”OJISAN" ballon appeared

"OJISAN" means a middle-aged or senior man.

 What's this? or who is he? He is OJISAN, and it's a ballon.

It was in the air last Sunday from the afternoon to the night in the downtown of Utsunomiya.

It is an art work, which is in a fine art field, and this show is organized by Utsunomiya city museum.

It is drawn by hands of many artists, the way is dot-drawing. And the face is imitated from one of real man's face who was selected from 270 men walking in the downtown of Utsunomiya this Summer.

You might think what a ridiculous show it was !

However, many people had a good chance to watch up the sky and the ballon, and to laugh.

Actaully Yuki and I were walking around the school where there was the ballon basement  with laughing. All of sides of him brought us laughing.

Japanese people tend to be said  they had little of sensese of humor, but see it! Some people have such of sense of humor.

It is said these days  suburbn cities in Japan are lossing their lively power in their mental and physical situations. However see it! It was fun, and our city of Utsunoniya is lively. I love Utsunomiya.

Why don't you come to Utsunomiya?

pre-chirstams

lThis week my students and I enjoyed making Christmas sweets house. These days "Hexenhaus" or Gingerbread house is getting popular in Japan Some families enjoy making one, or actually I can buy one at a cake-shop nearby, which has started to sell one sine two years ago. Last year  I bought one, every one enjoyed seeing it, but it was difficult to find the day to eat it up. All students wanted to "deconstruct" it and of course to eat it.

So this year I decided to make all students to make their own house.

 These are log-house version.

 These are simple version.

  This is  the easiest version.

Can

 you see a gate on the left house? It's a new year version.

Thanks to Jan, her present, sprinkle-set , made the craft more fun.
Our Christmas lessons are finished.

after chirdbirth crisis

Now Akari is fine, she can pre-roll-over.
She came here with cold, and her mother had a cold too. So I took care of them instead of her father. Her father also had a cold, but he had to work,though I also had to have lesson at home.

Since Akari was born, she and her mother often? come here. Probably I should say to M "you made your bed, now sleep in it." Actually since my friends became grand mothers they have  often accepted  their grandchild and "daughter" (not son or daughter-in-law), I used to think that why they have spoiled their daughters. --Now I'm laughed by them and I also laugh by myself. I can't say "no''. because her husband, and even her mother-in-low asked me to take care of them. Of course Yuki asks me to take care of them. and to be surprised he helps me more than he was a father.

These days the word "after childbirth crisis" is becoming popular. In January the new (comedy) dram is going to come on, which theme is after childbirth crisis, and two popular actor and actress played main characters. So it will become trendy.


When we who are in their 's or more, heard the word, we didn't understand it. And  we thought why these young people are so impatient. But it seems to be a serious problem.
Its difficult to explain the word, but let me try to do it.

We call the word "SANGO KURAISHIS" in Japanese. KURAISHISI means crisis. So I thought this word came from the U.S.A. but it seems to be wrong. It seems to have been born in Japan.

These days many "new" mothers seem to have problems, mainly mentally. Shortly after giving birth, they are going to have less affection to their husbands. They think their husband don&t meet their expectation child-rearing. But it doesn't mean that their husband don't do anything. They try to do something, but unfortunately they tend to miss the point. It sometimes makes bigger the gap between the mother and her husband. And it leads to the after childbirth crisis, and finally which might result in a divorce.
I think, what mothers want their husbands to do is different from what their husbands want to do for their baby. So mothers are irritated and their husbands are discouraged and eventually don't do anything.
So I told M's husband, I know you are willing to take care of your baby, but you should help your wife, not to take care of your baby directly. It is called "big turnip method". Do you understand the word or do you know the story of the big turnip. To pull down the big turnip, first grandfather pull the turnip, and grand mother pull the grandfather. They never pull the turnip together.

December has started.

I put Chirstmas ornaments on the shelf in the entrance hall. Most ornamnets were made by my daughters, and me when I was a young mother. 

These days we get such ornaments easily at 100 yen shop. So we can easily enjoy Christmas.
When I was a young mother, though I'm not good with my hands I had to make handicrafts. I didn't like that. Now it's easy to get a smock for kindergarten kids.
Well, well, my mother used to say the same thing.
She is not good with her hands yet, or she can't sew clothes. At that time, most closes were sewn by mothers. So she asked to sew our clothes to mother-in-law, or her friends. She says it's easy to buy clothes at reasonable cost. And another senior lady said that it's easy to cook using microwave, she is not good at cooking.

These days I got something fresh.
I got apples. But my younger daughter M (she comes with AKARI ( my ground child) again. saying "I, Akari and even Youichi-kun (her husband) have caught a cold.  We (Akari and M) won't get worse.) can't eat fresh apples because of she has an allergy to apple-enzyme. So I baked big pancake. in Japan we call it big HOTCAKE.

I got fresh DAIKON; Japanese radish. So I stewed it with KONBU which is a kind of seaweed. And dip sweet MISO.

This is  MAZESOBA, it's not RAMEN or Chinese noodle. It doesn't have soup. so it looks like spaghetti. I got this special noodle . it's Yuki's favorite. So Yuki cooked it.