I Just Had To Laugh

11:09:54 PM EDT
Feeling Betrayed
Hearing See The Pryamids Across The Nile....

Such a true statement...it never ends.  I want to take this journal

with me when we switch over to blogger...hope AOL's plan works

because this non geek could not follow the other instructions..

Hopefully see you on the other side...I'm using "Life Is Chock Full Of

Surprises" for now.....bye for a while...Sandi

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12:39:05 PM EDT
Feeling Quiet
Just popping in to make sure I don't lose this journal. The powers that be took one already....I am compiling all of these into a book...hopefully.   Sandi

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11:53:23 PM EST
Feeling Loopy
Hearing  Theme from Mondo Cane

Little babies dancing....yep, even though Kenji was only a few months old - I felt he would start to walk early.  I would hold him and his feet would push off against my body as if to say "hey, put me down I want to run!"

Our house was comfortable, not too filled with furniture, especially in the tatami room adjacent to the kitchen. I really didn't need a playpen for him because the whole room became one.  The floor was soft underfoot, very clean as no shoes were worn in the house..perfect for a little one to learn to crawl.

Tom worked very hard and was gone for a good portion of each day...leaving early and returning after the sun had gone down.  I was afraid he was missing the best part of being a parent...the begining years.  The Japanese do believe in vacations which really meant a lot to us then. 

We packed up and went on several short overnight trips, down to the coast...and black sand beaches. We stayed at some very advent garde A frame cottages near the beach...it was a change of pace and much needed escape for Tom.

One place that we stopped to eat at had outdoor seating around these tables that had noodles swishing in circular moving containers.  The idea was to quickly with chop sticks (hashi) grab your noodles and dunk them into the prepared sauce that was in front of you.  The noodles were served cold...but boy were they good.  Kenji sat in his stroller content with his bottle...giving us looks like "whatever are these two doing?"

I can remember, oh so clearly, coming home from this trip.  We had just parked the Volkswagon into our little enclosed spot when we noticed our neighbors in the back talking in a group.  It was starting to rain so I grabbed the baby and headed into the house...Tom went back to see what was up.

He was gone for several minutes, he came back in shaking his head..."It seems the septic tank has backed up...we're going to have to open it up and see what wrong." Tom said.  I think I said "Yuck". Well, of course by now it's pouring out, so he puts on this yellow raincoat & hat (sort of like that fisherman on the commercial wears) and out he goes.

I busied myself with unpacking, changing the baby and getting him ready for bed. I was kind of tired by this point too and wondering what was taking so long in the courtyard.  See, there were four houses that all shared the same water, sewer lines.  So a stoppage would not be a good thing and you would want it fixed as soon as possible.

Well, a good forty-five minutes passed I finally stepped out into the courtyard to see Tom climbing up out of the dam thing! All kinds of bad thoughts are running through my head...dear God do I let him into the house, hose him off out here...ooh yuck.  The other men, our neighbors, were laughing and quite loudly.  I saw nothing to be laughing about, a man covered in mostly crap was no laughing matter to me, especially if I was the one who was going to have to clean most of that.

Tom approached me, told me to get the garden hose, turn on the water, bring him some soap too. He was still laughing...I said to him "Whatever is so dam funny?"  He said "I found the cause of the stoppage." I said "Yeah? But what's funny?" He said he found so many condoms in there it had formed a large blockage so nothing was passing through as it was supposed to.

I guess they were not biodegradible.

Us, being the newly weds I was sure that we were getting blamed.  Although, several of those other husbands were snickering too much for my benefit.

Such are the moments in life...and I just had to laugh..... 

 

 

 

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1:31:05 AM EST
Feeling Mischievous
Hearing Cherry Blossom Time

I look back over the years and I am amazed that time has flown so swiftly...I felt it appropriate to continue the story of Kenji's arrival...as today December 29th...is his 40th birthday. It seems like only yesterday I held him in my arms and rocked him to sleep.

Back to the past, where my deep emotions still lay sleeping under a cloudy haze.  As I have said before Kenji was a very happy baby, he laughed, he giggled, he slept very well right from the beginning.  That was, of course, after we figured out that he had to have double the amount of formula that the doctor said.

Actually by four weeks old I was giving him mushy cereal also, when I went for the three month check up with the doctor, he told me that Kenji was the size of a six month old.  That was a good thing too, because it turned out he was a very active baby.

