You have learned well, Grasshopper...

This evening her potential for cunning made itself manifest; her timing was perfect. I was distracted, in the middle of a conversation, and trying to speak Japanese. I'd had a couple of beers... I barely noticed her as she moved towards me from the other end of the table. She came up beside me and, as I was about to say "hi, sweetie" to her, she casually pointed at my upper chest area and asked, "did you spill something on your shirt?" I looked down. My fate was sealed...

This is what parenting is all about...

Later the Same Day...

This evening I attended a concert performed by my daughter's singing club...

I'm tired...

Christmas Wreath

In case anyone thought I wasn't serious last night about having to make a Christmas wreath today...

An Inquiring Mind

Last night as my daughter was getting into her bed, I noticed her slip something under her pillow. When I asked her what she was doing, she pulled her hand out from under the pillow and showed me a tooth.

Mildly surprised, I asked "did you lose a tooth today?".

"No," she replied. "I found it."

"Where?"

"With mommy's stuff." (My wife keeps her [haha! my daughter's! Fixed 11:00 PM] lost teeth in a small box. It's supposed to be secret because usually the Tooth Fairy takes her teeth and leaves her a coin.)

"Well," I said, "if you didn't lose that tooth today, why are you putting it under your pillow?"

She shrugged and said, "it's just a test."

It's difficult to properly express how amused, tickled, and impressed I was at that moment.

Brutality, Animality, Fatality... Mortal Kombat in HELL(o) Kitty Land

One of my duties as the father of a 5-year-old daughter requires that I take a yearly trip into the bowels of Hell to do combat with Hello Kitty. I'm leaving now.



I'll be gone for a couple of days, so nothing but a few automated pic posts until I get back. If I make it back alive...

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Perhaps they should have focus-grouped this new kids snack a bit more carefully.



[Via: Penny Arcade]

A Small Pleasure

My little girl is at the age (5) where she frequently wants a chance to do things by herself, without mommy or daddy's help. Lately she seems to have a lot of fun giving herself a shower. Of course, she's got toys and stuff that she plays with in the bath/shower, but her big thing now is singing. She loves belting out tunes in the shower! I've never been a shower singer myself, but I get a big kick out of listening to her singing the songs she's learned at kindergarten or theme songs to her favorite cartoons. It makes me happy that she's so obviously happy while taking her shower.

And then last night she absolutely floored me. As I was hovering outside the bathroom listening in on her "performance," she started singing "whoooo are you? who who? who who?" over and over. It was "Who Are You?" by The Who! (Clearly she's been listening in while CSI was on the tube.) I was so overcome with joy that I burst into the bathroom and started singing along with her, which seemed to please her immensely. We frightened the dog with our racket and my wife thought we'd lost our minds.

My little girl's gonna be a rocker!

A Simple Pleasure

Last night my daughter asked me how to say hana kuso (lit. "nose dung/excrement") in English. "Booger," I told her. You can imagine my fatherly pleasure to hear her say this wonderful English word for the first time. Later I could hardly hold back my joyful tears as she asked my wife if there were any boogers in her nose. Life is good...

Taking It on the Chin(chin)...

Sigh... just when I start to think that things are going smoothly and I'm beginning to "fit in" around here, I go and put my foot into it yet again. Last night after I returned home from work my wife pulled me away from talking to our daughter to inform me, somewhat sternly, that I have, yet again, caused an uproar at our daughter's kindergarten. Before I explain, perhaps some brief background is in order for those unfamiliar with daily life in Japan...

Readers might be familiar with the fact that the Japanese are not as hung-up on the body and bodily functions as North Americans (and perhaps English-speaking people generally) often appear to be. I think one reason for this (maybe the main reason?) is that, from the time they are born through to the end of elementary school, boys and girls in Japan share the same changing rooms and, in kindergarten at least, the same washrooms. (I know that elementary school kids change their clothes together, but I'm not sure if they use the same washrooms.) These kids typically are not "ashamed" of their bodies and the things their bodies do because they've seen it all and have learned at an early age that there's nothing to be ashamed of.

Related to the above, it's also customary in Japan for immediate family members to share a bath, and there's nothing unusual about a mother being in the bath with her young son, or a father with his young daughter. In fact, in our household it's generally my "job" to give my daughter her evening bath, so we share the tub together. (Yes, my 4-year-old daughter has seen me "naked". Hundreds of times. If anyone is shocked by this then I respectfully suggest that that's their problem.)

Anyway, it should be clear from what I've already written that my daughter knows the difference between a boy and a girl (well, she knows the physical difference). And, like most Japanese kids, she also has a pretty rich vocabulary for describing those differences. She knows, for example, what "chinchin" (ちんちん) means. In Japanese "chinchin" means "penis". A few nights ago, while we were in the bath, she asked me how to say "chinchin" in English. I was reluctant at first to tell her, but then, in a chain of perfectly logical but fatally flawed reasoning, decided that since she already knew what a "penis" was and knew how to say it in Japanese, there could be no harm in telling her how to say it in English. "Penis," I said. "Penis," she repeated and, apparently satisfied, she nodded her head and seemed to forget about it...

Back to last night, my wife, looking somewhat exasperated, pulled me aside and asked me if I had taught our daughter how to say "chinchin" in English. Suddenly I felt all cold and sweaty. In the realm of possible questions a man might be asked by his wife, this was one question I had never considered, one combination of words that had never occurred to me. Without yet knowing how or why, I knew with dread certainty that I was guilty, trapped, doomed. I made blubbering noises as my mind frantically tried to figure out what had happened, what had gone wrong. Finally, feebly (having drawn a blank), I said that yes, I had told our daughter the English word for "chinchin"...

