Getting Sick

Posted on March 20, 2010 by MThomas

Since March 3rd, our daughter has been sick.

Well, not sick-sick, as in sick all the time. But basically since catching a cold she hasn’t recovered completely. Four days of medicine for the cold seemed to work…sort of…except she came down with an ear infection. I recall from my own childhood numerous ear infections and numerous trips to the local health center. Since I come from a big family, we had lots of trips to the doctor (once one brother got sick, we all got sick).

In our case last week, both my wife and I came down with the same cold our daughter had. After a trip to a local jibi-inkouka, she began taking medicine for the ear infection, while my wife started taking medicine for a cold. Being typically pig-head and stubborn, I naturally refused to see the doctor. “It’s just a cold,” I said to my wife. “Colds last seven days without medicine and a week with.” Which is why I am now taking medicine for a cold, overlapping the end of my wife’s cold medicine.

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Hina Matsuri

Posted on March 9, 2010 by MThomas

Last Wednesday (March 3) was the Hina-matsuri in Japan. Hina-matsuri (usually translated as “Doll’s Festival,” sometimes “Girl’s Festival”) is celebrated by setting up a display of dolls in the house by families that have female children. Since our daughter is going to celebrate her first birthday in May, my wife was keen to buy a doll set this year to get her started on the path to girlhood (or, ah, something like that, I guess).

内裏雛 Dairi-bina

Luckily, we were extremely spoiled by her parents, who gave us 60,000 yen (about US $660) in order to buy a nice doll set for our daughter. The problem was that nearly everything was well above that, with most in the 150,000 to 200,000 yen range (from US $1660 to $2200). The full seven-tiered platform set up you see on many pages about the Doll’s Festival was on sale in nearby department stores for the eye-popping price of 1,800,000 yen (about $20,000).

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Note to self: Never call “parenting,” “babysitting”

Posted on February 21, 2010 by MThomas

Last Friday, my wife went out to dinner in Osaka with a couple friends. This meant that I was home alone with our daughter for the first time. Well, not the first, first time. But I was faced with the challenge of feeding her, giving her a bath, and putting her to bed by myself for the first time.

I made the mistake of using the word “babysitting” with reference to this episode in a Twitter post this past weekend. That one little word generated a good dozen and a half comments on my Facebook page. Yes, it was not babysitting; it was parenting. So, why did I use it?

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Posted in babysitting, day care, parenting, roles | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment