Gaijin Housewife in Japan

1 year on

2012-03-10T14:06:00.000+09:00

Well I thought I had better get around to writing something and why not on the eve of the first anniversary of the Tohoku triple disaster.

So one year ago, I was 6-7 months pregnant when the giant quake hit Miyagi, which we felt here in Fukushima as a 6 on the Japanese scale. Just recalling that day gives me heart palpitations, even now. My house was not affected by the tsunami nor was there any damage from that earthquake which is still completely unbelievable to me. We lost the water supply for a month to our house but the power was always connected, lucky for us in our all electric house! All I can say is that we were so lucky to have built a home that did withstand it. Even more lucky for us was the fact that the wind was blowing the radiation from the Fukushima power plant away from us in the days after the explosions happened. That means that we are able to still live here, when other cities such as Fukushima City and Koriyama are dealing with much higher levels of radiation and other towns are now uninhabitable.

It took a long time for things to get back to some kind of normality for us - if you could call it that. We have been back in Fukushima for over 6 months now. Geiger counters are a part of daily life. So is checking where the food in the supermarket comes from. However, I expect there are people all over Kanto and Tohoku doing this, not just in Fukushima. I have a constant supply of rice, fresh vegetables and fruit from DH's family in Tottori which is so helpful as I never have to worry about that.

All around our neighbourhood there are mini communities of people from the evacuation zone. Our neighbourhood still had a lot of undeveloped land which was quickly utilised by the city as a place for prefabricated houses for the people who fled the power plant. Our city is so popular at the moment there is somewhat of a boom going on here. Houses are being built around us, empty land is being snapped up, all the apartments in town are full, help wanted signs everywhere, hospitals overcrowded and I can't get an appointment at the dentist till May... people are on waiting lists to move here from other parts of Fukushima. It is a very bizzarre situation for us here indeed as it certainly was not such a popular place to come to before the disaster that's for sure!

As the anniversary of the disaster approaches the Japanese media has been working itself into a frenzy of rehashing the whole thing. Being here in Tohoku and seeing the devastation on a daily basis, seeing the people living in the prefab housing every day, I think we kind of need a break from it. I would be nice to turn it all off for a few days - not possible I know, but boy do we all need a holiday from it!

A couple of reporters from Canada here in Fukushima at the moment. I was asking them if they were sent here by their employer or if they came at their own expense. They said they were here off their own bat, as their agency was reluctant to send reporters to Fukushima because the Canadian government doesn't recommend people come here...All I can say is thank you for coming and seeing what it's like here and letting people know what's going on as the situation is certainly not all fixed and many people are still seriously affected by what happened at the Fukushima Dai Ichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Volunteering

2012-01-28T10:33:00.001+09:00

My sister is staying with me at the moment and yesterday she went along with my friend to take part in some volunteer activities at a drop in centre for evacuees and other people affected by the March 11 disaster. After that she went with my friend to visit some people who live in the prefab housing built for the people who lost their homes either to the power station or the tsunami.

Here is her blog post. Please read it if you have time. The one thing that the people my sister met yesterday said was, that they want people to remember Fukushima and hear their story. Also that people's lives are still not back to normal - still in limbo, waiting for the government to make decisions. My sister's blog is actually about her experience living in the UAE, also an interesting read.

Dog Parks and Hat Stealing

2012-01-24T14:31:00.000+09:00

So Sebastian, my miniature schnauzer is a bit special. He is a bit of a scaredy cat and shows this by barking. This has not endeared him to every one we meet, but since he is so cute and fluffy a lot of people are kind to him anyway. We decided to finally take him to a dog park so he would have to interact with other people and dogs. We had been planning to do this since before the March 11 disaster, but then that happened and it got put off. So we took him along a few months ago. He barked a lot the first time - about 10 minutes or so, then got over it and played well with the other dogs. Now when we take him, he is a bit scared at first, but now goes up and "introduces himself" to other dogs and then plays well, only barking when the other dogs won't play with him back. So here is picture of Basti socialising. One thing we noticed is that the other dogs all tend to be dressed up when they are at the park. Basti has one outfit we were given but he doesn't like wearing it so he goes "au naturale".

Then Miss Amelia has become a real character, she looks so cute with a hat on I just had to have a wee play and see what she looked like in Mummy and Daddy's hats....

Shopping for Dolls

2012-01-22T14:08:00.002+09:00

Today we went to a Doll shop, looking for Amelia's Girl's Day Dolls, or Doll's Festival dolls. This special day for girls is on March 3rd, and I was told today in the shop that the dolls are to be displayed for a month beforehand.

So with that in mind, we looked around at what might be a good option for our family. The dolls range from expensive to crazy wildly expensive, from just 2 dolls up to a 7 tiered monstrosity that takes over half your living room.

