Nenmatsu-nenshi

Posted on January 25, 2011 by MThomas

Mt. Sakurajima with a New Year's crown of snow.

I’ve spent the past five New Year’s at my in-laws’ house in Kagoshima, in the southern island of Kyushu. “Family” consists of my wife’s parents, my brother-in-law (who works at a hospital and is usually on call and/or working throughout the three-day New Year’s holiday), my sister-in-law and her three children. Nenmatsu-nenshi (“year end, year beginning”) is always a bit hectic. This year with four children in the house, things were even noisier than they have been in previous years. Continue reading →

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Treed

Posted on January 15, 2011 by MThomas

(This was originally meant to be posted before New Year’s, but was delayed due to holiday-associated craziness. It will be presented in two parts: Christmas and New Year’s)

Santa comes to Japan (along with Elmo).

We put up the Christmas tree just before the beginning of Advent [November 28th]. It wasn’t technically the first time my daughter had seen it, although I doubt she remembered it from last year (since she was not quite 8 months old at the time). She may not even remember it this time next year, who knows.

The big difference of course is that this year the tree posed a potential danger to her — or maybe vice versa. My wife and I deliberately turned the “needles” on the lower branches so that our daughter wouldn’t accidentally spike herself in the eye while crawling/stooping under the tree to grab whatever toy she had chucked underneath. Of course we also avoided ornaments, lights, and garland on the bottom layer of branches as well.

All for nought. Continue reading →

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Shika Kenshin – The Final Menu

Posted on December 30, 2010 by MThomas

Click here for Stage One.

Click here for Stage Two.

STAGE THREE START.

The final stage in the shika kenshin was a consultation about food. My daughter was feeling fairly groggy by this point (as was I), but luckily we didn’t have to wait long before being called to the final discussion.

I got an A4 trifold brochure detailing examples of how to keep the daily “rhythm” for feeding my daughter. The consultant had the list of questions I had previously answered prior to the shika kenshin, but she double-checked my answers by asking  me the questions one by one. I won’t repeat them here, because it would simply take too long.

Suffice to say that the consultant was pleased that we gave our daughter three meals a day at roughly the same time each day, in addition to o-yatsu jikan (snack time). She suggested to me that snack time was a very important time of day for young children; the brochure claimed that between 15 to 20% of a child’s nutritionally intake comes from snacks, so we should focus on healthy snacks such as fruit. Continue reading →

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