Sunday, March 23, 2014

Overdue Update--Chapter 6 is Ready and Checkups in Japan

The big positive note today is that after a 2 week hiatus, Chapter 6 of Strange Fangs is up and running at Jukepop Serials.

Otherwise, my husband and I have both come down with a strain of the stomach flu. It hit my husband like a truck, actually. Luckily, our infant daughter is just fine and we're taking precautions to ensure that she stays that way.

I'm just about healed now, but spent the better part of the last two weeks being stressed about Julia's 7 month checkup and then being depressed because of the outcome. These check-ups are not merely medical checkups as we would have in the states, but take into account various socioeconomic facets in order to ensure that you properly fit into what can be considered "Normal."

Which, of course, we don't. Why would we? The mother of the family is not fluent in Japanese, bad at housework, mediocre at cooking, and not going to cook anything for the family that she herself can't or won't eat, meaning mainstays of the Japanese diet like tofu and mushrooms are right out.

The father is "normal" in that he is a full-Japanese over-worked, under-paid sort of guy. The kicker here is that he is a funeral director who may get home from work any time between 6PM and 10PM  with no discernible pattern and he does not get even one regularly occurring day off. This means that we can't just have Sunday for example be family day as he won't have every Sunday off, or even many Sundays off. It usually depends more on what's going down at his office and his schedule can change any day.

I want my daughter to have a strong bond with her father. I also don't want my fumbles in the kitchen to result in injury to my child. This means that food is prepared for dinner after my husband comes home, whenever that is. Then we feed the baby, bathe the baby, feed the baby again, and go to sleep. My goal is to have everyone in bed by midnight. This doesn't always happen, but it's my plan.

Of course, this falls way outside normal parameters. The chart they gave us to illustrate our normal feeding schedule doesn't even cover an option like this. At the checkup, we had to wait through 2 separate lectures on the topic of how we, specifically, were failing in this right. In order to properly shame us in true slow-grade-school-student fashion, we were made to wait for all the successfully normal Japanese families to leave so that we could enjoy our second elongated lecture.

Admittedly, I tuned out once they started telling us that the way we were doing it is wrong, partially because I don't have the most fluent grasp of the language. There's a part of me though that was always an overachiever, looking to ace any test I could, but I never can here. I can't even pass their tests here because what they are looking for I can never be. A "normal" Japanese housewife isn't even something I can strive to be. Not me.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be. I've known quite a few amazing women who happened to be Japanese housewives and they were all sharp, funny, and sweet people. It just isn't for me. I don't enjoy housework and honestly cannot clean as well as they would want. I can't abide putting that much energy into the presentation of dinner. I'd rather spend it writing. I can't even get my daughter to nap somewhere other than my lap long enough for me to regularly update this blog or write in general, which are things I genuinely enjoy doing.

My husband and friends admit that my system isn't crazy. Neither me nor Julia have any pressing business before 9AM on any given day. There is no one who needs to get ready for school or any such stuff yet. While I agree that over time this tradition will have to change, that we will have to have her in bed earlier to help her internal clocks adjust and ensure she has enough rest for the day, right now it's just not necessary, regardless of what other babies are doing.

I'm aiming to change this, of course. One day, we'll be waking up bright and early so that we might have a family breakfast with Daddy before we run off to school or wherever. On those days, we will have an earlier bedtime and an earlier wake-up time.

But not yet.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

3 years since the quake; Chapter 5 is up.

We'll start with good news. Chapter 5 of Strange Fangs is now up and running at JukePop. Go over there, read it, and if you like it, Vote it to let me know.

On to something more somber:

Yesterday marked the 3 year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that so devastated the area where I live. This year, when the siren went off to remind us that it was 2:46PM, the same time as the Magnitude 9 quake, I was walking with a former student after a day of pizza and conversation. We stopped and took a moment to think on how much life had changed for us. For me, it was a whole different world.

