An American Mom in Japan: May 2012

Today is Yosei's marching band club day, with that extra hour of free time its hard to know exactly what to do. Today though, I had already decided.

See those little gold balls stuck on my ear? Yup that's what I went and did today. They're little accupressure balls with adhesive tape that you stick on your ears. They're apparently supposed to work as an appetite suppressant when you press on them about 20 minutes before you eat. Sounds pretty hokey I know. But one of my preschool mom friends went and did it last week and said they seemed to work for her. So I went to the same place she did, a little relaxation spa inside a Seiyu supermarket near here, they're doing a special one ear for ￥1050 (roughly $10). I had some one thatI earned doing online surverys over the past couple of months so I figured I'd give it a shot.

It seems like a silly thing to do with the money problems we're having I know, but I figure with the amount I've been eating lately I can save a whole heck of a lot more than ￥1050 if I can just control myself.

After Keia was born I spent a whole year working hard and I lost a lot of weight, around 55 lbs. But once I put Yosei in preschool the rhythm of my days changed completely and for some reason I completely lost control. And even now no matter how hard I try I manage to do well for 1 or 2 days before losing it and giving into that junk food binge (one of which can cost more than these here ear stickers.

These only last for 3-4 days, apparently leaving them on any longer can lead to a rash, so you're supposed to change them out. The gave me a little sheet that has a diagram with all the pressure points on the ear, and I found that I can get a sheet of 100 balls on amazon for ￥2000. So I won't be going back to the spa anytime soon (kind of sad about that, the ten minute ear and head massage was pretty flipping awesome), but if it seems to work, I guess I can work my butt off on some more surveys and buy me a sheet of balls on amazon :)

Oh also found out there's a pressure point at the top of the ear thats supposed to help with irritability. They gave me two spare balls incase the ones they put on come off, but maybe I should stick them up there. I bet Kiyo and the kids would be a lot happier if I did ;)

I'll update on this in a couple of days and let you all know how it goes.

I wish I could say I've abandoned this blog because I've been too busy to work on it. I have been busy but really I've just been lazy about writing.

Spring marks the beginning of the new school year out here and preschool is no different. Yosei has moved up to the second grade of preschool, the name of his class is tanpopo (Japanese for dandelion). He absolutely loves his new class and his new teacher; which is a huge relief because the last 2 months of his first grade class he was not looking forward to it so much and was saying he didn't like his teacher so much. His new teacher is Moe Sensei (pronounced like Mo-ay not like Moe from Moe's Tavern). They've been going on field trips to the zoo and local tulip festival. But biggest of all marching band club started three weeks ago. Marching band is for the 2nd and 3rd years only and practice takes place on Wednesday afternoons. The 1st year kids head home at 11:30 and the marching band kiddos stay at school until 3:30; that's a whole hour longer than every other day of the week.   Yosei is a drummer, and he absolutely loves it :)

Sadly (or not) I only get to make bento once a week (on marching band day) this year. They've decided to switch to school lunches 4 times a week. And, while it is incredibly convenient and I get to sleep a little later, it's so incredibly expensive; ￥320 (about $3.20) per lunch.  The financial aspect of preschool is becoming quite daunting, and Kiyo has started talking about having Yosei quit preschool. To me this is not really an option because he's thriving there.

I recently had a conference with the daughter of the principal, and current 3rd year teacher, about Yosei's language. We discussed setting aside home time for Japanese word study time because his knowledge of the names of objects is severely lacking. And while he's made incredible progress in the first 6 months we're really going to have to work hard the next 2 years to get him up to speed. Because, unfortunately, as it stands he won't be able to enter into a regular elementary school but would have to be bussed to a special school for handicapped children. She said that she feels Yosei is very smart and picks things up very quickly and so if we do a little bit every day, both at school and at home, and make it fun he should be speaking normally within the next couple of years.

Right there is really all the reason I need to say 'absolutely not' to quitting preschool.  Of course then yesterday I find out that Kiyo's month of no overtime will likely turn into 2 months of no over time. The fact that he was working overtime everyday is the reason we were able to make ends meet all this time. So now I'm at a total loss as to what to do.    Trying to think of ways to comtribute I've recently started learning (on my own) how to do manicures, and gel nails. Problem with that is my only 'customers' at this point are friends. I used to think my hairdresser friend was silly for refusing to take money from her friends, but now I totally get how awkward it feels to charge your friends.  As it stands other than my own nails and lil' Keia's  nails I've only done one other person's so far, and I did it for free for my own practice. It's s seeming less and less viable as an option of income :/ So I guess in the meantime there is going to be a ton of mean planning and budget cutting until we get overtime back or this manicurist thing begins to take off.