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Baby Isabelle is a month old and it`s gone really quickly. She`s getting stronger and stronger. Especially her cries.
During her tantrums to relieve herself of her dirty nappy/hunger/general boredom, she puts on a face of the deepest despair like a woman whose childhood love has been killed in the war. Of course it`s also completely adorable.
And completely annoying at the same time. I try singing to her to calm her down and realised that the song Rock a Bye baby:
Rock a bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
isn`t a gentle lullaby designed to ease the baby to sleep but a threat to the child that if she`s not quiet, her parents will stick her up a large tree where she`ll fall to her death.
I wondered what it would be like if I could scream out, “Waah Waah”, to get things the way I wanted them just like it`d be good to drop my trousers whilst walking the dog, defecate in the road and get the dog to clean up after me. It would certainly be liberating.
I find it easier to talk to Isabelle in Japanese than in English. This is a very dangerous avenue to go down as she needs no help listening to Japanese with it surrounding her and myself being the only native English speaker she comes into contact with.
It`s partly because I feel less silly saying “What`s the matter baby Bill?” in Japanese than in English. Without wishing to offend Japanese, it`s a better language than English to talk babyish in just as Russian is a far better language to have an argument in, French is a great language to talk romantically in and Welsh is the best way to cover your foe in phlegm should you so wish.
It`s very hard. Even if I talk English to her I get her to agree with me in Japanese. Of course I don`t have in depth conversations about the human condition with her but tell her it`s hot isn`t it or ask her how she is or just berate her for not being able to control her bowel functions when I`m trying to sleep.
Thanks to the long hours of my job, I`m only around her for a short time anyway and when I do we converse I monologue in Japanese when she should be listening to English. I`ve read on forums of how children born of English and Japanese parents often can understand English but can`t or don`t want to speak it. Whether that is because of the difficulty in learning two languages concurrently or a desire not to speak it I do not know.
Today you turned two weeks old. You`ve grown and changed a lot in this short time alone. You can keep your eyes wide open and follow imaginary objects around the room for hours at a time. You`ve looked at me in the eyes properly once so far. That was a magical moment for me which I`m dying you`ll repeat soon.
I`ve tried playing games with you but you don`t seem interested. I got you out with three strikes when we tried baseball and your penalty kick skills need a lot of work. I tried some easier games like sticking my tongue out and hoping you`d copy the action but you`re too much of a lady to do that.
Your umbilical cord`s stump fell off last week and as per Japanese tradition the hospital provided a small box to put the black shrivelled lump in. Disappointingly I never got to eat the placenta or even look at it.
I`m away from you most days as paternity leave is a concept so outrageous to Japanese people that they scream out in disbelief when I explain it to them. When I am home I try to attend to you as best I can but it`s taking a bit of time to get used to the fact that my pre-Isabelle life won`t ever be back.
Your grandfather came back from Matsuyama to see you and insisted on sticking a dummy (pacifier) in your mouth whenever you started to cry. I was initially against force feeding you plastic nipple substitutes but the silence that occurs as you focus your attention on furiously sucking it means my stance has changed. We`ve only got one. We need more.
Yesterday Reiko and Isabelle came home from the hospital and I got a taste of what it`s like to have a newborn baby around at night. She cries and cries and cries.
I`ve been apart from Reiko last week as I couldn`t stay at the hospital. Reiko is exhausted and as I write this, she`s grabbing some much needed sleep. In a bizarre way, when the baby`s asleep, I want to wake her up. When she`s awake and not crying, she`s delightful - attempting to focus on things seemingly she alone can see, falling asleep on my knees and becoming stronger every day.
I`ve also assumed Oyabaka (doting parent) status by comparing Isabelle with babies I see in the street or in magazines and having Isabelle trounce them in cuteness.
We both don`t want her to grow up, preferring she stay in this state of adorableness forever though I must emphasise that a lifetime of changing her nappies, bathing her and being peed on would grate quickly.
This is Isabelle taken by Reiko. I`m not very good at taking pictures of people (though I`m okay with rust) and this is by far the best picture of Isabelle yet.