We were allowed to take some photos, provided that the price was not shown, since my sister was with us and since she came all the way from NZ they said ok.

So now you guys can see, too.

This one is for Boys day on May 5th

We're Back

2012-01-12T14:10:00.002+09:00

A belated Merry Christmas from Amelia The Elf

Hi Everyone, Happy New Year!

Well it has been several months since I last posted. I really just didn't get around to it with Christmas preparations, New Years preparations and Amelia's new habit of rolling over and waking up every 5 minutes which means I kind of have to hold her down until she falls asleep properly or she will roll over and wake herself up again.

So what have we been doing? Not much that is of interest I would have to say. But 2 days ago Amelia turned 7 months. She has her 2 bottom teeth now which is super cute and I think she is getting some more judging by her grumpiness and gnawing at things. She also seems to warming up for crawling by the way she tries to get up on her hands and knees now.

Can you see her two little teeth?

Today we had the 2nd big earthquake so far this year. We also had one on New Years day. Today was a magnitude 5.8, 19 km deep and only 22kms away from Iwaki city. So it was a very sudden and rattly shake. Poor Basti was cowering under my chair for quite a while. Amelia was watching her music videos on our iPad and barely batted an eyelid, apart from looking at me and wondering why I suddenly grabbed onto her! We haven't had any more since then, fingers crossed that was the action for the day.

Last photo for today is Amelia showing her new skill of eating teething biscuits, though most go on her face, hands, bib and the floor, much to Basti's delight.

MMMMM cookie

On our own

2011-10-12T20:34:00.000+09:00

DH is off on another international business trip today. We are home alone and I am left holding the baby and the crazy but cute dog. Oh and the baby is cute too.

So am unimpressed that DH has to go away as it is mostly as support translator for his bosses who can't speak English well enough to communicate with the all important customers. Personally I think DH deserves a pay rise and big fat bonus for his English speaking ability that nobody else in his company seems to have, but everyone takes advantage of. That was my little gripe.

Amelia had her BCG today. Personally I think it is quite barbaric the way it is administered. Surely there must be a better way in this day and age. Amelia is fine, I am the one who is traumatised. At the drs yesterday someone said to me for the first time ever: "Isn't she big!". Their baby was 7 months and only slightly bigger than Amelia. The babies studied each other very closely whilst we waited for it to be their turn to get their jabs.

Today we talked to Nana in New Zealand on our iMac. Amelia could see my mum well and was quite mesmerised by the screen. Previously we have just been using an iPad which has a back camera and Amelia smiles at the apple on the back, but doesn't get to see Nana herself. Now she can sit up and look at the screen and also enjoys swiveling on the swivel chair at mummy's desk, on my knee of course. Amelia has also started to read picture books. Ok. So she looks at the pictures now. She also appears to be listening to the story and can sit still for a whole book when we read one just after she has had her milk.

Nana and Popa in Tottori have also booked flights to come and see us in December. This is very big news as it will be their second trip here ever since DH moved here about 15 years ago. They are going to be here for 4 full days. That is going to be interesting. Thankfully DH's mum is not a stickler for tidiness, but has extremely high standards for food. She is a fabulous cook herself and whips up 4 dishes for every dinner and cooks lunch too. So what am I going to feed her?!?! Last time she came, she didn't do anything whilst she was here, which is only fair since I do nothing when I visit their place. I think I will make DH take some extra days off work so he can do the cooking and I will be on Amelia duty instead : )

Yes? I'm rather busy with my butterfly here actually.

I hope my daddy comes back soon so I don't have to be the only boy anymore

This bottle is almost as big as my head!

What a year

2011-10-05T22:05:00.001+09:00

Well tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not telling you all fishing for birthday messages. It is just that exactly one year ago tomorrow there were big things going on in Gaijin Housewife Land and I can't help but reminisce.

This time last year we had just moved to our awesome new house (which then turned out to be our awesome new house in a disaster zone). My sister and her husband had come to stay. I was desperate to get pregnant and some of you will remember my rantings in clomid induced craziness. That was fun. Then there was my birthday last year when I thought we had been unsuccessful AGAIN and I think I spent some of it crying and feeling very sorry for myself. Then the next day for some reason I thought I would do a test and for the first time ever saw that little thin pink line that today is a nearly 4 month old little munchkin called Amelia! But I couldn't tell you all that until later.

So a lot has happened to me in the last one year that is for sure. I'm kind of hoping the next year will be rather more calm than the last one has been.

So here is a picture of skinny Amelia, when she was just on boob juice, which I was struggling to produce enough of:

Actually looking at pictures of her when she was so tiny makes me quite sad.

