the living room to be next to my room and the bathroom next to my room to be where the living room is. And the kitchen can be next to the bathroom”

I see, so it’s like our apartment in New York, right? The living room close to your room.

“Yeah, and mommy’s room is my room and my room is mommy’s room. And Katie and Mark’s rooms are upstairs. You need to use the stairs. ”

Wow, so we have stairs in our apartment?

“Yeah, I’m mixing up the rooms and wish all the rooms were my way”

It sure is one big interesting apartment.

“Yeah, it’s big and fun. …Mommy, you can go now”

I am startled. I realize then and there that this situation is exactly like those explained in the book ”How to talk to kids so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk”. It took a good 10 minutes, but he completely recovered.

“Oh mommy, I have an idea. You can bring your computer for work to your bedroom next to my room. Daddy can stay and work in the living room”

Oh Alex, that’s a good idea. But unfortunately, I have lots of cables and things connected to the cables.

“That’s all right. You can bring all of it to your room so you can work there all the time.”

Well I will certainly consider it, okay?

“Okay, and daddy can help you”

Thanks for the advice. I love you. Good night.

“Good night”

So just like that.

I sat there, listened to my son, agreed with him, repeated what he said, and he came up with a suggestion all by himself. JUST AS THE BOOK PREDICTED. This is scary stuff.

I bought this book at the suggestion of some friends but it was left on the shelf untouched for 3 years. And then, I decided to read it simply because I ran out of things to read. The case studies all sounded too good to be

true. I was very skeptical thinking, yeah, well MY child will not react like that! But then when I unwittingly did what the book tells parents to do, simply because I was lost, a completely new situation opened up.

Now I have to remember to show my appreciation for Alex trying so hard to communicate with me, tomorrow morning.

Japanese Potty

"mommy, there are no potties!"
"Yes there is, this is a toilet. See the blue man and pink woman on that board? That means there are potties here"
"I don't like pink woman room. I want to go to blue"
"Well daddy's not here today so you are in here with me"
"but mommy, pink doesn't have my potty!"
So I go into the offending stall and find this.  

I go in the next stall and find the same thing.
This is Tokyo, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, at a fairly upscale department store to boot.
Why am I facing this?

Japanese potties are basically a hole in the floor with half a dome to cover 1/6 of the oval hole.
I refuse to understand how to use it and instruct Alex to do so as well.
I completely forgot about their existence until Alex came running out of the stall.
"mommy, can I go to blue man room?"
He's 4.
Should I send him off to a public toilet on his own?
The only "western style" stall is out of order.
He is near tears with the hole potty.

Come to think of it he is becoming pretty rigid about trying out new things.
He didn't want to try out the new mango orange muffin that cost me $5 this morning.
Maybe this is a good opportunity to instill the idea of overcoming challenges.
So I drag him in the stall, and have him squat over the hole.
I am not sure if we are even facing the right way, but he aims inside the dome, assuming it's a splash guard.

MISSed!
He pees ON the dome.
The liquid trickles down the dome onto the floor running towards his shoes.
I lift Alex to avoid any contact but Alex was not done yet so the pee was now showering the wall.
Ooops.
Disaster in progress.

The stall is so small that there is no other choice but to put Alex down in the puddle and let him finish his thing.
He understands the situation and now he is peeing and crying at the same time.
"I want to go to blue room!!"

This toilet has been the de facto standard for many years.
At the same time the Japanese have been known for their longevity.
One needs to squat to do her job in this toilet but I cannot imagine an 80 year old being able to do that.
There is a janitor's closet within the ladies room so I clean Alex's shoe there.
He's still sobbing at the ordeal and not happy about the fact that he has to wear the shoe I hosed down.
Mercifully there are no people waiting to use the toilets so I throw a bucket of water in the stall we trashed to wash things down.
The rest has to be dealt by the janitor.

During all of this, not a single person came in.
It's 1:30pm, when the toilets are usually crowded with people who finished lunch at one of the restaurants.
Alex and I leave the Restaurant floor to go down to the Luxury Brand floor.
There is a long line of people coming out of a corridor.
It leads to the ladies room.
We cut the line and go in, pretending to just wash our hands, and find out that all the stalls have regular toilet bowls.
Aha! So even Japanese, young and old like the "western style" toilets.

An anniversary we fail to notice

There was an article about anniversaries people celebrate.

It asked which anniversary the readers most look forward to.
To me, I guess it's my kid's birthday.