According to my wife, who heard it from my daughter's kindergarten teacher, yesterday while my daughter and the other kids were changing into their swimsuits, my daughter pointed at one of the boys' "chinchin" and said "Penis! In English "chinchin" is penis!" This new word spread like wildfire among the children, and apparently the boys (being, after all, boys) were especially taken with this new word. "Chinchin is penis!" "Hey! I have a penis!" "This is a penis!" "I pee with my penis!" What a scene it must have been! As my wife was telling the tale I was trying to keep a straight face (and I was certain that I caught a fleeting, quickly-stifled smile on her face too). My wife finished with an admonishment to be more careful about the words I teach our daughter.

"But really, dear, what's the big deal? What's the harm?"

"What's the big deal!?"

"Yeah, the whole thing sounds kinda cute and funny to me."

"Oh really? Tell me, do you have classes next Wednesday?"

"What? No, you know classes finish this week. Why?"

"Next Wednesday is parents day. It's in the morning, so it's mostly just the kids' mothers because the fathers are at work."

"Umm... yeah?"

"I have to work next Wednesday. You don't. You're going. Have fun..."

Coloring Outside the Lines

I ask you, gentle readers, when a guy posts a picture of some coloring he did with his little girl on a rainy day, is it a) an act of pure, fatherly love, something joyous that he wants to share with the whole world; b) an act of sheer desperation, a sure sign the idiot has nothing to say so he's cynically hoping the sappiness of it all will fool his readers; or c) both of the above?



By the way, can you guess which one I did?

Resistance Is Futile

"Daddy, I made these pictures for you. Here."

"Wow, thank you, sweetie, they're beautiful!"

"Really...?"

Pervert in the Playgound?

I had a bit of an unsettling experience yesterday while playing with my daughter at a local playground. We'd been there for a couple of hours and it was just about time to go home for dinner. The playground has the usual assortment of stuff for kids to climb and swing on, including a kind of miniature "rock climbing wall" (similar to, but not quite the same as this). My daughter wanted to go up this "wall" one more time before we went home. She's recently been successfully overcoming an initial fear of climbing, so I told her to go ahead without paying too much attention. She was about 3/4 of the way up when one of her feet slipped and she found herself hanging by just her hands with her feet scrambling for some support. Before I could help her she let go and slid down the surface of the "wall". On her way down one of the "rocks" caught her right between the legs. (I have no idea what this feels like for a girl/woman, but I know that if it'd been me I'd have been writhing on the ground and possibly vomiting.)

She'd landed on her feet, and when I asked if she was OK she didn't say anything and didn't seem affected at all by what had just happened. She walked a few steps around the wall and then stood facing its "underside" (i.e. out of "public" view). I joined her there and, kneeling down to her eye-level, asked again if she was alright. She started crying then, and collapsed into my arms. "It hurts," she cried. "Where does it hurt, honey, show me," I said (like, I think, any other parent in this kind of situation). She promptly stood straight, hiked up her skirt, pulled down her underpants and, pointing, said "here". Freeze.

At that moment I became acutely aware that I was in a semi-hidden area of a playground with a 4-year-old girl who was showing me her private parts. I groaned inwardly as I thought about how this must look to someone who happened casually to glance in our direction. I hesitated briefly while a battle raged in my mind between "keeping up appearances" and looking after my daughter. Then I checked for blood or any other obvious signs of injury. There were none that I could see, so I pulled her underpants back up and straightened out her skirt. I asked if she was OK to walk to the car and she told me she was. "OK, sweetie," I said, "let's go right home and we can let Mommy have a look to make sure you're alright. OK?" (My wife, aside from being a woman, is a nurse.)

As we left the playground I was aware of being watched by a few people, who seemed to have very concerned looks on their faces. I have no idea if they'd witnessed my daughter's accident and were simply worried about whether or not she was injured, or if they were wondering if I was some kind of pervert and were worrying about their own children. I'll probably never know. My daughter is OK, though.

Resistance Is Futile

"Daddy, can I be sick again next week?"

"Sweetie, why do you want to be sick again?"

"So you can stay home from work and play with me again."

From the Annals of the Absurd

I don't know, maybe I'm making too much out of it, but...

Recently my 4-year-old daughter has expressed some unhappiness about going to her kindergarten. Why? Apparently a couple of kids at the kindergarten, on two different occasions, have told her that they they didn't want to play with her because she's "fat" (futotte iru, in Japanese). Both my wife and I had strong reactions to this. Unfortunately, they were very different reactions...

Now, before I continue I should probably point out a couple of things. Firstly, the Japanese are typically quite slim, especially compared to Westerners. That does not mean, however, that there are no "fat" or "chubby" people in Japan. There are plenty. Secondly, the Japanese are more keenly aware and less tolerant of "difference". (People will debate this point, but frankly they don't know what they're talking about.)

Regarding my daughter, yes, by Japanese standards she is quite big--she towers over her playmates and nobody (not even me!) would call her "slim". I've got no problem saying that my daughter is a little on the "chubby" side, but where I come from she looks perfectly "normal" and only an anorexic psycho would look at her and see a "fat" person. So, on top of being a "half-baby", my daughter is also bigger and taller than other kids (she's bigger and taller than most first- and second-graders here). Since she's been born I've been preparing myself to deal with problems related to "race" and "ethnicity". This "fat" thing is another can o' worms altogether...

My wife, being Japanese, thinks my daughter should start dieting and getting more exercise and the problem will go away. (To be fair, this is Japan we're living in, so I can't just dismiss my wife's views simply because they go against my gut feelings.) I, of course, don't think my daughter has a problem at all. The "problem" is with Japanese attitudes and perceptions, and I don't like the idea of forcing her into some action just to conform with other people's ideas about what is "normal" or "acceptable". She's a sweet, beautiful, healthy little girl. Why mess with that?