Anyway, here is Amelia now (6kgs!), in the same outfit, which I kind of had to squeeze her into.

Looking much more healthy and is currently weighing in exactly in the middle of the curve of acceptable weights.

This is what Amelia got up to on the weekend.

Bareback dog riding.

Sebastian not so impressed.

Reunions and teeth and shakes

2011-09-29T21:53:00.000+09:00

I haven't been able to post for a while as I have been busier than one usually is with a 3month old and an exuberant dog!

My dear friend H from Australia was back in Iwaki for a week and so I had a great time catching up with her.

The reason she was here was because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organised for some people who were in Japan on the JET programme to go back and visit the areas where they lived that were in the disaster affected areas. So H was one of 12 people in the whole world chosen to come back to Japan to bring cheer to her friends, co-workers, students and other acquaintances in Iwaki where she lived for 5 years. Well, her visit certainly cheered me up! It was so great to see an old friend and just catch up and hang out etc. Nothing special but it certainly made a difference to me and I am sure to the many other people she visited whilst she was here. So thanks a lot MoFA.

Amelia seems to be getting her first tooth. She has been a bit grizzly, drooly etc and doing a lot of tongue poking and chewing her fist so I think that must be why. I hope this tooth comes up soon! She quite likes sitting up these days, rather than reclining and tries to sit up by herself though it doesn't work yet. She gets a real kick out of "Takai takai" (high high)which is when you lift her up in the air over and over and we have been doing an age appropriate version of "row row row your boat", which gets lots of smiles and chuckles too. She had her first big bath tonight with me. It was really fun and thankfully no "Code Brown" emergencies.

Tonight was also very eventful in that we had a big earthquake. A high fiver, which are scary ones. It was the first time I have felt a big one like that and been downstairs in my house. It didn't feel too bad down there, just like an elephant was walking up behind me whilst I was sitting on the sofa. That's all. No damage, no interruption to power or anything. Amelia slept through it. Good girl.

Since the Rugby World Cup is on in NZ at the moment, here is a picture of Amelia wearing her supporter's outfit with her fingers in her mouth which is her preferred place for them when she is awake.

And here is Sebastian trying to get Amelia to throw Mr Froggy for him.

Well it's Friday again

2011-09-16T16:00:00.001+09:00

Before Amelia was born, I never really looked forward to the weekend as I still had to go to work. But now that I don't work outside of the house, I really look forward to weekends so that DH will be around to spend time with us. It's hard keeping the dialogue going when it's just you, a 3 month old and a dog. Admittedly Amelia is getting better at chatting when she is in a good mood, but our conversations are mostly an exchange of goos and gaas.

This week she has started to find her feet sometimes and grab onto them. She also likes rolling onto her side and sucking her fist. Yesterday she was holding a rattle and carefully moving it around whilst she followed it with her eyes. All very exciting developments!

Last Sunday was the 6 month anniversary of the huge earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. For those who don't live in Japan, you might not have seen much about Japan in the media these days. Unfortunately things are still very very far from getting better in some areas. We still regularly have shakes here in Iwaki. I'm trying not to stress out about the little ones. Our house can hack it as it has proved in the last 6 months. My neighbourhood is now full of temporary housing units set up for people evacuated from the exclusion zone around Fukushima Daiichi. The houses are quite small but nice looking from the outside and supposedly people from the same town are housed in the same areas together. I have been a bit annoyed with the tv for taking various personalities into the exclusion zone to film for tv shows. Anyway, enough about that.

Next week is looking good! Along with two national holidays in one week, a good friend will be in town for a whole week on a "don't give up Iwaki" (がんばっぺいわき）mission. I haven't seen her for about 3 years so it will be great to catch up over some famiresu durinkuba- (All you can drink at a "family restaurant") like the old days, once Amelia is tucked up in bed.

Finally, as a reward for reading all of that! A picture of me (no make up, hair not done) and Amelia I snapped with my ipad.

Sebastian gets a hair cut

2011-09-12T23:01:00.000+09:00

Just a few quick photos of Sebastian's new hair do. He was a bit traumatised since it took us so long to shave all his fur, but now he looks very sporty and summery!

Here he is before his hair cut tonight. Waiting on "The Table".

Here he is afterwards.

Happy Birthday Sebastian!

2011-09-08T11:39:00.000+09:00

Basti turns one today. Well actually 7 in dog years I think it is. He is going to celebrate by having some apple at dinner time tonight. His favourite treat....well that and cucumbers, tomato, melon, nashi, carrots etc.
Poor Sebastian has been getting the rough end of the stick since we got back to Fukushima. In Tottori he was the centre of attention and had 3 adults wrapped around his paw. Here, he has to work hard to get attention, especially when Amelia is awake and often hangs around me hoping for a pat or for me to throw one of his toys for him. I do try to make time for him every day though. But when you are 7 years old, you probably want a bit more attention from mum than that.
We have had a lot of people coming round to see Amelia and Basti so he has had a lot of excitement really. Some friends came round last weekend and they brought a gift for Basti:
See him wearing it in this picture.