And so my answer was the same as a million other readers.

But that wasn't the point of the article.
The author pointed out that our firstborn's birthday is not just the kid's birthday but also the day "parents" were born. Before that we were just husbands and wives (majority of Japan is still a hetrosexual partnership). Hence the birthdays of Mommy and Daddy.
We have a right to celebrate for ourselves too! Who knew?
Makes sense.

But who's going to get me presents?

creep

I don't know the appropriate translation for the word "creep".
So after much contemplation, I just say "creep" in English.
I'm talking in Japanese pretty well and suddenly I turn into English.
The group of women I was talking to blink.
And then they lose interest as if it was a boring story after all.

The problem with Japanese people is that they assume you are Japanese if you look East Asian.
There are no "Asian-Americans" in their world.
If you look Asian, you are expected to speak Japanese flawlessly and understand it perfectly well. You are expected to follow the culture of bowing, saying "sorry" all the time, running to the trains, etc, mindlessly.
Especially with the "patriotic fad" going on, there is this strange sense of superiority among people and a friend told me she felt she was treated like a second-rate citizen when people found out she couldn't speak the language.

So I am having trouble with the word "creep".
Alex and I were sitting on a train and out of nowhere comes this 20-something, sitting right next to Alex. I didn't notice him until he interrupted our conversation. I thought a pretty woman was sitting there. Where did she go?
"He's very cute. How old is he?"
I'm dumbstruck. This is Japan, the land of harmless looking psychos with knives.
"I'm Four!" Alex is so happy that he was finally asked something that he could answer in Japanese.
"You speak very good Japanese. Where are you from?" Damn it! Why is he carrying on a conversation? I just stare. He asks again, this time loudly.
I still stare.
"Are you from Thailand?"
I finally cave and say "New York".
"Oh, that must be far away. How long is it by plane?"
Why is he asking this? Creep. His eyes scream "pedophile".
I am thinking what to do. I don't want to move suddenly and have him running after us with a knife. It's still a while until the next station.
And then I freeze.

He takes Alex's right hand and strokes it, repeatedly.
I mentally calculate how long it takes me to take a pen out of my bag and stab his hand.
Can I get away with it?
Then I hear the announcement for the next station. I have never been grateful for this boring announcement in my life.
I grab Alex's right arm and say "okay, we are getting off".
"Why? this isn't our station yet". Why does Alex have to argue with me right now out of all the time in the world?
"I don't like strangers touching you".

The creep then stands up and walks away.
He go sits next to a woman with a stroller.
Wow, he is a pedophile looking for prey.
We get off the train.

In NYC even 10 year olds have chaperons take them to and from school.
But in Japan, once you are in elementary school, kids are suppose to commute by themselves. A lot of schools think that this is what constitutes children's "independence".
I see 6, 7 , 8 year olds, light as a feather, brave the commuter train every morning. These kids are small, most of them wearing uniforms that identify their schools (and location, obviously) and sometimes even have their nametags hanging out.

I am explaining all of this to a group of Japanese women as they pass out tea and I get stuck at the word "creep".
I am still angry and worked up about it and I am stressing that there is no way in hell I am going to let Alex go to school by himself.
"That creep. Creep, creep!!!".

"Relax, here it is".
What is here? What is she talking about?
"Your cream. Creap. Well this is real cream, not cheap creap that's powdered.
This is what you want in your tea, right?"

I'll be damned.

Japanese Packed lunch

Happy New Year everyone.

Alex started school last week and I was so glad because he was driving me bonkers by asking me when he could go back to school, 20 times a day (nearly every 30 minutes), for 3 weeks.

It has been 3 months since I have officially started packing lunch for Alex.
It was great at first.
Lots of frozen bite size lunch food in Tokyo in the freezer section; all you have to do is nuke 'em and pack 'em. They even have frozen blanched spinach nicely tucked in a 1 x 1 plastic nukable container.

All you have to do is take the package out of the freezer, cut one container off (about 8 containers connected loosely in 1 package), add some salt or soy sauce and throw it in the microwave.

They sell cute lunch boxes too (Alex has "Thomas" and "Cars", of course) and all I have to do is figure out how to configure these various containers with various prepared food in them in the box so they fit, and throw in a rice ball or two (easier to make than sandwiches, actually).
Alex was just so excited getting food in a box that he was content with it for 2 months.