We had one of those first type built baby walkers, by age four months he was in it and pushing himself around.  He was crawling all over by five months and believe or not (I have pictures) he walked at age nine months.  He was a very determined little boy this son of mine!

One day I had left Kenji in the walker in the livingroom, just for a minute to pop into the next room to check on dinner cooking and when I returned Kenji had moved this very large package that contained stainless steel samples that Tom needed.  He had slipped the lip of the walker under the package, I guess part of it extended over the coffee table and he proceeded to walk away with it balanced on his walker...funniest sight you ever saw.  Oh, how I wish they had video cameras back then.

We had a little side patio off the livingroom and during the summer months to cool off I filled that darn (remember the tub) bathtub up with cool water and sat Kenji in it to play...sitting by him wishing I were small enough to join him. These are some of the memories that I hold dear. The bubbles of laughter from such pure simple joy...stay forever within a Mother's heart.

Happy Birthday Kenji.....

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1:23:43 AM EDT
Feeling Ecstatic

As the weeks passed, Kenji grew bigger and bigger...at first sleeping soundly and waking basically just to feed. He was a very good baby, no colic...didn't cry much at all, we really had it very easy for the first baby...thank goodness.

I easily fell into a housewife routine, cleaning, cooking, feeding, washing...etc., all the fun things in life!  Kenji laughed very early...he was like one month old and I swear he giggled! Tom enjoyed coming home and learning to play a little with him.

Remember Tom was a child during World War II, so his childhood was cut short even more so by his Father's death when he was ten years old.  Since there were very few children that he had ever interacted with I had to teach him in my limited way how to act with a baby.  One thing though he could not abide babytalk...you know like gagag..dadaddda...he insisted that we speak normally to our children.  To this day, the both of them have great vocabularies...wonder if it's due in part to that?

The picture above is of Kenji at three months old..the doctor told me that he was the size of a six month old.  We still tried to travel a bit around the country even with a baby.  Our little grey Volkswagon bug took many a day trip to tourist spots close by Tokyo.

One such trip was to visit his Dad's grave, he wanted to introduce his son to his father.  If memory serves me correctly the gravesite was quite near Tamagawa and was up in a hilly area.  Because everyone there is cremated the gravesites themselves are very small..with tall markers that also have ledges on them, so that you can leave small items that your loved one's spirit would enjoy.  It was a very emotional moment for Tom..he had loved his father very much as a child.

In the Shinto religion there are certain years that are important after a relative dies.  It just so happened that we were there for the 21st year after the death of his Dad.  So Oba-san planned a Shinto ceremony at her house in Tamagawa, she had a little shrine set up complete with pictures, sand & incense.  A Shinto priest arrived to perform the ceremony for the soul...it was a very moving experience even for me, a back sliding Methodist.  Oba-san had invited some of her late husband's relatives and also some of hers that we had not yet met.....none of them spoke English so I could only understand a small portion of the conversation that was taking place at the long low table that was set in the tatami room.

I knew from what Tom had told me that his Mother had not been treated well after his Dad died by his father's family.  Their marriage had been an arranged one, like a contract between two families with no love lost.  I tell you though, that woman loved her son you could see the love in her eyes.  She also was an excellent cook, and that particular day of the ceremony she had outdone herself for her guests.  One of Tom's cousins who attended was evidently very talented at origami...he proceeded to make all kinds of little paper creatures for me, with Kenji trying to gleefully grab them all in his little hands.

 

 

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10:01:44 PM EST
Feeling Anxious
Hearing Rockabye Baby

Well after a long seven day stay in the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Tokyo..(no meat, no eggs, no eating anything that ever lived - except plant life)...my poor motherinlaw snuck me in some Japanese sweet rolls that were wrapped around abit of sweetened meat in the center..nothing ever tasted so good!

Baby Kenji was a very good baby, by the time we left the hospital he was drinking almost 5 oz's of formula and looking for more.  I felt bad about not being able to breast feed him myself, but I had had surgery a few years before and the surgeon told me never to nurse as there were scar tissues that would cause problems.

I think every couple that starts a family goes through a panic period...Tom and I went through ours rather quickly.  By this point Tom had recuperated from the hospital scare of me having the baby right in front of him....but he was still skittish around the baby, only because there were no children in his family at all.  He kept on telling me that he was afraid to pick Kenji up because he didn't want to hurt him somehow.