I am not a big fan of making animals wear clothes, but he looks so cute and stylish in this outfit I am going to make him wear it in winter on cold days I think.

Yesterday we also purchased some clippers for shaving his coat as the cheap one we bought has already crapped out. So look out for some more pics of Basti with his new hair do next week sometime!
What has Amelia been up to recently? Well she has become quite er, demanding and strong willed in the last week or so. Looks like we might have our work cut out for us! :) Growing up in leaps and bounds! This morning I went to get her up and found her lying in her bed in a completely different place to where I put her down! She can't roll over yet but somehow managed to wiggle her way there. Here she is showing how she can almost kind of hold her bottle now.

12 Weeks

2011-09-03T08:03:00.003+09:00

Hello Everyone.

Well Amelia is now 12 weeks old and was weighed by the city midwife yesterday and is now up to 5315g. That is on the lower end of normal, so am relieved that what we are doing is still working. She has started sleeping from 7pm right through to 3-6am. This morning was nearly 6 before she woke up. She is the apple of her daddy's eye and when he is home they spend her every waking moment together when she is not attached to my boob. So that is really nice for me, I get a bit of a break to do stuff or to do nothing if I want. On Tuesday, DH was home from work so I went out on a my first real outing (going to the supermarket after Amelia has gone to bed doesn't count), by myself in 3 months. I went and got a hair cut. Also the first since I left Japan at the end of March, so feeling a little more like a real person with a decent hair cut from my regular stylist who does the best hair cuts I've ever had in my life.

I'm getting back to work this weekend, starting Sunday night. I know. Working on a Sunday night just seems wrong, but DH is home so I don't have to worry about Amelia if she does happen to wake up whilst I'm working and since it's from home, is not such a huge deal. Will be odd to get brain out of baby mode and back into English teaching mode.

Sebastian has been pushing the boundaries a bit this last week or so. He is terribly bored during the day and amuses himself by looking for new things to steal and destroy. Luckily he has an iron gut considering the amount of paper and cardboard he seems to manage to eat before I can get it off him. Thankfully a plastic bottle will usually amuse him for a while when cabin fever really gets him. When it gets a bit cooler we will all be able to go out for walks a bit more often than now.

Gee, I didn't think this would turn out to be such a boring post, I thought I had more interesting things to say but it seems not! Will try harder next time.

Amelia and I, playing with the camera

大船渡第一　Catch up and First Report from Phil on Oofunato

2011-08-28T10:56:00.001+09:00

We have had a busy few days here at the shufuinjapan residence. My friend "Phil", who sometimes comments on this blog, arrived from the UK to stay for a few nights on his way up to Iwate Prefecture to do volunteer work helping to clean up the mess left by the tsunami.

We had a get together at my place for a few old friends over yakiniku (BBQ on the table)to 2am! Anyway, here is his first report of volunteering in Iwate. He has written it on his cellphone in Japanese as that is much quicker than doing it English. So please excuse my translation as I assure you he is much more eloquent in real life! I am posting this here so people who know him can keep up with what he is doing as there probably isn't much chance for him to update everyone himself.

午後５時ぐらいに大船渡に到着して、盛というところにあるボランティアセンターに泊まってます。今はbunk bedの上のほうで、下にいる大きい人がゴロゴロ転がって、１０秒ごとに地震があるかのように感じます。眠られないだろう。盛は海より結構高くに位置してるのでとても安全です。部屋は４０人ぐらいいて非常にくさいけどすぐなれそう。晩御飯はカレーライス食べて、食べてからみんなで打ち合わせして、僕は自己紹介した。そのときから何人かと話ができて、変わったやついてもやっぱりみんなは親切。バスから見た景色は本当にきれいでびっくりして、でも陸前高田をはじめて見たら正直にショッキングでした。なのに、チャリに乗る人、買い物する人、手つないだまま歩く高校生のカップルも普通に見る。その背景には瓦礫だらけ。きっと頑張るしかないとみんな思って一生懸命頑張ってる。すごいなぁと思います。こっちも頑張って寝ないと。明日は高速道路で掃除したり瓦礫を運んだりします。

Arrived in Ofunato about 5pm, and am staying in a volunteer centre called "Mori". At the moment I'm on the top bunk and the big person on the bottom is rolling around which feels like there is an earthquake every 10 seconds. Mori is located in a high up safe place. There are 40 of us sharing a room so it is really stinky, but I think I'll get used to it quickly.

