My birthday weekend

Unlike during my childhood, the last several years I didn't really enjoy my birthdays that much. It's not that I didn't want to get old, but as an adult, I just felt bad that everyone had to buy presents for me and sing "Happy Birthday". I usually don't like to be the centre of attention.

But this year, I really enjoyed my birthday because my boys enjoyed it very much. My birthday became an excuse to have fun together and celebrate this happy family.

Thanks to Paul, I had a nice sleep in and brekky.

On my birthday, Paul took the day off and we went to Mornington Peninsula. Paul's parents came with us too. Paul found a lovely pie shop called Johnny Ripe in Red Hill. With a 2 year old boy, having lunch at a nice restaurant can sometimes be just torture, so this choice was great and their pies were really lovely.

After that we went to my favourite homeware shop "Red Hill House" in Red Hill South and bought a couple of things there, then we went to a farm called "Rain, Hayne & Shine" in Balnarring. This place was really great!

It was a Friday, so not many people were there. Nico had his first pony ride and he really enjoyed it. There were many baby animals and Nico loved touching and holding them. It sounds like Nico's birthday rather than mine, but when Nico enjoys himselves, we enjoy ourselves most.

The next day, we went to Brighton beach. The last time we went there, Nico was still a tiny little guy in his pram and he was just gazing at the beach. This time he enjoyed digging in the sand and putting his feet in the water. We had a lovely walk along the beach too.

For dinner, we went to a new restaurant called "New Shanghai" in Chadstone shopping centre, with Maria, my sister-in-law and her family. It was my favourite Chinese restaurant in Sydney. The original restaurant was in a dingy looking shopping arcade in Chatswood but now they have shops in Brisbane ,Shanghai and Melbourne too! Their fried pork bum is really yummy!

marimekko placemats I got for my present

My birthday wasn't only about presents (although I got some really lovely presents) but more about spending time with my favourite people. I'm already looking forward to my next birthday!

With love,
Allie

Big decision as parents

Recently we had to make a big decision as parents. Probably it’s not a big thing for some people, but at least for me, it was really heartbreaking, hard decision.

About a week ago, I noticed Nico often touching his front tooth. I thought some food was stuck but when I saw it, I noticed that his front tooth had a crack. He used to like rice crackers or apples, but when I gave him those, he started crying after one bite. I told Paul about it and he said maybe Nico did that when he bumped his face on ground in front of our house when he was playing with a ball with Paul. Because Nico was crying so hard after eating something hard, we decided to take him to a dentist. She told me his front tooth was split and we have two choices.

1. Pull out the tooth and not worry about it anymore.

2. Fill the root with medicine and put crown over the remaining tooth, which leaves some possibility for infection and when it happens, it’s worse.

The dentist told me it’s totally our personal decision, but from her explanation I knew what’s best for Nico – pulling out the tooth. When I imagined Nico having no front tooth until 6 or 7 years old, that made me cry. He’s not even two yet!! The dentist said that it’s normal and I was a good mother. She said I cried because I care about Nico.

I told her that I’d talk to Paul and make a decision.

I wanted to keep his tooth. He looks cute with his tooth. I don’t want him to change - so I tried to think of a good excuse to keep it. “I feel sorry for him if he didn’t have his front tooth in all his childhood photos.” “He might be teased at kindy." "If he worries about it, he won't want to show his teeth, so he might not smile. ” I told a couple of people these things, but their reaction was “small kids don’t care about those things!” --- and then I realized I wanted to keep his tooth for myself, not for Nico.

I didn’t want to feel sorry for him when I saw him with no front tooth. People might think it’s strange that he has no front tooth. We might not get any more compliments about Nico’s looks.

Paul’s way of thinking was more simple. He didn’t care about Nico’s looks or those things. He only cared about Nico’s health, so he preferred pulling tooth out. I knew it.

Paul said to me that wanting to keep Nico’s tooth is not a selfish way of thinking. He said that some parents might choose pulling out the tooth only because they don’t want any trouble or it’s cheaper. But I knew what’s the right thing to do.

We don’t need to think about what other people would think about Nico’s looks. The most important thing is Nico’s health. Besides, to us he’s the cutest little kid even without his front tooth!

So we made a big decision. He has to go to hospital for the procedure and have general anesthetic. It’s going to be a big thing for his little body. I’m pretty sure that we made a good decision – but when I see him laughing with his mouth wide open, I probably can’t stop thinking about his cute little tooth.

I still remember when we saw this white thing in his gum for the first time. From teething, he (and I) had some sleepless nights. I was really annoyed when he bit me with his sharp teeth when I was feeding him. But now those things are very good memories. I love every part of Nico and I really love Nico’s little front tooth.

