School

The number one question people ask me is: "How are the kids liking their schools?"
Also, some variant of this was the number one question I was asking myself before we started all this.

The short answer is that it's going really well (knock on wood).

The long answer is that I don't really know. I've gone from being a pretty connected mom (chatting with teachers at pick-up, knowing what the kids are doing / studying / reading each day, volunteering frequently at the schools) to someone who really has no clue. I mean, I know what Natalie reports, but I know enough to know that that isn't always the full story or even the most important part of the story of the day. Jacob's school sends home a daily log sheet (which I can't read - so there's no skimming it at pick-up and asking questions then), so we have a little more of an idea of what the teachers thought was important about the day. But my general understanding of their schools days here is something between a shrug and a single detail.

Natalie's school is largely physically inaccessible to us. She rides the school bus to and from school, but for us to get to the school, it is a ten-minute walk, followed by a five-minute train ride, followed by a ten-minute cab ride. I don't think I could explain to cab driver how to find the school, but apparently the address is enough - it's out in the country, so I'm not sure if this makes it easier or harder to use the address to navigate. But, duh, not being able to get to the school easily makes one feel very disconnected from the school. I'm grateful to a neighboring parent who has been generous with rides to school for events where parents are welcome / required.

Here she is getting on the school bus for her first day of school in early January:

Jacob's school is the opposite. We can literally see his school from our bedroom. I've never lived in that sort of walkable paradise before. It's pretty sweet. But Jacob's school is largely inaccessible to me because of the language barrier. The teachers are sweet and lovely and kind and do speak some English, but my pick-ups and drop-offs are mostly built around smiles and laughter and pointing at Jacob. It's clear they like Jacob and that Jacob likes going there, so, well, all seems well.

Putting on his indoor school shoes: 

Sample report that comes home at the end of the day:

The top table also contains fields for us to record when he went to bed, when he woke up, and his temperature. The first thing I do when I get home is snap a picture of the daily report sheet and text it to Mike so he can give me a brief version, just in case there's anything I need to know for the rest of the afternoon.

In a way, my generalized ignorance is sort of liberating. At Natalie's school in Texas, I feel some anxiety around her fitting in and having the right uniform / backpack / water bottle / lunch bag / etc., volunteering enough, talking to the other moms, etc. The rules of the game are clear to me, even if I worry about my ability to deliver on the specifics. Here, I know I am failing at an unknown set of culturally specific rules of parenting about eighty-seven zillion times per day. The saving grace is that often I don't even know exactly how I'm failing because I'm not even sure which game we're playing. For example, let off Jacob's school supply list was a nap bag. Because - duh - what parent would send her kid to nursery school without a nap bag? Yeah...... Present on Jacob's school supply list? Two towels. Check. Only two weeks in did I realize that meant two towels every day. Same thing with the change of clothes. I come from the send-extra-clothes-in-for-emergencies school of preparation. Jacob's school changes the kids into fresh clothes after they play outside in the morning; they then eat lunch and nap in clean clothes. I was slow to catch on that this was a daily deal. I'm perpetually buried in laundry.

When the staff at Jacob's school points these things out, they are kind and gentle and always show me examples of what I need to send. When my transgressions at Natalie's school are revealed, Natalie tends toward the petulant and enraged and betrayed. I. Didn't. Know. The. Score. Example 1: No jeans on PE days, even if it's 34 degrees and you have to wait for the bus at 7:30am. Okaaaay. At least my mistakes make sense in my universe, right?

But, really, absent my understanding of what others think I should be doing, I just kind of have to do my thing. Will Natalie ever find her neckwarmer? She'll have to look for it at school and go without for a few days. Do people think I don't know that my kid needs a neckwarmer? Does Natalie need a new reading book? She'll need to ask the teacher and go without for a few days. Should she be reading every day? Is everyone else getting a book every day? Is my kid falling behind? Do people think we don't value reading? Does Jacob's school think I don't know the difference between putting a shirt on frontwards or backwards or that I'm a bad mom because I let my kid walk to school with no hat and with his shoes on the wrong feet? Or do they think I'm awesome and into Monetessori-driven experiential learning or natural and logical consequences? Or maybe they think I'm mean because I make him carry his giant backpack? I don't know. We can't actually talk to each other (plus I'm sure they are much too polite to say), so I've gradually come to just accept that I have to make the decision that feels right. I'm sure there's a larger lesson in there, if only I have the grace to find it.