For dinner we had curry rice, and had a meeting while we ate. I introduced myself to everyone. I've been able to tallk to a few people so far and even though some of them are a bit different, they are all nice. The scenery from the bus on the way was really beautiful, but I was shocked to see Rikuzentakata for the first time. Even so, there are people riding bikes, shopping, highschool student couples walking hand in hand just as usual.

The scenery is all debris. So everyone can't help but think they have to do their best . I have to do my best now to get to sleep. Tomorrow we are cleaning up and taking away debris on the highway.

In other news from us, Amelia is getting much much bigger now we are doing breast followed by top ups with formula. I feel much happier knowing that she is not half starving anymore. She is over the 5 kilo mark now and looking very cherubish. She does a lot of chatting and has started to reach out and touch things rather than just wave her arms in their general direction.

Nap time for Sebastian and Amelia

Sebastian has had a lot of excitement with lots of visitors coming and going. We have figured out that he has issues with strangers (to him, not to us) who are male coming into our house. He pees out of fright when he sees them and takes him a good half an hour or more to warm to them. Females are fine. When Phil arrived the other day, Sebastain ran and hid behind Amelia who was sitting in her bouncer....Big brother is not so brave after all! It's funny to see Sebastian's interactions with Amelia. He tries to get her to play with him by bringing toys over to her whilst she is in her bouncer and dropping them at her feet.

Back in Fukushima again

2011-08-19T16:48:00.000+09:00

Well we survived our 2000 km round trip to Tottori. Amelia and Basti were both very good on the way back so it wasn't as horrible as I imagined. Basti slept almost the whole way and Amelia only got really over it during the last 10 kms and I must say I was over it by then too.

Basti was a little uncertain being back in our house the first night but by the next day he was up to his usual antics. Last night he was so excited when DH came home from work he slipped on the floor and fell flat on his back and hit his head...that didn't slow him down for more than a second though.

Today he got a hair cut. The first proper one he has had in a while. He looks a little less cute and a little more scary now, but it should be a little cooler for him.

We had a rather big earthquake here this afternoon. It was a 6.8 in Fukushima but only a 4 here in Iwaki. That made the news in NZ though. Poor Amelia was upstairs having a nap and when I raced up to get her she was lying there looking quite startled. Basti was also cowering with the rattling and shaking. Luckily though there was no damage for us here and things are as usual.

Proud fluffy older brother

Sebastian (Basti) with his new hair do

Update and visit to Tottori

2011-08-13T15:05:00.000+09:00

Last time I posted was about 2 weeks ago and I mentioned that a friend was coming over with a geiger counter to measure the radiation. Well we went round various parts of our house and found levels of 0.2 milisievelts/hr or there abouts. Outside on the grass was higher at 0.36. So we started a cleaning regime and have got the levels down already. This is still not as low as 0.05 or whatever Iwaki would have had before the power plant meltdown, but is also a lot less than people in other parts of Fukushima are living with and similar to what a lot of people are living with but they don't realise cause they live outside Fukushima prefecture.

2 days ago we headed off on our Obon vacation. Back down to Tottori 1000kms away from Iwaki. We set off in the afternoon and drove all night, got here before lunch the next day. DH drove 950kms of it...poor guy. I was in charge of Amelia for obvious reasons and that slowed us down a bit as every time she needed to be fed we would have to stop for about a good half hour or longer. She did sleep for most of the way and only had a meltdown for a bit once. It's nice to be here in Tottori where there are no earthquakes and DH's mum feeds us well! It was so nice to see Sebastian (remember my dog?) again after nearly 5 months. He is a bit bigger and less crazy than when we left him here. He has been getting used to Amelia. At first he barked every time he saw or heard her. But now he hardly barks at all at her and is not so interested in her anymore. So it looks like we will be able to take him home with us, in that he and Amelia can co-exist together well I think. I'm not looking forward to the drive back to Iwaki with a baby and a dog, but somehow we will make it I'm sure.

Back in Fukushima

2011-08-03T20:59:00.000+09:00

Last Friday we set off from Nelson on the first leg of our trip home. Amelia took her first flight from Nelson to Auckland. She was asleep the whole way and didn't even make a peep taking off or landing. We had two huge bags and a large carry on and were helped by some nice men who were on our plane to get everything off the luggage carousel. Then we checked in at our hotel. I do recommend the new Novotel at Auckland airport. It is literally 2 minutes away from the international terminal, which is so much easier than waiting for a shuttle to your hotel that might be miles from anywhere to have dinner etc.

The next day I was up at 5am and we checked in for our flight early (me thinking I would not like to caught up in a huge line with tiny baby). When we got to the check in area it was practically deserted but I still got ushered to the business class lane and our bags got priority tags on them!