When I was looking at Nico’s old photos, I noticed that he looked super cute even when he had no teeth. It’s really heartbreaking for me, but I will be okay. At least I can be proud of myself making the right decision.

With love,

Allie

Let’s talk about Fathers

Father’s Day is coming up soon, so I will talk about my dad today… Well Japanese Father’s Day is in June and we celebrated it when we went there, so probably I won’t do anything for my dad this Sunday –instead I will do something for my father in law and my son’s father, but it’s nice to talk about it anyway.

When I was little, I was such a daddy’s girl. I was wearing a harness for my hip problem from 3 months to 10-months old, so my dad was carrying me all the time and my mum worried that my sister didn’t get much attention from him –of course he loved us equally though.

I really loved chatting with my dad in the bath. We made a story about a little girl called ‘sacchan’. It was often about her adventure in forests. From those days, I developed my creativity and love for writing stories.

However, my teenage phase pushed him away a little. When my dad and mum had arguments, my sister and I were always on mum’s side. My teenage phase lasted until late 20s (too long!) when I could really appreciate what he’s done for me. In those days, my mum was in so much pain from relationship with my dad – it’s not violence or anything, just my dad had his own way to do things and he was terribly stubborn. She sometimes cried over the phone. I wanted to blame my dad like I did before, but instead I tried to understand him. I was old enough to do so. Then I found that he was probably lonely in the family last 20 years. I wrote a letter to him thanking for everything he’s done for us. Gradually he changed and now my mum and dad are happy enough.

The last thirty something years, I didn’t do much for my dad. But I still remember how happy he looked when I introduced Paul to him. As soon as he found that Paul had Irish backgrounds, he stood up and shook Paul’s hand (My dad was an Irish literature professor). Now Paul is his favourite son. He loves drinking with Paul at dinner and chatting when we visit. The last 20 years, no one listened to his stories at home but Paul listens to him with all ears. My dad looks really happy.

And what's more, my dad really loves our son Nico. After our two week stay, my dad pretended like he had enough and was happy to have a quiet life back, but he wanted to come to the airport to see us off. When I have chat with my mum over Skype, he pretends like he’s not interested, but he constantly asks my mum to show Nico something they got for him.

I wasn’t a good daughter for him except for the first ten years, but now my husband and son are making him really happy and I can be proud of myself for bringing them to his life.

I hope he will live long so that I can make up for the lost twenty years.

Happy Father’s day!

Kids-friendly Japan Trip - Tama Zoo

I wrote before that my parents bought us tickets for this trip. My dad had a little surgery this year. When people are ill, they usually find out what they really want to do. My dad found that he wanted to see his grandson.

my dad and Nico at Tama Zoo

 Soon after we bought the tickets, my mum started planning things that she (and dad) wanted to do with Nico, like going to the zoo, theme park, little trips and more. All we wanted was for my parents and Nico to have wonderful time together.

Tama zoo was one of the first places we visited together. June is the rainy season, so we couldn't really choose the best day to go, but it was pleasant day with a few showers. In Japan, when the weather's good, people are everywhere, so maybe it was good that we could enjoy a quiet zoo without much of a crowd.

Nico in his rain coat

 I visited this zoo so many times when I was little. The entry fee was about 50c for school kids in those days (now it's free and for adults about $7) so I used to go there with friends.

Since I came to Australia, I often heard Japanese people talking about Japanese zoos negatively compared with Australian zoos..they felt sorry for animals in Japanese zoos having not much space and always seemed to be in cages.

 I don't know which zoo they used to go to, but those discussion became so common, so I kind of forgot what Tama zoo was like and just believed that it was worse than Australian zoos. Then this time, I actually really enjoyed this zoo all over again - Paul was really impressed with this zoo too, especially the huge spaces for the animals. We also saw some interesting animals that we'd never heard of before.

 This zoo is in the middle of the mountains, so you can enjoy hiking at the same time - you can catch a bus to go up the top and walk down the hill too. The animals were close in their enclosures, so it was easy for Nico to find them and really enjoyable for him too.

 Tokyo has many interesting things to see, so you might not be interested in going to a zoo, but if you plan a trip with kids, I think this is a great option to enjoy Japanese style zoo and nature at the same time.

With love,
Allie

Tokyo icon plate

Now we're back from Japan. The two weeks we spent there seems like a dream now. Just a couple of days ago, we were sweating in humid 30-degree weather and now we're shivering! I can't live without my ugg boots at home...