Both kids are happy. We couldn't ask for better schools to be our temporary homes, replacing the lovely schools we left behind.

Natalie's school has violin and calligraphy / Japanese as part of the school day.

 
Natalie's class is just wrapping up a big inquiry unit on light and dark and what makes shadows. She was really into it, explaining to us all about shadows and light sources. As part of this unit, the kids had a sleepover at school. I worried that the kids were too young for this, but apparently school sleepovers are common in Japan, even in preschool. So Natalie went - it takes big courage and a big heart to go to a sleepover at a new school in a new country, after less than a month of living here. But she did great! 

Here are some pics from the post-sleepover breakfast (parents were invited to this part). 

Bonus: we now have a sleeping bag so the kids can play sleepover whenever they want. Sleeping is, of course, optional.

No doubt there'll be more school updates in the coming months!

Jacob is THREE!

We got our Hanukkah celebrating out of the way before we left, so our first major celebration in Japan was Jacob's birthday. 

I was actually pretty worried about this because, obviously, birthdays require cake. But we don't have an oven! Not being able to bake your kid a cake for his birthday feels sort of sad, especially when you like baking as much as I do. A cake from a bakery is always a little more fraught because of Jacob's food allergies. But, luckily, his main allergen (peanuts) isn't super-common here (although cross-contamination is a worry, so we tend to avoid all nuts, which makes things a little harder). As someone who isn't really literate here and doesn't have anything near communicative fluency, my basic strategy is to go the for most simple, most boring baked goods. Jacob eats a lot of melonpan and waffles as snacks when we are out and about. For his birthday, we stepped it up a little with a pound cake from the bakery where we had ordered my birthday cake when we were here before. 




Jacob's big birthday gift was a train set.

Jacob also got the vest he's wearing in the picture below - plus the giant stuffed snake. The snake is great because - along with densha (train) - the Japanese word for snake (hebi) is one of Jacob's favorite words. He'll often ask us, "Do you know hebi?" As a pedagogical technique, it might need some improvement. But it's totally adorable.

So Jacob is three.

And he is SO THREE. He wants to do it himself (autonomy: the struggle is real), he's a fan of rigorous empiricism when it comes to determining limits, and he is bold and independent and a total climbing monkey. Note that we thought all of the above was true for Natalie. We. Had. No. Idea. Well, expect for the climbing monkey part. They are both fearless climbers. Heaven help us. And the emergency room.

Jacob would tame tigers, if the tigers weren't busy wearing that dumb smile that covers up how they are really cowering in fear.

But Jacob can also be so sweet and cuddly and loving. He loves having a book read to him and he'll happily do that all afternoon.

He sleeps, eventually.

Jacob he LOVES his sister. They fight and have to be separated, sure. But anything she does, he'll do immediately (related concept: teaching Natalie what being a good leader means / that with great power comes great responsibility).

 

A small detail about the above picture: not long after this picture was taken, watching sumo progressed into doing sumo, with predictable injuries. Call that a parenting lesson. Sumo [watching and doing] is now banned in our house.
  
On that note, we had this encounter at the pediatrician a while back:
Doctor: Are you nice to your sister?
Jacob: Yeah!!! (After some thought) . . .  And sometimes I bad.
Doctor: Thank you for your honesty, Jacob.
(At least the doctor managed to hold back her laughter; we were not as successful.)

Here's wishing our big boy a great year of good decisions and exciting adventures!

Baikinman

Anpanman is this popular Japanese anime character who has a super-popular TV show. To quote the font of pop culture wisdom that is Wikipedia (since I only know some of the characters, but not the story), the premise of the whole thing works like this: "In each episode, Anpanman fights with Baikinman and helps the people of the town. He always goes on patrol in the area around the house of Uncle Jam. He is a symbol of justice, fighting for the cause of justice every day." I'm sure that leaves out many important details; I really don't know much about the larger story here. In researching this post, it's become very clear to me that there are people who are really, really, really into this. Of course there are.

