Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Bring Baby Home

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....

 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

ahhhh, the belly button thingy.... always found that a bit gross... like a mumified finger or something, and then when it fell off........ eek. judi

Anonymous said...

well i luved baths but as i got older i luv the showers. Like i luv standin out in the rain its a wonderful thing. anyway his name-kenji is nice what does it mean?-cherry

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on your latest addition!

Gabreael
http://journals.aol.com/gabreaelinfo/GabreaelsBodyMindSpiritJournal/

Anonymous said...

Was she upset because she couldn't give him baths anymore?

Lahoma

Anonymous said...

Lahoma...not really whatever Tom said to her worked...she also did go back to her own home so that relieved a little pressure off me too....Sandi

Anonymous said...

Fun story (although NOT at the time)!  Kenji, what a cute name!

Stop by sometime!

http://journals.aol.com/Ccancu/CEEGEEATLARGE

Anonymous said...

Sandi, how many journals do you have and which one do you update the most? Send me the link please. ;)