How do homeschooling mums do errands?

Warning: This is not a post for those who know that those with less than perfect children are definitely bad parents. It is not written by a bad parent, just one who has spirited, imperfect, self-centred children. I neglected to mention the behaviour of my children on yesterday's trip to the city hall. I have been accused of having low expectations of my children, but I like to think that I have realistic expectations. Nevertheless, no one could have accused me of much except having awful, rowdy, unyielding, disobedient kids yesterday! My Japanese friend kindly offered to help me (with the bureaucracy, not the kids) and so we went together, with my two youngest boys, 6 and 3. First problem - we arrived 10 minutes before opening and they complained there was no playground to use (as if it were a right)! The toilet issue was quickly solved by a dash inside and then we were directed to another building across the road - a temporary office. Inside the office four 'counsellors' were ready to assist with enquiries. Each equipped with two chairs for the enquirers. So, second problem - there were four of us, including children. He motioned for us adults to sit and promptly the two boys tried to sit on the same spare corner of my chair. I think I am thankful I am not a large person and at least had a corner-of-a-chair to offer, but you can imagine what happened next, can't you? Pushing and shoving...while I was trying to follow the official Japanese conversation happening on my behalf. I eventually had to drag the boys out of the room so that everyone else could get on with their business. Good news - the waiting area was lined with about a dozen chairs. But by this time they couldn't stand the sight of each other and kept shoving chairs at each other. Getting louder and louder...an official looking man eventually came and tried to intervene. This is always a problem when dealing with our kids as our youngest doesn't understand Japanese. Thankfully our oldest wasn't present. As it escalated I shoveled the boys outside the building (all the while, MY business is being dealt with by my friend and someone I've only just met) and thankfully it was all over soon after that and I could return to the privacy of my own home and rotten kids. I am so relieved that my friend is a good friend and doesn't mind helping. Also that Japanese are fairly lenient with young children (and foreigners). It was pretty embarrassing, though. But frankly, I wonder how homeschooling mums do all those things that other mums do when their kids are at school, especially those with multiple, multiple kids. I mean, do you load up all 6, 8 or 10 of your kids to go to the bank? I know you can go grocery shopping at night when they are in bed, but to renew your licence? I'm sure internet banking has been a boon for those people, but I'm wondering about other things, like birthday shopping...

Friendly Japansese bureaucracy

Both Japanese and Australian governments are currently giving out money to stimulate the economy. While I could delve into the wisdom of this, I am about as far from an economics major as you can get, so I'll keep my ill informed opinions to myself. But I can tell you about what it is like to apply for the money. Amazingly the government here has left it up to individual cities to design their own ways of making their residents apply for the money. We ourselves received 6 different envelopes, one for each member of the family, plus one extra. Our Japanese neighbours only received 2. Each envelope had about 3 sheets of paper in them...with over 120 million people in Japan, start to think about the cost. Lots of extra printing jobs for the printers! I didn't fill them out (that is my husband's 'job'), but a lot of stuff was written five times over. Then more people have been employed to answer questions and process the applications. After hearing that our colleagues in the north of Honshu had serious difficulties (they had to set up bank accounts in each of their names in order to receive the money, even the name of their baby), we decided to go to the city hall itself just to check that we'd done all the right things right, so to speak. We found a new temporary office set up at the city hall, just to deal with enquiries over these applications. It turns out that we had done everything correctly. And the money in our city is being handed to the head of the household, so no extra bank accounts are necessary. We do feel sorry for our friends in the north and hope that most other city/area governments are more sensible! Unfortunately, our youngest son is 28 days too young to receive one of the payments. But, really, the money is just a bonus, over and above the sufficient we already have, so we are grateful. Thankful for the abundance that we have, way and above what most people in this world survive on.

Mother's law of Murphy

I saw a book recently when browsing the English shelf of a down-town bookshop. Murphy's law and variants of it was the topic. I'm thinking I should have bought it because I reckon I might be able to add some from a mother's point of view. This kind of thing begins from the very beginning: During pregnancy: If I lie down to rest, the baby will kick. Newborn: If I lie down to rest, the baby will wake up. If I change a nappy (daiper), then the baby will poo again straight away. If I think the toddler is safe enough with the crayons, the moment I turn away he will draw on the vertical blinds (true story). If I think it is finally safe to step into the little room for some relief, there will certainly be an emergency. If I wait to step into the little room to complete some important task, then certainly there will be someone using it when I am free. In a quiet moment, I run the water to wash up dishes. As soon as the water fills the sink, the phone will ring or the children will start a fight that degenerates into dangerous territory. If I forget to take water bottles on a short journey, someone will certainly fake dying from thirst during the journey. If my Mum rings (from overseas), the boys will instantly require my full and undivided attention. In a variation of the above, the children will start fighting and the door bell will ring. Within a day of thinking, "Everyone has been so well recently", someone will be sick. If I sat here longer, I'm sure I could find many more, but the children need my attention...feel free to share some of your own "Murphy's Laws".