Thank God, my mother had sent me a copy of Dr. Spock's Baby Book...that became my bible on baby care.  In fact, I still have that damn book put away in a safe place.  Imagine, being basically alone and going through a life altering experience like this..it shook my world a bit.  So, I would grasp at any & all things that would remind me of home.

Oba-san decided to stay to help with the baby, she was beside herself with joy.  Tom was her only child and now she had a grandson!  Even though we could not converse on a spectacular level we did manage to communicate with each other.  She enjoyed everything about Kenji and we let her.  There was one moment though that I kind of held my breath.  Remember the blue tub that she had shown up with one day at our front door?

Well, Oba-san decides after a day home from the hospital that Kenji needs a full bath.  Now, mind you his belly button thingy had not fallen off yet.  So she cleared the kitchen table put the tub on it and proceeds to BOIL water.  She fills some of it up with hot water from the sink and adds the boiling water...I'm frantic by this time..trying to tell her it's too hot, it's not good, it's wrong...she puts her elbow in the water and says.."di jobu -
di jobu" which I found out later means "it's ok, it's ok". 

Tom wasn't home, I'm beside myself...she takes Kenji and gently lowers him into the water...he didn't like it too much and started to cry.  I started crying because I thought he was getting hurt...as it turned out, he wasn't the temperature wasn't hot enough to burn him Thank God.  It seems that the Japanese love hot water baths..now I know that it starts from birth! Only because of crazy ladies dunking their offspring into a hot pot like a lobster!

When Tom came home, it was decided that I as Kenji's Mother would give him all his baths from then on....

As a side note...I have to remember to ask my now grown son if he does like hot baths or not....

 

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12:47:27 AM EST
Feeling Ecstatic
Hearing RockABye Baby In The Tree Top

Oh, motherhood, what an experience.  There is no easy way to explain the feeling that overcomes you...that this little bit of humanity could completely captivate you entirely.

Back in those days..1965...a woman stayed for about seven days in the hospital after givng birth.  I can remember being put into a semi-private room, falling into a much needed sleep (after all those hours awake in labor, I kind of went comatose).  I awoke to find a nurse pushing a baby cart near to my bed...she reached in and brought out a blue swaddled baby and laid the baby at the foot of my bed.  The nurse handed me a baby bottle and without further ado she left! 

I pulled myself up a bit, I was still kind of out of it...I was trying to figure out how to get to the end of the bed...I knew I had to get there, I knew I had to pick the baby up somehow.  Looking back I have no idea why the nurse left the baby without checking that I was capable of handling a baby.  I finally edged myself slowly down to the end of the bed....remember I'm still hooked to an IV and I hurt like crazy.

I don't know if swaddling a baby is a nurse type of thing or is it universal?  I know it quiets them down, maybe because it restricts their movements and they feel safe like in a womb. Anyway, I finally reached little Kenji...managed to pick him up, he hungrily took the bottle and oh, my goodness...he drained the 3 ozs. in a short time.  I knew at that moment, I would love being a Mom.

Tom was walking about three feet above the ground...he was so happy.....as was Oka-san who had just become Oba-san!

Will write more tommorrow.....

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11:47:32 PM EST
Feeling Happy
Hearing Rockabye Baby

Well here I was....having a baby so far from home.  I felt very homesick at this point, I just wanted my Mother.  Tom's mother tried to help me gather things together that I would need for the baby.  It was difficult for me, it wasn't as if I had a convenient baby store near us.  I had to travel into Tokyo for specific items, like the glass baby bottles, and double steamer for them.  We did not have a dryer, I did have an old washing machine thank goodness.

Even though we were watching our budget, I talked Tom into using a diaper service...otherwise I would of gone insane.  Remember, this is right before throw away diapers came into being.  We also found a western style food store in Shibuya that carried dry infant formula and other odds & ends that would come  in handy.

(Because of the surgery that I had earlier the doctors advised against breastfeeding because of the scar tissue)

One day Oka-san came over and when I went to answer the door I see this little bit of a woman in a kimono struggling with a large blue plastic baby bath.  I immediately helped her in, I broke out in laughter and she joined in.  It was funny not being able to really speak to one another, yet we had just shared a terrific moment together regarding our yet unborn son.  Please remember the tub, in a later story we will go back to the tub.