Then we went through customs and security in about 5 minutes flat as we were ushered into the lines for special people/crew etc! If I had known this would happen I would have stayed in bed a little longer!

Air NZ outdid themselves with service again this time, though it was a bit frustrating being seated in a row with another family even though the plane was less than half full. I did move us down to a free row with a bassinet later on which was much better. The crew on the plane helped me carry our bags all the way to customs, which at Narita is miles away from where the air nz plane parks up. At customs we got ushered through a special line and then our bags were already there when we got to the luggage carousel, the air nz crew had picked it up for us and put it on a trolley and then a little JAL lady helped us to get through customs! Through all of this Amelia was a little star and everyone commented on how good she was.

DH was waiting for us and so we got in the car and headed back to Iwaki, a 3 hour drive away.

Unfortunately for us Amelia was pretty over it by then and screamed for quite a while but we couldn't stop as we were on the highway and there were no service areas. Turned out she had pooped her pants about the second we got on the highway :(

So eventually we got home, luckily Iwaki has been quite cool since we have been back, though I am still not really coping with the heat, especially with having to feed Amelia and keep her hydrated as well as myself.

The night we got back, there was a huge earthquake at 3am. A low 5 here which is pretty big. I had just put Amelia back to bed and was just nodding off when there was an almighty shake. I leaped up and grabbed her out of her bed and ran down stairs...not sure why, just did. I guess I feel safer on the ground floor. So we are getting on with our life here. DH has been working but managed to get home before 6 the first two nights this week, which was really nice. Still waiting for him to come home tonight at it's 9pm though :(

Tomorrow a friend is coming over to see us and bringing her geiger counter to see what the radiation levels are like here at our house. I now live in a city where people have such things. More on this later.

6 weeks

2011-07-25T08:50:00.000+09:00

We have had a very busy few days as my sister got married on Saturday. Amelia went to her first wedding and wore a gorgeous little outfit. Her sense of occasion was bang on and she slept through the whole thing, only waking up for feeds and then going back to sleep in whoever's arms. She was very popular and I managed to resist the urge to sanitise everyone's hands before they held her.

DH has returned from, hopefully, his last business trip to Europe. Now he has a week to get the place ready for us to come home to.
So we leave Nelson on Friday to go to Auckland, stay a night there and catch our flight to Japan the next day early. DH will be waiting for us at the airport and then we have a bit of a long drive home to Iwaki. About 3 hours. Am very sad to be leaving my mum behind and I know she is sad we are going. On the bright side, she can get her nice big comfy bed back. :)

So here is Amelia in her little wedding outfit.

5 Weeks

2011-07-15T12:43:00.000+09:00

Amelia is 5 weeks old today! She has been much more settled the last two days. Not sure what it is exactly but I am just going to keep doing what I'm doing! She seems to know who people are and what's going on around our house now. Last night when I put her on the table to get ready for her bath, she looked at me with complete understanding as to what was coming next. No, really she did! She loves her bath, can't wait till she is a bit bigger and we can have one together.

Last night at 1am I put her in bed after a feed and she went straight off to sleep, no rocking, shushing, patting, gently laying her in bed and having her eyes fly open again or anything! I was stunned for a few minutes and quickly hopped back in bed and hoped she stayed asleep, which she did. I, on the other hand, couldn't get back to sleep - the first time that has happened too, since she was born.

Amelia now has her very own NZ passport, so we are all set to be able to leave at the end of the month back to Japan. I hear it's really really hot over there...it's been really cold here in NZ so the change in temperatures is going to be rough on me, I hope Amelia adjusts better than I do.

There must be an app for that

2011-07-11T12:04:00.000+09:00

Amelia and I have been having our moments, recently more so than before. I guess her true personality is coming out and the usual problems that newborns have like colic etc have started for us. Last night when I took her off my boob to wind her she screamed with such indignation at not being able to finish at her own pace, or that's my interpretation anyway.

In the interest of being honest and not outright lying and saying everything is fabulous, yesterday was pretty crap really. I managed a shower at 3pm and Amelia would only go to sleep finally when I climbed into my bed with her out of desperation and we both lay down and slept.

So today my mum and I were discussing getting some kind of white noise cd or something for her as it really is too quiet round here for her to stay asleep during the day. Then I had a 2011 thought - there must be an app for that. Sure enough, in about 2 minutes I had found and downloaded a white noise app that plays wave sounds and even switches itself off after however long you want. So I just poped the ipad at the end of her bed and she went off to sleep and didn't wake up after 20 minutes! So I quickly went out for a walk with the dog - the first time I had left the house in 2 days. We were only gone 20-30 minutes tops but when I got back Amelia was awake. So my initial elation was dashed. Turns out she had some wind which was probably what woke her up. So now she is having her second go at a nap for the afternoon and has been asleep for a while now with the help of the waves. Could this little piece of technology help save my sanity? I hope so!