Cherry Blossom joy

Yesterday afternoon, after trying to get some rest, restless boys finally drove us outside. We needed our rest, but what we found when we got outside was restorative to our souls. The height of the cherry blossoms in our area, these sights are within five minutes bike ride of our house. The yellow flowers are Rape flowers - which they harvest Rape Seeds from for the oil. Photographers are out in force. Many people were taking photos with their mobile (cell) phones. I can't imagine why, unless their phones take much better photos than my phone! These photos were taken with our camera. What amazes me every year is not only their breathtaking beauty, but that it is so temporary. These blossoms will be gone within the week. I cannot wait until heaven, when breathtaking beauty will surround us continually AND we'll never tire of it. In the midst of the yellow flowers, can you see our 3 yo? By the way, I am not posting clear photos of our family on this blog, for security reasons. However, if you'd like to receive a photo email with a selection of family photos from the last month, let me know. I'll be sending one out (Lord willing) within the week.

Birthday contemplations

Today I'm doing something for the 30 something time. If you think about it, that is not so many times, is it? Not that I feel like making myself younger than I am, but only doing something 30 or so times doesn't necessarily make you feel like an expert. I certainly feel less than qualified to celebrate my own birthday. Especially in the presence of time-demanding children. Birthdays as a child were pretty predictable. Present, cake, food, the song, a party of some dimension or other and feeling spoiled for the day. As an adult, how you celebrate your birthday changes. Then some of us have kids and it changes again. As one of my Facebook friends put it "all a mother really wants is dinner to be made and children's behaviour to be above average so I hope that's true for you!" But my problem, is what if it is not? What if my children's behaviour is not above average? What if I'm unwell or the weather is awful? What do I do with all the good wishes and greetings? Do I feel sorry for myself? Do I make certain demands? Do I get to be selfish for the day? Where do I draw the line? As it turns out, I'm having a lovely day. The weather has really turned it on. After weeks of unseasonal cool, then mucky rain and wind over the last two days, today is about as perfect as you get in April in Japan! We lunched under Cherry Blossoms, the kids played happily at CAJ playground and I'm going out for dinner (I refused to cook dinner). Yes, the boys have fought. Not a perfect day by any means, but a very nice day. I did get this gorgeous Japanese-style card from my best Japanese friend. Japanese don't typically celebrate birthdays, particularly as adults, but my friend and I almost share a birthday. As I gave her a present and card she has, in good Japanese fashion, returned the favour.

Perspective on computer decisions

The hinge on my PC notebook is broken. But while I lie awake at night wondering whether to replace it with another notebook or a Mac (lying awake is not quite true), there are people who don't even have somewhere to sleep. Have a look here to see where some Tokyo-ites are sleeping these days!

Home-made clock woes on a rainy day

I hate it when brilliant ideas fall flat on their faces! Kids are particularly clever at causing such disappointments. Today for home schooling I decided to be creative in teaching clock-reading to our 6 yo. I found an old kickboard destined for the rubbish and a larger piece of cardboard. Figuring the boys could each make a clock. I felt optimistic even a tiny bit clever. The boys were excited, to start with. Somewhere in the process, though, my 3 yo decided that it wasn't at all to his liking and threw a tantrum. What exactly turned the tide for him, I don't know. But I do know that there are some things you can't undo - like the felt pen numbers on the foam board that he demanded be erased! I have never had the experience of home schooling with just one child under my care. I always marvelled at our eldest son's ability to learn things despite my divided attention and the attention seeking antics of his younger brothers. I cannot imagine what it might be like if a child had learning difficulties, nor if I had six children under my care (like one homeschooling mum I know). Juggling the needs of several different aged learners is just a little bit difficult, especially when one or more are under school age. Any mum who has managed it without going crazy, I salute! But it doesn't mean that I wish to join them for the long term. As for time, we've called "time out" for now and will get back to it later when tempers are a little less frayed.