Excuse me while I take advantage of this recording medium to jot down a few thoughts on this past week. I’m starting to feel a panic that if I don’t write down soon some of the thoughts and happenings of this week, they will be lost forever to the coming onrush of diaper changes and sleepless nights. I don’t have time to edit this so excuse what might appear to be ramblings.
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Naoko today (March 22) told me I’m becoming an oya baka, which literally translated means “stupid or foolish parent.” But perhaps “doting father” is closer to the meaning in English. She said this as I went through yet another roll of 35mm film taking photos of Kaika in the hospital. (I actually haven’t taken that many — I’m on my 4th roll. For someone who once blew through 25 rolls on a two-day trip to Yosemite, mind you.) And this was the same day that I went down to Bic Camera in Shinjuku and bought a photo album, a bunch of film, ink for my inkjet printer, and a 100-sheet pack of 3.5×5-sized photo paper. The other day she joked I would drive the family to bankruptcy if I continued taking so many photos. Maybe I’m going over the top, I don’t know (I suppose if I’ve truly lost perspective, I can’t answer that question). I told her, well, better that I’m an oya baka than the opposite. She said ii kedo… (something like “yeah, but…”).
My mother admonished me to take lots of photos, that during this time Kaika will be changing daily, and that I should record it. And with digital, it seems silly not too. So yes, I’ve been taking a lot of photos, digital, 35mm, and shooting video as well. And I will make photo albums and baby books for him. And I will write on the back of the photos or in the albums the date and my thoughts as best as I can. If he’s a tiny bit like his father, he will later appreciate the effort, I think. And perhaps 30 years from now he will use some unforseen medium to ruminate on these photos and writings as he constructs and deconstructs himself.
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Our friend K-san took one of the photos I uploaded here, converted it to a tiny thumbnail, emailed it to the web, from where I was able to download it to my cellphone, and now my “screen saver” image on my phone is a sleeping Kaika. oya baka. But then K-san later sent me an email saying that if I recorded Kaika crying, he could turn that into my cellphone ringer! Now that would be oya baka!
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My mother-in-law has been getting on my nerves. Just had to get that off my chest. She has been very helpful this week, I have to acknowledge that. And I’m grateful for it. But being in the house with her this week without Naoko as a go-between has been a chore. Of course, for Naoko that’s probably one of the few benefits of being hospitalized. She can take a week or so off from the go-between duties. (And note to self: I will do my darndest to see to it that she has more time off from it even when she comes back home next week).
Because of the hospital visitation hours (2-8pm except yesterday, which was a holiday and so 10am-8pm), and my work schedule (evenings), I’ve only been able to spend a limited amount of time with Naoko and Kaika. So I was irritated last Wednesday when okaasan showed up at 3pm. Seeing as she can stay till 8pm, but I can only stay until 3:30pm or so, I asked Naoko to tell her that she should come after I leave so that we could maximize the time the two of us can spend alone together, with Kaika.
I feel resentment, perhaps unwarranted but I feel it. I resent her behavior at the hospital, as if it was her baby. I resent the nurses giving her the piece from the umbilical cord. I resent her gloating about Kaika being a boy (she knew I had wanted a girl more), as if somehow it could possibly have mattered to me once Kaika was born.
In recent months, my I-want-to-move-out feelings had cooled. This week they were rekindled.
I can admit that I’m sure she’s equally irritated with me. If only she was a diarist or blogger so we could later compare notes on this past week.
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I’ve cried a lot this week. Good tears, happy tears, but I think Naoko has been a little worried about it. Generally she’s the crier, the more sensitive of the two (and that’s saying something, let me tell ya’). But this week she’s been so solid, so strong. I’ve felt a little guilty about it, seeing as she’s the one in physical pain, the one who went through so much for us, for Kaika. I suppose a lot of it is tied up in relief that everything came out all right. Before the operation, even though I knew c-sections are performed everyday and that the risks are minimal, there are risks and this was all I could focus on. And it was obvious as the date of the operation got closer and closer, Naoko was feeling more and more scared. My mind couldn’t stop focusing on the dreaded “what-if” scenarios. When she (finally) was brought down from the operating room on the day of the operation, wheeled right by me, seeing her exhausted and glazed expression was too much. I had a moment of panic that she wasn’t alive and I lost it. And other moments, seemingly benign, for reasons I can’t explain, I start to well up. We might be standing at the window together looking in on Kaika in the nursery room, and I’ll start to cry. Any attempt to explain it wouldn’t be adequate. Perhaps there’s no need to question it, but rather be grateful for it.
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I miss Naoko and Kaika when I’m here at home, or work. Tomorrow I have to work a full day and so can’t go at all to the hospital (a particular shame as tomorrow the hospital visitation hours are from 10-8). On this note, I’ve been carrying around a couple of photos of Kaika, to show students and co-workers, etc., and I sneak peaks at them now and then. And now of course I have my cellphone to look at, in the train or wherever.
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Kaika now has his own domian, kaika.org (there’s nothing there, so I won’t bother to hyperlink it). Is that cheesy? It didn’t even occur to me to do it until yesterday (because I had been sent a reminder to renew one of my other domains), and so I popped on over to Register.com and saw what’s available. .com and .net were taken, but I wouldn’t have wanted those anyway. (Interestingly, I looked up what’s available for the name we would have given our child had it been a girl, and all that’s available are .us, .cc, and .tv domains). You know that these days new businesses must take domain name availability into account when naming their companies. I wonder how many take similar considerations into account when naming their child? Can we say oya baka?