Then he started comparing his lunch to his classmates'.
He noticed that others were far more elaborate than his:

• He noticed that sausages weren't merely boiled, they were somehow morphed into octopuses or flowers.
• Rice balls weren't just rice flavored with a sprinkle of salt carelessly squashed together in the box. They were Elmos, cookie monsters, soccer balls and bunnies.
• There were smiling eggs and Pokemon cheese.
• Koala meatballs and star sandwiches.

Packing lunch is a competitive sports here.

By the second year of packing, most moms (and I stress moms here, since in this society, these things HAVE to be made by moms, no one else) make it into an art form and the respective children open their lunch boxes proudly in the hopes of attaining the highly coveted "best lunch box owner" status.

You see the idea is, the better the lunch box content, the more that child is cherished and loved by his/her mom.
Under this guideline, Alex was literally an orphan.

And so, to keep within the spirit of his classmates and their ever so creative moms, Alex started to demand "spider webs", "froggies", "backyardigans" on his lunch and I started to oblige.

I don't want him to grow up and think 20 years later that he has some obscure issues because I didn't pack him good looking lunch.

I have spent well over $30 investing in silly lunch making gadgets like Nori punchers (punches a face into a nori), animal rice shapers (shapes the riceballs into elephants, fish and bears), swordfish toothpick (a tiny blue plastic swordfish in which it's "sword" part acts as a toothpick - I line up edamame on this; alex thinks it's hilarious), Ariel partitions (wax paper partitions with Ariel printed on it - he's in love with her right now), Winnie the Pooh Nori (Nori pre-cut into Pooh) etc and these stuff are taking up an entire cupboard.

Think I'm losing my mind?
This is what I am up against.

and this

and this

and these are just the tip of the iceberg.

I thought I didn't have to deal with this crap if I had Alex in an American school.
Apparently, blond kids at his school get a pass even if their lunch is just a jelly sandwich and a banana (low status) that comes directly out of a bag (even lower status).

However, there are different expectations for kids with Asian moms and an American style laissez-faire packed lunch may ostracize the child from classroom society.

"Mommy, I was the only one who didn't have a face for lunch (meaning a face somehow designed on a rice ball or sandwich or boiled egg or whatever). Everybody was talking about their faces and playing with them!! I didn't have a face....nobody played with me"

I am having such a hard time taking this seriously.

One of our neighbors, who has 3 school aged kids besides her preschooler told me she wakes up at 5am every weekday to pack lunch. She also packs snacks, makes breakfast, checks the kids' belongings and drives the kids to 2 different schools before having to comeback home.
However if she didn't have to pack lunch, she could get away with waking up at 6:30.
She's been doing this for 12 years. She has an MBA from an Ivy League. You'd think she'd have all the logistics figure out by now to maximize efficiency and shorten labor time. Nope, even she - who did operational management - cannot escape the mundane labor intensive work of packing a Japanese lunch.

I can't live like this!

Excuse me!

Alex has been exposed to Japanese from the time he was born. Ken talks and reads to him in Japanese.
Yes, his nanny, as well as I, only speak and read English to him but he does understand the difference between the 2 languages.
He gauges the direction each language reads (Japanese : up / down) or the way the pages are turned (Japanese : from left to right). He can tell right away if someone is speaking Japanese or English even though he doesn't know any of the words.

When we were in NY, Alex and I often went to this Japanese restaurant nearby when Ken was late at work. It was probably the only time Alex got to see me speak some Japanese to someone besides Ken. I used to say "Su-mi-ma-sen" when I waved to a waitstaff, had tea served or dropped something on the floor. It essentially means "excuse me". Alex picked it up quickly and he managed to pronounce it flawlessly at the age of 2.5 years old. Whenever we would go to a Japanese restaurant, he would try this word out on people.

Alex has a Japanese name alongside his English one. He is called in his Japanese name when spoken to in Japanese and English name at other times. But he does not let me call him in his Japanese name, mainly because I don't speak the language well.

One day I started out with his Japanese name and just kept on going much to his protest.
Then he had an epiphany.

"Oh, I know! This is Su-mi-ma-sen! You are saying Su-mi-ma-sen!"

No I'm not using that word at all.
What is he saying?

Then I had an epiphany.
I realized he never understood what the word "Su-mi-ma-sen" meant.
He thought it was an English word that stood for "Japanese language".
So when he's in a Japanese environment, he would get excited and say "Su-mi-ma-sen" just to reiterate the fact that he realizes he's in a Japanese place.

And all this time I thought we were raising a multilingual child....