Like many  soon to be parents Tom & I agonized over the babies names.   We had a list for girls, we had a list for boys...my Mom had sent me a book of names, & of course, Dr. Spock's book (God bless that book, it was so needed) Well, Tom wanted to honor his father and use his name somehow.  His father's name was Enji and as we looked over boy's names the name Ken kept coming up..I found Kenji which meant healthy.  It was just perfect, if it was a boy the name Kenji would incorporate his father's name of Enji.   Also since this was the dark ages, no way to find the baby's sex out beforehand...we had to choose a girl's name also...I was headed for Tamiko or possibly Hanako which meant flower.

Well, my due date was Dec. 26th, 1965...so of course I go into labor on Christmas Day or at least I thought I was.  The hospital said "false labor" go home.   Home we went....Dec. 27th - terrible back pain, onto the hospital again.  This time they keep me...I started dialating and continued for 29 hours...thought I was going to die.  When the baby finally decides to crown, I'm alone in the room with a totally insane husband...no one's in sight, ringing the bell did nothing...I told Tom the baby is coming!  He went running down the corridor yelling in Japanese/mixed English everything under the sun for a doctor.

He made such a commotion that I had a bunch of doctors & nurses come flooding into my room.  Somehow they got me onto a gurney, wheeled me into the delivery room...meanwhile, I know the baby crowned because I had reached down and touched his head!  They are yelling at me to turn on my side for an injection to my spine, someone was pulling on white thigh high booties just so much action going on it was ridiculous.  I'm the only sane person in that damn room! I told them, of course they wouldn't listen, just let me have the baby naturally at this point I'm over the pain.  Nope, they are going to give me a spinal if it kills me.  They start injecting me telling me to lie still (huge contraction going on) and they proceed to send both my legs into charlie horse spasms...and they were about the only things that didn't hurt at point.

Well, my baby had a mind of it's own about it's arrival time...three minutes in the room and there he was.....he was not going to wait for the spinal tap to work...he was ready!

He was very healty....7 lbs. 8 oz. and 20" long.  Huge head...see the picture that's one of the reasons for the long delivery.  They say that women forget about the pains of childbirth afterwards...bullcrappy!  I remember it all, too well, but I would not trade a moment of the whole thing because it gave me someone very special...my son Kenji

Actually, I almost needed to put Tom into a hospital bed..the two days and the rush ending had almost done him in...I really think he had a mini breakdown runningdown that corridor! Poor guy.

 

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6:26:06 PM EST
Feeling Hopeful

We enjoyed the time together immensely mainly because when I first arrived in Japan Tom had to work and actually put in additional hours, so we really didn't have a chance to bond as much as we should have.

I got into a routine of rising early with Tom, fixing coffee, toast for breakfast...seeing him off for the day.  I turned my attention to the house.  Several of the rooms were made with tatami mats so those could be swept with ease...there were large sliding glass doors on all the rooms...leading to an outside veranda..so sweeping everything right out the doors was an easy task to fullfill.  The floors actually stayed very clean because of not wearing any shoes in the house.  Oh that I could adopt that here...wonderful rule!

We had a small kitchen with a table that was big enough for two to eat at...the refrigerator was tiny by today's standards...which meant that we had to shop often and basically used fresh not frozen foods.  At the far end of the kitchen there was a small tiled room which was the "o-furo" or Japanese bath.  You basically washed yourself outside of the tub, poured water over you and then soaked in a hot tub.  The first time that I lit the gas jets for the tub I waited too long and the blast back burnt all the hair off my right arm....boy, I learned in a hurry how to do it correctly.

This little western style house was really very cute, there were four of the same style and we shared a courtyard.  The neighbors were basically friendly, a little reserved because I didn't speak too much Japanese at that point. Almost all the women with children stayed home and tended house, shopping, cleaning etc.  Some days, my motherinlaw (Oba-san) would travel in from Tamagawa to visit us, we managed to speak to each other through limited words and drawing pictures.

After several weeks of being home I was really bored.  I had my secretarial experience to fall back on and told Tom that until we had children I would really like to go back to work.  Tom had learned of an American engineering company that needed a part-time secretary...it wasfor Wean Engineering, I applied and got the job.  I worked only three days a week but it helped us financially and also helped with the boredom.  Then Tom's company, Okura & Co., needed someone to work with the young executives that were going abroad...to help improve their English Conversation. So I found myself, once again, a volunteer...three nights a week at the Okura offices.  It was very interesting to deal with young men the same age as myself, but with a different view of the world.