I'm going to write the details of our trip in this blog soon, but before I start, I'd like to show you this cute plate I got from Japan.

 

 I always had a strong attachment with Melbourne and Sydney ever since I lived in these cities and I love having some Melbourne/Sydney memorabilia like tea towels, posters and so on. But I was never interested in Tokyo goods. It's probably like Paul not being interested in Mount Waverley goods (if they exist...) I like Tokyo and my hometown but wasn't really proud of it. When someone asks me where I'm from and answer "Tokyo", it's handy because I don't have to explain anything about it, but it doesn't sound special to me.

 

 So I guess now you can imagine how strange it is for me to buy this plate. During this trip, I had a wonderful time in Tokyo (and a little bit outside of Tokyo ). I loved sharing things I enjoyed when I was little with Paul and Nico and now these new memories changed my whole impression on this city. It's been about 10 years since I left Tokyo and now it became somewhere I simply enjoy my holidays without thinking about my work, daily stuff, relationships with people. Tokyo truly became my favorite city.

This plate is full of our memories with some icons of the places we visited together. We'd love to visit some other places of these icons next time too!

With love,

Allie

 

購読を解除できます

Something I learned through our renovation

I am a typical Japanese person. I can't really rock the boat. I'm not good at speaking up at all, but I learned something new through our renovation experience. If you don't say something, you don't get anything! 

For our carpets, we used a local shop. I went there and paid in full before the installation because they said they needed to cut the carpet to the size once I ordered. I didn't argue. 

We booked the carpet installation for Thursday morning and we booked our move in for Friday. I went to our new home Thursday afternoon to do the final cleaning before moving in. I was pretty impressed by the carpet and was happy with the work they'd done, but when I was vacuuming I noticed one part of Nico's bedroom carpet had a big cut. I was a bit panicked! I was sure that the carpet shop would fix it but wasn't sure they could do it before Friday morning. 

I called up our project manager Maria but couldn't get through, so I went to the shop (it was nearly 3 pm) and told them there was a big cut on the carpet and showed them the photo. The shop owner said "ah, that's easy to fix. I'll send someone tomorrow morning" and then I said "Ok! Thanks." After that, Maria called me back after reading my text message and seeing the photo of the carpet. "How do they fix it?" she asked and I said "dunno, but they said it's easy." 

She came to the site and said "I think it's not that easy. They shouldn't just cut one part and join it, they should change the whole thing because you paid for carpet without a join. " Probably the carpet shop took advantage because I didn't know anything about carpet and didn't argue at all. They must have thought it's easy because I'm the EASY one.. 

Maria called up the carpet shop and asked how they would fix it. The carpet shop said they have no more of the same carpet and it's a discontinued item, so there's no way they can change the whole thing. Well maybe that might have been true, but their attitude made us think that they just didn't want to change whole thing. 

Maria and Paul's dad went to the shop and negotiated. In the end, we had to have one join but got $200 back. That was pretty good for us. 

Paul's dad advised me not to pay in full before the job's done from next time. Once they get money, sometimes they can just walk away from this kind of trouble. 

There's one extra story behind this carpet trouble. When Maria was calling up the carpet shop in Nico's new bedroom, I was putting a lampshade in our new bedroom. When Maria finished talking, she went to the lounge to see what her 1year old son Luca was doing and then I heard her scream!! I could tell something really serious happened from her scream. I thought Luca fell down from a ladder or something. 

When I went in the lounge, I saw that Maria and Paul's dad were trying to grab Luca's hand - he was holding a paint brush. And then I saw red paint everywhere on our new white kitchen cupboard - I was painting our front door in red and left the brush near the kitchen. 

Thankfully all the red paint was removed with turps, so now we can laugh about it. We even think we should have taken a photo of Luca doing that. It was definitely the most dramatic and funniest thing that happened throughout our renovation. 


With love, 
Allie 

Sweet Home Project - renovation week 2

All the dramatic things happened in week 1 – pulling down walls and taking away the existing kitchen and bathroom stuff - so week 2 developments somehow looked a bit slow but it was actually progressing where we couldn’t see. The plumber came in so all the pipes for the bathroom (shower/laundry/toilet/basin) are now set. Our new side door was installed. The linen cupboard frame is done too. Our builder was out for another job for a couple of days last week so we’re really happy with what he has done with his limited time. 

 

 

our linen cupboard frame

 

 

 

 

We got almost all the fittings for our bathroom now so we started looking for things for our kitchen. Last weekend, we had to decide on our kitchen benchtop and kitchen wall tiles. Luckily Paul and I have similar taste for these things so we agreed quite easily. (I will show you all our choices when it’s all done!!) 