Bean-jam-bun,anpan,katori-city,japan" by katorisi
Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons.

A little background: Anpan is a bean-jam filled roll. To me, it's exactly as delicious as that sounds like it would be. I find it overly sweet and mealy. I also feel like anpan is doubly cruel, given that the filling often looks like chocolate (which I find delightful and amazing).

Also, the whole Uncle Jam thing makes a little more sense now, no?

Anpan (the pastry) translates into a cartoon character that looks like this:

Source: http://anpanman.wikia.com/wiki/Anpanman

As one would expect, Anpanman has some sidekicks (Currypanman, I'm looking at you) and some enemies. Actually, I've just learned that the bread universe is really large (and perhaps ever-increasing?). Again, according to Wikipedia, "In 2009, Anpanman was verified as a Guinness World Record Holder for the highest number of characters in an animated franchise with a total of 1,768 characters appearing in the first 980 episodes of the TV series and the first 20 Anpanman films." Now you know, right?

In the Anpanman universe, Baikinman is the chief bad guy. According to good old Wikipedia, Baikinman is "from the "Germ Planet"; his Japanese name means "Bacteria Man." His ambition is to destroy Anpanman and spread bacteria all over the latter's world, yet he is perfectly content to play tricks, steal, and bully those weaker than him. He and Anpanman were born at the same time, making them physical representations of moral dualism. He has a weakness to soap, which shrinks him to the size of a fly. He constructs machines and thinks of intricate plans to counteract Anpanman's strength." Huh. Also: a villain slain by soap? Be still, my beating heart.

Anyway, all of that might describe Baikinman - but if you ask Jacob, Baikinman has only one key attribute: his scary teeth. You be the judge:

Source: http://evilbarneynet.wikia.com/wiki/Baikinman

Jacob isn't flat-out terrified of Baikinman. I mean, Baikinman is no vacuum cleaner or anything. But Jacob is definitely keeping a close eye on Baikinman. After all, the dude/character/thing is from the germ planet and made of bacteria, so it might just pay to be aware.

Here's a little video where Jacob explains the precise problem with Baikinman:

Whew! That was a long lead-in for that video, right? I hope it was worth it. Also, I'm sorry that my kid didn't cover the deep moral dualism of the Anpan universe. Next time.

Last, if you've fallen in love with Baikinman and need your own stuffed bacteria - or think it's the perfect gift for the germaphobe who has everything - no worries.*


*There might still be some worries: I'm neither responsible for your questionable taste nor your assessment of what others would find to be a great gag gift. Actually, what I really want to tell you is the link there is the Amazon affiliate link for Jacob's school, lest you think I've monetized this blog. Rest assured, I'm deeply committed to standing apart from the vast sums of money to be made from blogs like this.

Starting the year off right!

Our New Year's Eve was pretty sedate: the kids went to bed at their regular time without any fanfare (although with some protestations about the lack of a celebration, given the great fun they'd had last year with Bubbe and Gramps and Aunt Jenny); we went to bed around 10:30 after each having half a glass of champagne.

We're wild, I know.
(We have done a more Japanese New Year's Eve in the past, so I didn't feel too bad.)

The next morning, January first, we decided to go all in on new year celebrations and head to the shrine on Mount Tsukuba. I read somewhere that the same good luck is available to you whether you visit at midnight on new year's eve or within the first seven days of the year, so we expected the shrine to be crowded. It was, but not unbearably so - although the traffic heading up the mountain as we were leaving was quite a sight.

To get to Mount Tsukuba, we first had to ride the bus. Jacob was pretty into this part.

We walked around the grounds of the shrine, took the cable car to the top of the mountain, and then hiked around a bit.

Interestingly enough, from down where the shrine was, there was a pretty decent view of snow-capped Mount Fuji. I was expecting a better view from the top of Mount Tsukuba. Alas, the cable car puts one in the saddle between the two peaks of Mount Tsukuba, so we/I would have had to walk all the way around the mountain to see the same view we had from the shrine below. The easily accessible view was still lovely, if less postcard-worthy:

On the way down, we stopped for snacks:

(Also, that picture on the right? I took the same picture of Mike ten years ago.)