It's called "ipacifier" and it's free!

1 month old!

2011-07-09T09:41:00.001+09:00

Yesterday was the 4th Friday since Amelia was born! So that kind of means she is a month old though the 10th of July is actually tomorrow. On Tuesday she got weighed and was finally back to 3260 which was her birth weight exactly. Whew. We also found her "Mongolian Blue Spot". Most Japanese babies are born with a kind of birth mark that looks a bit like bruise, usually somewhere on their lower back or buttocks. We didn't see one when Amelia was born until the other day when I noticed a kind of dark patch on her upper back and shoulder. It is quite light, so that is why we probably missed it.

She has started to "chat" a little when she is in a good mood and also screams really really loudly now when she has a windy tummy. Yesterday I was in tears at one stage too as it seemed like she was terribly uncomfortable. I've never seen her that bad before. We are working on strategies to decrease her wind, but as all you mums out there will know, it takes time.

Yesterday we went to her Newborn Hearing Screening. Due to a case of mild hearing loss from birth in our family, Amelia got the special test where they hook up some electrodes to the babies head and shoulder or somewhere and put some doctor Spock ear muffs on to test. She passed with flying colours first time round in about 20 seconds. Sometimes they don't get a definitive test and have to repeat it or ask you to come back another time or something. So lucky for Amelia, she doesn't have her mummy's hearing but rather her daddy's. I'm a bit deaf and yesterday the hearing test lady was talking to me in a very quiet voice and I had my back turned and I had no idea she had been talking to me. The test lady was rather shocked that I hadn't heard her but when she asked about hearing problems in our family before our appointment, she said she was only interested in the instances from birth - which I am not, so I didn't tell her I have crap hearing.

DH on the other hand can hear my cell phone ringing 2 blocks away and is very picky about his music. However he has terrible eyesight, unlike mine which is fantastic, so here's also hoping Amelia get's my eyes!!

Getting some chubby cheeks finally! :)

3 Weeks

2011-07-02T10:49:00.000+09:00

Amelia and I have survived the first 3 weeks! I feel a lot more able as a mummy than I did 3 weeks ago! I can actually put the nappy on the right way round now...not something I managed the first time, much to the midwife's amusment!

Today we had our first really big outing to a shopping mall. Amelia went in her Moby Wrap and slept most of the time and was very popular with the shop assistants everywhere we went and even random customers asked me about her and cooed over her. Proud mummy moment.

DH has gone back to Japan now. I was so upset about him leaving and cried all day. But once he had actually gone, I got over it and now we are getting on with things. I am surviving night duty alone although I can call on Nana when things get rough. It helps a lot that Amelia wakes up feeds and pretty much goes straight back to sleep for several hours. We talk to DH on skype every day so Amelia can hear her daddy's voice. In the mean time I hope he is enjoying his uninterrupted sleep and playing golf on the weekends, cause that isn't going to last much longer!
We are hoping to go back to Japan at the end of July. I am looking forward to getting on with my life a little more and for us 3 to be a real family, together, in our own home .

2 weeks tomorrow

2011-06-23T15:28:00.000+09:00

Exactly 2 weeks ago tonight, I went into labour!

A lot has happened in 2 weeks. Amelia has been a great baby so far and sleeps really well when she manages to get to sleep, which is sometimes tricky but can usually be helped along by boob juice up to her eyeballs!

So what have I achieved today. Well I had about 2 hours where I didn't sit in the chair and feed her or change a nappy or something!

Thankfully I have DH to bring me stuff I need whilst I am trapped in my feeding chair and my mum to cook food and go to the supermarket.

Right now DH is trying to get an overtired baby to sleep by rocking her somewhere quiet and dark.

DH heads back to Japan on Sunday morning. I am not looking forward to him leaving as he has been really good not only looking after Amelia but also giving me lots of hugs which I really need.

And this baby is perfectly healthy and reasonably laid back! But I still have my mum who loves to spend time with Amelia, although Amelia would rather spend her time attached to my boob.

Here are some recent photos

The Kanji

2011-06-19T12:52:00.000+09:00

So now we come to deciding how we are going to write Amelia's name in Japanese.

We have a few options but in the end we decided to go with the following:

愛莉杏　　ソフィー

The first character means "love" and will be read as Ami, the second character means "jasmine" and will be read as Ri, and the third one means "Apricot" (one of my favourite fruit BTW) and will be read as the final A.