I decided the best way to teach them would be for everyone to read the English newspaper, at least the top stories and then we would discuss them at length.  Well, of course, I found myself having to defend America on many occasions first because of the Viet Nam War and then we had the spy plane incident with Korea....so you can imagine how lively the english conversation went.  None of us lost control though.

Shortly after this, we discovered that we were going to have a baby!  Both Tom and I were so happy!  I continued to work until it became uncomfortable to travel the bus and trains......then I applied myself to preparing for baby.  My folks were happy to hear my news this would be the first grandbaby on both sides.....although my Mom told me she felt she was too young at 42 to be a grandmother.......

 

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9:59:28 PM EST
Feeling Anxious

I looked forward to seeing a bit more of the city and learning more about the culture of Japan.  My other boss, Danny Nakajima, had bought me Japanese language books and helped me study a bit in order to prepare for my arrival in Japan.  I really appreciated what he did, and he was to be a good friend over the coming years.

When Tom's mother found out that he was to marry a foreigner her reaction was very stoic, she proceeded to search for, find and buy a western style house that would be suitable for her son and myself.  Coming from a country where newlyweds start off on their own - building as they go, I found it strange to have everything handed to us on a golden plate.  It was then that I learned that his Mother had done very well with investments, land opportunities, stock, bonds  and such.

Our wedding was to take place on April 24th in Tokyo, we needed to find a church and reception hall.  My Mother, Father and two sisters were going to fly in the week before the wedding and I was so excited.  I already had my gown, my steamer trunk had arrived safely - with all my little bits and pieces of home tucked inside it. I asked  for my sister Charlene to be my maid of honor and  my little Barbie to be a jr. bridesmaid.  Thinking back now, everything was a blur on the wedding day.  If I didn't have the pictures that I do I would swear it didn't happen.

I remember being in a room in the back of the church waiting for the ceremony processional..and my headpiece slipping...I think I pulled it off in frustration - I have a picture of the minister's wife helping put me back together again.....boy! Talk about feeling like humpty-dumpty.  My dad walked me down the aisle, the ceremony went fine and the reception was to follow at one of the western hotels there.  We had rooms booked at the Hotel New Otani...which had beautiful room and gardens.

We met the next morning with my folks in the hotel's gardens and posed for pictures.  I recently looked at these pictures, I am always amazed at the moments captured in time and the emotions that they evoke.  There is one of Tom lifting me up and pretending to throw me into the pond...of course he didn't - but it makes a good action picure.  My parents and sisters were to leave that afternoon, they were to fly to Greece and visit relatives for several days on their trip back home.  I was beginning to worry about little Barbara because she wasn't eating hardly anything....she was finicky to begin with and the cuisine was not agreeing with her.  It was with a heavy heart that I said goodbye to my family, I had no idea when I would see them again.....I was afraid that homesickness was going to set in.

Tom had managed to get two weeks vacation for a honeymoon and we decided to travel to Kyoto and beyond.   Okura owned a inn right below Mt. Fuji so we were also going there.  We traveled in his little faithful Volkswagon and until that trip I had not realized how mountainous Japan was.  I also discovered that I did not like tremendous heights...and I swear everyplace we visited was at the top of some damn mountain!  You must understand that, at that time, the roads were like winding trails up the sides of these mountains with no guide posts, wide enough for one car going one way....we had a bus come right at us from around a curve..to this day I still feel that we escaped a narrow death.

We stayed at one inn that was really beautiful, in the morning you could see Mt. Fuji in the distance with the mist rising and the sun glistening through the clouds shinning on it.  Tom wanted to get a professional massage, which was available, I decided to join him also. Little did I know.  I was used to a gentle, swedish type message....well, this middle aged gentlemen knocked on the shoji screen and entered....he was blind, it seems that years ago...some children were purposely blinded to be able to perform the art of massage more expertly.  Tom had had this type of massage many times before and actually loved it.  I, on the other hand, thought I was going to die!  I felt that every muscle in my body had been totally shredded.  I actually made the man stop because of the pain....but it took me a couple of weeks to work the kinks out of my body.  Believe me, I never asked for a "professional" massage in Japan ever again.

Thankfully it was towards the end of our honeymoon so our plans were not totally ruined.  We were looking forward to our new life together as man and wife.

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