And, then, to top it all off, after taking the bus back to Tsukuba Center, we heard loud drum music and decided to go and investigate (ahhh, the walkable city!). We found this:

Jacob would have watched all night.

A belated happy 2016 to all! (I hear you have 17 days to wish everyone "Happy New Year" and still seem au courrant.)

Our first family trip to Tokyo

We've mostly been exploring our neighborhood, but we've also done a few fun day trips.

First, Mike has a lovely colleague who very kindly invited us (and another family with kids) over for a little afternoon party. This was after we'd gotten over the worst of the jet lag and right before all the holiday closings - the timing was perfect.

Getting to her house involved riding the train. While initially exciting, this was also soporific - and a perfect time for me to knit a little on Natalie's hat.

This neighborhood in Tokyo has some really cool buildings:

In terms of activities, these folks hit it out of the park. First, the kids decorated brownies. And then they ate them, of course (no pictures there - I was trying to minimize the mess!)

And then they introduced the kids to their pet ferret. According to the ferret's owners, ferrets are fairly popular pets in Japan because they are quiet and so are perfect for apartment-dwellers. Hmmmmm.....

Finally, we took a lovely walk around their neighborhood, checking out both a playground and the beautiful gardens that belonged to a fancy hotel in the area.

This was such a lovely afternoon. The company was so wonderful, the food was so delicious, and it was just so lovely to just sit and chat and relax (the latter was especially welcome after a hectic three weeks of getting ready to move, moving, and then settling in).

Settling In

Arriving during the winter holidays was both a blessing and a curse. Things were closed on December 23rd for the Emperor's birthday, Christmas was a regular work day here, and then nearly everything closed for the days surrounding New Year's. Also, today, January 11th, is also a holiday here: Coming-of-Age Day, celebrating people who will turn 20 this year. Both kids have only been in school for three days, so a holiday right now is just soooooo helpful as we try to get into the school routine. 

I digress. Back to our first few days in Japan: there were some tasks we had to hurry up and do before the New Year's closings, but there was also just a lot of exploring local parks and playing inside, owing to the slower pace of the holidays.

On our first full day in the apartment, Mike had to go to Tokyo to sign some paperwork related to his grant. I stayed here with the kids. I didn't know where anything was in the neighborhood, it was cold, and I was tired. All I wanted to do was anything but make this seem like a super-duper-fun-awesome adventure. And then - as if by divine intervention - a whole series of emergency vehicles started pulling up slowly in front of the city conference center right next to our building. There was no actual emergency; it was some sort of emergency vehicle exposition. Which we could watch FROM. OUR. LIVING ROOM. The divine is in the details, right?

The kids were totally occupied by the vehicles, which left me time to work on figuring out the washing machine. Here is the machine's control panel:

This is actually a lot like how I vaguely remember our washing machine looking when we last lived here. Know what I no longer remembered? What any of it meant! I am enormously grateful to a fellow knitter and former Japan resident who helped me figure this out via my international text messages (iMessage pictures). It really takes a village. I still have only a limited understanding of all the controls, but, hey, our clothes are getting clean, so, well, I must be doing something right!

Alas, my luck with the emergency vehicles and the attention spans of small children lasted only so long. So, armed with Google maps and a desperate need to find somewhere for my kids to burn off some energy, I set off to find a playground with the kids - a process that would be repeated many times as we got to know our neighborhood. As it turns out, when the neighborhood map placards display an icon that looks like a little pink girl and a little blue boy in the middle of a park, that sign means toilets, not playgrounds. Useful all the same, but a little challenging when you've promised the kids a playground! Anyway, I'm happy to report that we've now found several playgrounds and some local wildlife.

Also, during those early days, Mike and Natalie made a trip to city hall to sort out some paperwork. I understand very little about what actually happened on this trip. Based on these pictures, it seems clear that Natalie met the city mascot, possibly attended a wedding expo, and then had some cheesecake. A solid day's work, if you ask me.

Sometimes, we just play inside.

Next up: our journeys beyond our neighborhood.