In March of 2011, I was soon to be engaged, soon to be living away from my in-laws, soon to be wedding planning. I was teaching semi-full-time in Sendai. I had never really explored Shiogama. I talked to one of my friends once a week and my mother too. I would play WoW on the weekends with my brother. Life was simpler in a lot of ways.

Now, we've had the wedding and been married for a couple of years. We spent 2013 going through a tricky pregnancy that led to the most gorgeous and amazing tiny human. She's so smart. I didn't know I could love anything or anyone as much as I love her.

Now I am a housewife/writer and sometimes, occasionally, almost a teacher. To my own surprise, I kinda like it. Part of me wants to rail against this, complain about the inequality and sexism in Japan (it is rampant and awful, don't get me wrong) but for me personally this was actually the right choice. Taking off a few years to take care of my baby is just an idea that works for me. We're lucky to have that option.

Now my brother and I actually talk on the weekend and everyday I have someone to talk to somewhere in the world. I've even managed to make friends within Shiogama! And I have slowly but surely begun to explore.

Three years ago, 30,000 people left this planet in one terrifying event. I wish for peace. Peace for their souls and for those of their families. Peace for the loved ones left behind. Peace for those out here who will never know exactly what happened to the ones they love but only that they can never see them again. I wish them all peace healing and love.

But now my baby is crying, and I must return to the present.

Peace and love to you all.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Writing and Breastfeeding.

Strange Fangs Chapter three had been up on the website for a few days and I've been stumbling madly over chapter 4. I know a lot of the story that has to take place, but piecing it together with all the things that have been written and tweaking the whole event into a single-serving chapter worth reading is more challenging than anticipated, especially when sleep deprived.

New Rule: I go to bed at midnight. I really don't care when anyone else sleeps, but I have to go to bed by midnight. My husband is like a little kid who wants to stay up all night if he can. I'm just not capable of that. Nope.

Also, some thoughts on breastfeeding: it's basically no one's business.

To clarify, I do breastfeed, but it wasn't an easy thing for us to do. The week after Julia was born, I spent excruciating hours of every day having the nurses try to show me new positions in the hopes that a change there might mean less pain for me. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. My hypothesis is that because Julia was born 3 weeks early, my body wasn't ready to work that way just yet. Her mouth was tiny, which one nurse noted as a probably cause of discomfort, but I think more than that it was just that my body hadn't toughened up. In any case, the effect was enough pain that my brain wasn't capable of doing its job.

There is a reason why we must love the babies. From a evolutionary perspective, we just must. It is only reasonable to kill anything that causes you that much pain and insanity...unless you love it.

Anyway, the fact that I breastfeed, that we have come to a point where I can breastfeed directly most of the time, is remarkable and amazing to me, but also none of your business.

And there's something worth noting. Julia and I spent a week in Texas, and in just one week of barely going into public, I was asked a few times about if I was breastfeeding or not. The fact that these people don't know me or my baby is part of the annoyance, just as I would be annoyed at Japanese people who would ask about the race of my child before her name or age. I try not to be offended when they ask but it's hard. That's a personal question. What if I couldn't breastfeed? What if it was physically impossible for me to do so? What if my issues with tenderness came when breast pumps were not affordable? Does this random stranger really want to hear my sob story? Do I really want to have to tell them?

It seems obvious that these strangers are only asking so that they can tell me how much babies need breast milk or how awful it is to use formula. It wouldn't bother me so much if they were just chatty folks aiming to share a story, but no stories are ever shared with me. They ask. I tell them I am. They bugger off, satisfied that the potential yuppie they were going to hassle over the benefits of breast milk is already a convert.

It still is none of their business, however. My baby is being fed. She is not malnourished. Our choices as to what and how to feed her have not led to any obvious problems or failures on our part. This question is BS.

And so, to them I say read this. In a recent study, the difference between breast and bottle feeding was found to be minimal, based on families in which one sibling was breast fed while another was not. The differences other studies find have more to do with other socioeconomic factors. Mothers who can't stay home or afford a breast pump generally don't have a lot of options.

We're lucky. So lucky.

Feel blessed, folks. Feel good. We all get another day on this marvelous space-rock we call home.