He's 4 now and nowhere near speaking Japanese.

Memories of New York

A nice Saturday in Central Park in June. Ken already left for Japan, Alex and Harrison had a playdate in the park. 

Alex got upset because he couldn’t eat his snack right before lunch. 

He starts the guilt trip.

Alex: That’s not fair! I’m not talking to you mommy. I miss daddy. I miss daddy~!

Harrison (deadpan): Daddy’s at work

Alex: No Harrison!! DADDY IS IN JAPAN! I miss daddieeeeeeee.

Carole: Harrison would never say that in a million years. Did you hear what he said? "Daddy’s at work." That’s Bruce’s excuse when he’s not around!

Of all the years I have been in NY this is the most memorable conversation. I don’t know why, but it was just too funny at the time.

The goodness of TV as a childrearing tool

Rachel once told me that when she moved from East 90s to East 50s, she didn't have time to deal with her kids so she sat them in front of the TV while she packed and unpacked. Now her apartment is all nice and cozy but apparently the kids never got out of the habit.

I am a preemptive control freak. I'm bad at controlling things after the fact so I try to preempt. I can't pry a kid off a TV so I rather just raise him without one. One good way at installing "no TV" rules was to find a nanny who would rather go outside to the playground that sit in front of the TV. Delegation is everything to me.

"No TV" or "Yes TV" seems to be a topic that riles some people up, especially on childrearing message boards. Come to think about it I really didn't have a good reason to support my "no TV" policy. I turned out fine. I even worked in network TV for a decade for heavens sake. A lot of my friends were glued to the TV in their playpens and they are lawyers now. But then I remember my childhood, sitting in front of the TV all day, eating snacks or French fries and getting splitting headaches, not to mention gaining a lot of weight. I have a tendency to reflect my fears on my son. Those headaches were destructive to my mood and I'm too old to carry a heavy child. So it's no TV for him.

But how can I resist the remote control when Alex is nagging me to tell him each and every item I am unpacking and asking me whether he can touch the few Baccarat Crystals we have left?

We shipped the TV last. Ken was contemplating until the very end whether we should take it to Japan or not. I wanted to give it to our nanny. Ken thought about the prices these LCD TVs are in Japan. The day the movers came they put it in a box and wrote "to Japan". However, this was the second shipment. We did 2 installments. First was in May, the second end of June. It takes at least 50 days by sea. Our TV is still floating across the Pacific.

So I do not have a remote control button to push. I don't have a choice. I have to deal with my kid. Ken doesn't want to buy a TV when he knows a perfectly good one is coming in a few weeks. I am working from home without a nanny. How do people cope in situation like these?

I finally find a solution. I let Alex watch a movie on my computer while I read paper documents. problem is, since he's been raised without much TV, he gets tired at focusing and his interest wanes in 30 minutes.....

potty fishing

Alex wanted to fish. He needed to fish. So he finds a rod and some fish and happily goes in search of water. The tub takes too long to fill, the kitchen is too high to reach. The bathroom sink is being used for soaking his underpants that he peed on heavily (by accident, he insists).

He then finds a pool of water, just sitting there, waiting to be used as a fishing pond. He is ready to throw in the fish when I spot him. 

"Alex, please don't fish in the potty"

He turns around, quizzical. "Oh", he says looking lost.

I turn to leave when he asks "why?".

Does he seriously not know? I mean he is totally potty trained by now, he knows to wash hands after going to the toilet.

"because you pee and poop there. It's dirty".

"but it's flushed. It's clean now"

"um..... well, sometimes you pee and forget to flush"

He proceeds to flush the toilet.

"it's clean now"

The hygiene talk is not going anywhere so I need to change strategies.

"what if mommy needs to go pee right now and you are fishing there? There will be no time for you to pick up the fish and it will get dirty"

"you can use the other potty"

It was a comeback I did not expect. He is getting good at this.

"Ummmm, it's too far if I really wanted to go now"

"oh, okay"

Phew, he bought it!

So he takes his rod and fish and starts fishing on the carpet in front of the bathroom.

I am satisfied with my interaction with him thinking I have mastered the art of child rearing.

I go in the bathroom just to check he didn't do anything in the bowl or splash water around.

I notice a spot on the mirror so I start wiping and then I start cleaning the hand washing sink and then wipe down the toilet ending with another flush.

I come out of the bathroom seeing him content and happy.

He looks up.

"Is it clean in there?"

"of course"

"yeah! now I can fish!"