Related, I’ve been toying with starting a separate blog, a “baby blog,” if you will. But after reading a few, I started having second thoughts. I wasn’t planning on doing one where it’s written in the child’s voice (a ridiculous idea if you ask me), but still. I don’t know. For the moment, I think I will continue to post here about Kaika or parenthood as I see fit, as I think ultimately being a parent is part of the development of yours truly, not something I can separate from the other parts of my life. Whether that’s for better or worse for you dear reader, I don’t know. I will probably at some point create a separate gallery to spare all of you from an inundation of baby/growing boy pics. (BTW, in my travels last night amongst the baby blog landscape, I particular enjoyed this one, for its subtlety, design, and nice photography).
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Fed Kaika today for the first time, with milk Naoko had generated earlier. I’m still in the he’s-gonna-break stage, ever so careful, wondering if I’m putting the bottle too far into his mouth, etc. But he drank all of it, sleeping all the while. How wonderful, to sleep and eat at the same time! Two of life’s necessities taken care of in one fell swoop. And I changed his diaper today. And cleaned his oshiri (butt) and chinchin (penis) area too. And Kaika just sleeps through all of it. Ah, what bliss!
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And what bliss to not know the kind of world you’re being born into this week, dear Kaika. But you will find out soon enough, I can’t keep barbarity and cruelty from you forever, and indeed I don’t want to. Better for you to see it, acknowledge it, face it, and negotiate an existence with it as best you can. You will turn out how you turn out, you will make your own decisions, form your own opinions. But your mother and I are going to try our utmost to impart to you certain values. Values which are manifold and complex, but which can perhaps be summed up in the polar events that took place in your first week of existence. In a local hospital room in your mother’s country your mother endured severe physical pain to give life to you and our family. Far away, but acting on impulses contained within all of us, the government of your father’s country, through abstract machines and language, wrought destruction. One day you will have to choose which of these countries you belong to. But which country you choose isn’t important, for you are a citizen of the world first. What is important is that of the impulses inside you to create and destroy, you take the path more difficultly traveled, and strive to exalt creation, and to sublimate destruction. We’ll be here should you need help in finding the right way.
Maybe Americans are just more into photographs and scrapbooks than the Japanese–all those Kodak “for the moments of your life” commercials. Here your behavior would not seem out of line–every moment in a child’s entire life seems to be on video as well. There are books and websites on how to make scrapbooks and memory books; it’s quite a big business here.
But if you need justification, you’ve already given the best excuse…your parents aren’t there to share in the Kaika experience…the photographs are all they have. Take a bunch!
Well “M” having been through 12 albums of my husband’s childhood photos I think it’s more of a personal choice than a cultural one!
My Mum just sent me a few photos of when I was a kid. They are very special to me! I’m sure Kaika will appreciate it very much! (And make sure to embarrass him when he starts dating by showing his girlfriends these pictures when they come over)…
right on. Take as many pictures as you can. They DO change every day and the photos will help you watch the transformation. Even one year of life brings so much change in the way they look and the postures they hold as they putter around in the house or in the park. I’m not ashamed to say that I have taken well over ??00 pictures of my 2 kids in 3 years. That along with who knows how many vid tapes. It’s a blast to go back and watch or look through the albums. Welcome to the Oya-Baka club.
Didn’t mean to sound ethnocentric, gomichild. After all, the Japanese invented the video craze and no culture is more famous for travelling with cameras than the Japanese. I was just trying to find excuses that Kurt could use. But, Kurt, there is no excuse. You’re a Dad. Go crazy!
Kurt, maybe you can do something like the Goldberg Family where you take a photo of the three of you on the same day each year.
M–
that’s a great link! funny, I’ve actually been thinking of something similar. I like the layout of the page as well….when you scroll down and concentrate on one of the family members, it’s like looking at a flip book.
thanks for the votes of confidence, everyone. i will continue to “go crazy”! 🙂
I don’t know why you apologize for things like writing about Kai and taking pictures so much… we all want you to write more and take more pictures.
I don’t have a kid yet, but ased on the number of pictures I take of my stupid birds I am wondering if the size of hard drives will be able to accomodate all the pictures I take when I do (I only have a digital camera).
Finally, a thought that many people might think is improper, but my girlfriend once mentioned that her mom wanted to take photos of her naked a couple times a year, (especially in the teenage years) to document her growth, but was afraid what would hapen if somone happend to stumble across the photos. I had never thought about it before, but now really wish I had photos of myself since I was a kid. It would be terribly interesting.
I’m not suggesting you put them on the site 🙂 but it’s just a thought for your’s and Kaika’s personal history records.
Hi Kurt,
I can relate to the issues you and your mother-in-law have been having lately.
I have one of those tough mother-in-laws too. But don’t do what I did, which is argue. I never had any issues with my mother-in-law before but when my daughter was born my mother-in-law took control. (Now, that I think about it maybe she was that way from the beginning but I just didn’t notice it). Of course, I did apologize for my behavior towards my mother-in-law and she accepted it and vice-versa, but my wife never forgave me for that incident. I wish my wife would not remind my every now and again because that was six years ago. All in all, I love my wife and my mother-in-law.
p.s. I wish blogging had been popular back then because I would have ranted about my situation too. Hang in there, Kurt things will get better! If you feel stressed back off and let the situation cool down. Peace.
number one reason for buying a new camera is the birth of a child, usually the first. number one thing to photograph is babies…. and then children… the clicking away tapering off around 12. then its just major events – vacation, holidays, award ceremonies, graduation.
once you start taking pictures, there is never enough. its the nature of the medium you can draw one picture, or shoot a roll of 36.
p.s. like all the baby talk. that was one dramatic week you’ve had. wow.