Her middle name: Sophie will be in Katakana as there isn't really any other option for that particular name.

Poor Amelia has been lumped with 3 kanji she will have to write every time she writes her name. She will also probably get called "Airia" a lot, too. Sorry Darling!

The Birth Story

2011-06-14T14:53:00.000+09:00

Warning, following post is the "birth story". I will try to keep the details to a minimum :)

Well on the 9th of June I was feeling a bit out of sorts. In hind sight it was obviously my body gearing up for the big event that night! Of all the odd things, I had this really bad need to clean my running shoes. This was an excellent idea as they have now had several days to dry out! I was weepy and spaced out for most of the day and my tummy felt very uncomfortable.

The night before I had been awake for several hours worrying about various things and had stayed awake all day trying to set myself up for a good nights sleep that night.

About 9:30 I dragged myself off to bed and was lying there thinking: "Boy and I going to have a fantastic sleep tonight!".....or not. About 20 minutes later there was this really perceptible "POP". Thanks to a friend, and her birth story, I knew it was my waters breaking, not just a really huge kick from the baby.

This caused me to go into shock really. I couldn't believe that A) it was time and B) that DH wasn't going to make it at all. Off to the loo and a huge gush of amniotic fluid confirmed that it was all on and so I went to inform my mother. My sister had come up with the weekend with her partner (poor guy), so it was fortuitous in that respect. I called DH who was due to go to Narita that night to stay before taking his flight the next evening. He decided to drive down straight away and hoped that his hotel had decent internet access. I have no idea how he managed to drive the 3 hours there and concentrate on the road!

About 20 minutes later the contractions started. They were about 6-7 minutes apart right from the start, so I knew this was probably going to be over fairly quickly and wondered if I could beat my mother's record of 3 hours when I was born.

After about 2 hours I was in full on labour and the midwife arrived to see how it was going and asked me if I would like head off to hospital. I knew what my options were for having a home birth and my sister and mum had prepared for that eventuality whilst I was concentrating on getting through the contractions. At that point I knew that I was not going anywhere. Getting in a car, driving 5 minutes down the road to the hospital transferring to a hospital room just seemed impossible. The quiet darkened room down the hall with an airbed and tarpaulins looked much much more inviting. Was I worried about what would happen if something went wrong? Well our house is only 5 minutes away from the hospital so I felt confident that given everything had gone well with the pregnancy and my midwife was confident I could do it, that we wouldn't need any medical interventions. My midwife also travels with everything that a birthing suit has anyway, so I didn't feel worried about that.

3 hours after labour started we got to Stage 2 which is where you push. By that time I was already tired. I wondered how women who have 20-30 hour labours get through it. For 2 hours not very much happened. My midwife says that it was me biding my time till I had the energy back for the last part. She gave me some drops of some kind of homeopathic remedy which I forget what it was called but about 10 minutes after that I was all business and about 15 minutes after that Amelia was born. Unfortunately she had her arm up by her head as she came out, but she came out all the same, cried immediately, looked around at me and started sucking about 5 minutes later. DH managed to get on skype just after she was born and was able to see her.

After 2 hours of skin to skin and the all clear from my midwife I was able to take and shower and get into my own bed with Amelia in a basinett next to me. It was 6:30 in the morning. Amelia was asleep. I tried to go to sleep but was wide awake or awake every 20 minutes to check she was still breathing! Which of course she was. The next day I felt tired but pretty good really considering what I had done the night before!

Would I recommend a home birth? Certainly. It's not just for hippies, which was my own personal image before I did the research on it. Of course it helps to have a good and multi-talented midwife and a few support people you trust to be there to help you stay confident that you can do it without the drugs - cause there won't be any drugs to be had when you really really want them. When I got to that point, all I needed was my midwife's firm hands on my shoulders which calmed me down and helped me to be less scared. The best part for me was not being left in the hospital afterwards by myself but at home surrounded by my family.

Day 3 & 4

2011-06-13T17:12:00.000+09:00

Well we survived our second and 3rd day well. Amelia has taken to feeding very well and now keeps me at it for ages. I do feel like Fonterra (NZ biggest Dairy producer).
She has been very settled except at night when she is a bit more active - she is still on womb time obviously. I feel good apart from the sleep deprivation and puffiness oh and my boobs feel like they are on fire. I really must get better at sleeping when she is sleeping.
The midwife is very happy with our progress. I really love how she comes to check on us every day at present. In Japan, I would probably still be in hospital, but after leaving I would have to drag Amelia along to a packed out waiting room to have her weekly check up. No thanks. Today Amelia had a big day and had her first bath, which she LOVED, and then we went for an outing to a cafe and she slept through that.

So here is a picture from before we went out on today's adventure and yesterday.