Julia's Kindergarten Entrance Ceremony

My laziness in preparation was astounding. We bought the uniform months ago, and all other materials needed a few weeks later. My mother-in-law even gifted us a fantastic name-stamp set in with Julia's name in hiragana in 7 different sizes with fast-drying ink, as if she heard the voice inside me freaking out beyond reason about the possibilities when it came to labeling the materials. (Hiragana, right? But it could be kanji, I mean, she has kanji so... Would they accept romanji? No, that would make her look foreign. Family name first, of course...right? Or am I overthinking it? What if I choose the wrong pen? The ink could bleed or wash off! What if it ruins her uniform and we have to spend more money that we have on getting replacements?! What if I bankrupt us over a sharpie!)

Yeah, that's me. Nice to know I didn't lose all the neurotic behavior of my youth when I gave birth, I guess.

So I got these stamps and all the materials, and did nothing about any of it, instead throwing myself into 3 or 4 other projects in the meantime, making baby pants out of socks and sweaters, turning second hand clothing with muted tones in to steampunk-toddler wear, and planning out a solar system themed mobile for my friend's new born...

And not Julia's clothing. Not even a little. Just, like, no.

Friday night, my in-laws drove us back from my evening class and dropped us off at our place, congratulating Julia on the next day's actiuvities and that was when it coccurred to me...

I had not labelled the things. At all.

For those uninitiated to the Japanese kindergarten material labeling system, every single thing your kid brings to school has to be labelled with their first and last name (also which class they are in, if the school is big enough. Luckily ours is not) and I do mean everything. Every crayon, and the crayon carrying case. Every marker, too. Every piece of their uniform, from the bow-tie to the blouse, jacket and skirt. Every utensil in their lunch kit. Each chopstick.

Not every grain of rice, thankfully, but we're also going to a school that provides the food, so yay, no bento stuff for me to learn just yet.

So it is kind of a big deal and I spent more than an hour with that stamping kit out, figuring out what to stamp and where and which size stamp to use. I then had to iron some name labels onto some things that didn't have them.

Then it came to the shoes and I couldn't remember where the indoor school-shoes got labelled. I asked my husband. "Across the strap." he said, and I was sure I hadn't seen that but decided I didn't care enough to fight at the point and labeled them across the front strap.
No one else at the school has their name labeled there. Many do on the back strap- the tiny cloth bit that juts up from the very back of the shoe. Oh well.

So I did all of this and fell asleep holding Julia while reading Dr. Seuss in our bed at 11.

My body woke up to freak out about ironing at 4:30AM. So it began.

I ironed and ironed and finally it all seemed okay. Julia got up and I got her to eat something and use the bathroom. We finally got Tomo up to check what the worksheets said we needed and to label a few things I somehow missed the previous evening.

Then we got ready and went.

It was refreshing to see how much variation there was in the dress and behavior of the moms. Some were on top of their kids and wearing the white suits I was told were standard verging on mandatory for this sort of event. Many were more relaxed in gray and black ensembles. One of the dads even collapsed his fat butt on the tatami in the play room, reclining like he was at an izakaya (traditional style bar/pub), which made me feel a little more presentable as I wasn't lounging around and neither was my husband.

Though my husband tried to listen to the teacher and translate for me, he only got excited enough to bother translating stuff I found obvious and already understood. 

The teacher holds up a small clear plastic bag and says "kusuri" which means medicine. Yeah, this is for medicine. She goes on to explain that you needn't put a whole bottle of any medication in there. A couple of doses will do fine (obviously in some tiny bottle-container you can probably get at the 100 yen store).

My husband turned to me, excited. "This is for medicine."

"Yeah, I know kusuri." I said.

"Fine then. I won't translate anything for you."

He says this right after I asked him about some notebooks that I didn't understand the purpose of that the teacher just described, that he did not explain at all.

Whatever, dude. More reason for me to start studying in earnest, when I finally have time to focus starting this coming week.

This was all after the actual ceremony, when all the entering students were made to sit in small chairs in the middle of the gymnasium/auditorium and listen to the principal introduce his staff and give a short speech. 

Some kids cried and ran. A couple had to sit with their parents instead of with the group, while others had their moms right by them, sitting at the edge of the crowd of children.

Mine was okay, in the very middle, until she realized that she wanted to blow her nose. Then she got up and ran out of the group, all the way to the back to get a tissue from me. Then she went back.

Then she did it again.

And again.

And again.

She was by far the kid most in-and-out of her chair in the whole group, but at least she was mostly quiet and as I have learned from our foray into music class last year, this is better than it could be.

At the end, she was held by the son of the principal, who looked after her a bunch and seems a really decent guy. I totally thought he was a kindergarten teacher and was happily surprised to see a male in the role, which is super-rare in Japan. He even walked her over to get tissues from atop the piano while his father talked.

I felt embarrassed and awkward, but not to the extent I would have expected. I also felt like this is a place where they are unlikely to cause Julia physical harm, even when she's being a total jerk, the way spoiled toddlers often are.

I know the staff was on their best behavior, but it still seems like they were nicer than they had to be, but maybe that is also me in this culture of extreme politeness.

But that is a problem we may have for a while. The Japanese idea of killing it with kindness and mild guilt-tripping into conformity may not work well on my spoiled little person. She may not learn anything from that other than who she can exploit the most before they get ticked off. That's what she did later that day at my in-laws house, where we had a lovely lunch with my in-laws and Grandpa Nakamura, after which Julia unwrapped and handed out chocolates to everyone individually, except for Grandma, who is by far the nicest to her. I told Julia she should also give one to Grandma and she responded by handing her one, wrapped, so she had to be goaded into it and still did not give the same respect (unwrapping) as she did for the others in the group.

That's a problem we might have, that this method of instruction may not do much to tame my kid, but then again, maybe the staff are more strict sometimes. Maybe they do have ways of making her conform.

I'm not saying I want her to be a mindless Japanese robot child, but I have accepted that tomorrow she starts a journey into becoming more Japanese than she is American. I am going to have to fight to keep the English up at home, and to keep the American thought process going, too, but there is a lot I have no control over. She is going to be a little Japanese girl. Maybe one with American tendencies.

So now, I need to: Wash the already dirty uniform, finish another project, exhaust Julia so she goes to sleep and wakes up early enough to get on the bus, try to enjoy my last day with my daughter before she begins assimilation into a culture I will always be outside of...

And now I'm sad.

And laughing.

Parenting is a maddening process, isn't it?