All the Japanese of the older generation in the family aren`t calling her Isabelle but by her Japanese name Hannah (Hana means flower.) I had an argument about this with Reiko as her name isn`t Hana but Isabelle. I told her nobody calls me John.
She explained Isabelle is a strange name for Japanese people. Isabelle conjures up an image of a blue eyed, blonde and curly haired maiden. It`s too much and a bit embarrassing for them so they stick to the Japanese name. If she went to a Japanese school, she`d be called Hana. The name has Chinese characters and she would stick out less. I don`t know how I`d feel about that.
I sent the picture before to Reiko`s cousins who replied that it looked like Reiko`s dad. Strangely enough to Reiko`s mum this was an insult on a par with telling us we`d given birth to a cross-eyed imp. She looks like Yoda to me though.
You`re not allowed to praise your wife`s dress sense or beauty in front of others unless you want a scathing look from her. The Japanese subscribe to the maxim, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
This works the other way of course. If somebody tells Reiko I`m handsome, she`ll answer, “Simon? No, he`s got a big nose and arms the size of a chicken`s leg.” even if she thinks I`m handsome as well.
This level of insincerity is startling and unnerving especially when you`re being put down by your own wife in front of others. I at least hope this is Japanese culture and not my wife`s unvented feelings.
The same thing happens with the baby. “Your baby must be really cute when she comes out” to which Reiko answers, “No, she`ll inherit my wide face and Simon`s big nose.” Even when we both know she`ll be the most beautiful baby in the world.
This is the newest picture of the baby taken on Friday. Not a lot has happened since the last scan taken last week except she`s gained 100 grammes. She`s at 36 weeks now which means we`re in the last straight. Reiko`s getting sick of carrying around all the extra weight.
By Japan`s interesting standards, Reiko`s will be pregnant for 10 months instead of the normal 9 in the West as they measure the length of time from the woman`s last period instead of the date of conception.
According to the doctor, she should come out around the semi-final of the World Cup. He asked me what I`d do if Reiko was giving birth the same time that England were playing in the final. Well….
This is the latest picture of the baby. She weighs about 2.88 kilos (6.3 pounds) with around four weeks left. She`s supposed to gain around 200 grammes (7 ounces) a week from now on.
The beachball is increasing daily around Reiko`s stomach. As I`ve said before I`m happy it`s big because it`s being fed well and is obviously healthy. The baby is larger than most Japanese babies. It`s because of the superior Western genes in my opinion. According to the scan, the weight is 16 days heavier than the ideal but we think that is the Japanese standard and not true for Western/mixed babies.
We were reading a magazine yesterday which had the weights of babies in the womb and once born. Most of them hit the 2.8 kilo mark when they were born. The doctor says she isn`t fat but big.
We`re in the process of making the house baby safe - tidying up the bedroom, removing old things to sell and replacing them with nappies, bottles and clothes.
I`ve been looking at babies on the street and they seem to be gaining in cuteness. I told a random man in a lift that his baby was cute. I wanted to pick it up and hold it in my arms. In a very short time I`ll be able to do that with my own.
This is the ultrasound done last week. She was 33 weeks and 3 days old. At the start it`s focused on the head . You can see her lips move and her limbs and fingers.
Around the one minute mark it goes into a 3D rendition. It`s from this that Reiko reckons it looks like me. It has a long nose and big eyes. The big circle is the eye.
Reiko`s getting REALLY big now. I tell her I`m glad she`s big (and I am) because it means there`s a healthy baby inside her. It looks very strange. There`s a normal size Reiko and then suddenly a big beach ball inserted underneath her skin.
There`s around 6 weeks left until the due date and I can`t wait to meet her.
I feel sorry for the doctor. The first minutes are the important part as he measures bone length and head size to see if the baby is progressing healthily and to estimate the weight. The rest of the time is spent trying to produce a clear picture of a squirming foetus to please the parents.
One of my friends` sisters was pregnant and he told me it looked so strange it was as if she could detach it and leave it in a cupboard when it got too much to handle. If only that were so easy.