 

Nico loves visiting this place!!

 

 

For our tiles, we’re using Southern Tile. We just popped in this local showroom in Burwood by accident. Our consultant Marion is very knowledgeable and helpful. They have a huge range, from expensive European tiles to cheap Chinese tiles and we can choose depending on our budget. When we wanted a particular tile that we saw on Pinterest, Marion helped us to find it too.  

 

 

making decision....

 

We visited their Moorabin showroom last weekend and their collection was huge there too. While we were looking at tiles to match our benchtop, they even looked after our little boy ;-)
 

Now week 3 has started and if it’s going according to the original plan, it’s going to be half way soon. We almost finished choosing all the things except for our 3^rd bedroom carpet colour and timber floor colour for the lounge and kitchen, so now we started to be able to picture our future home more. How exciting! 

 

With love,

Allie  

Two weeks with my okaasan (mum)

 

So my mum has gone back to Japan. Last Saturday, we said good bye to her at Melbourne Airport. I wanted to be strong as I am someone’s mother now, but I couldn’t really stop my tears. Probably Nico wondered why I was crying. And the fact that our little son didn't really know what was going on also made me more sad somehow.

 

 

Of course I don’t blame him because he’s only 15 months-old and very little. He doesn’t know how much he means to my mum. He doesn’t know how much she looked forward to seeing him and cuddling him. The night before she arrived in Melbourne, she even had a dream about meeting Nico.

In her dream, Nico didn’t come to her and just walked away because he thought she was a stranger. She worried that would actually happen. In a way, that became true.


Nico broke her heart many times without knowing it. He was sometimes very upset that my mum was around when he was enjoying a morning warming-up time with me.  When my mum tried to cuddle him, he bit her. We thought he would recognize her as we had skype chat every second day since he was very little, but...oh well it’s hard for him to understand the concept that the person in a box he chatted with at the dinner table can come out to real life and wants to touch or cuddle him. 

 

But, as much as he broke my mum’s heart, he melted her heart too. She loved seeing Nico eating lots of food. She was very impressed by how brave Nico was with the water at the swimming pool. He once let her cuddle him when I went to pick up Paul from the train station and she looked very happy. 

After two weeks, Nico started to get used to her and on the day she was leaving, he even went to her room to look for her and said “ baa ba! “ (Baba means Nana in Japanese.)  Two weeks was a bit too short, but we had lots of fun. I will share things we did together here

Diamond Valley Railway in Eltham

 

Trip to Mornington Peninsula

 

Ikea shopping 

 

St Kilda Beach

 

Australian Open with Paul's mum and dad

Last day in Melbourne.  Lunch at Baba Sus

 



Nico trying to reach yummy Hong Kong Waffle

 



Indoor Play centre-my mum was so happy to see Nico's happy face!



 

 

 

 

I hope she will come back again soon!

 

With love,

Allie

Self-esteem for mums

Recently I had a little crisis of my self-esteem and I wanted to share the experience with you today because I thought some of you might have had (or are still having) the same problem. Even guys can experience this too I guess.

Ever since I graduated from uni at age of 21, I kept working without a break. When I was in Japan, I lived with my parents, but after I moved to Australia, I couldn’t rely on anyone, so I made a living for myself. I always worried about becoming sick or losing my job.

My mum kept telling me since I was younger that I’d better have a job and my own money even after I got married. She had a little marriage crisis with my dad (they are fine now!!) but because she didn’t work after marriage, she couldn’t get any high paying job and had to rely on my dad financially. That’s why she thought women should be financially independent all the time. After the crisis, she studied hard and got a medical office work certificate and worked for a clinic for long time. Now she’s enjoying travelling around the world.

I liked my job and having my own money, so I was happy to continue it when I got married but I had to stop working when I got pregnant…my maternity leave started a month before my due date.

Then soon after I got back to my work (Nico was only 4 months old), I lost my job. Although I started my business soon after that, I was just spending my savings to set up my business and couldn’t actually contribute to my family financially. In Japan we often say that “he who does not work, neither shall he eat”. I was working, but not getting money so I felt bad about eating with Paul’s salary.

I know Paul doesn’t mind at all and many housewives do that, but I just wasn’t used to it. When I was working, I could also keep some of my own money for myself, so I could often buy Paul a cup of coffee or nice treat, a lovely Christmas present and Birthday present, but now I can’t do much of those stuff. That makes me a bit depressed.

Timewise, I couldn’t spend my time for myself either and that gave my self-esteem a bit of damage too. Doing my own business, looking after Nico and taking care of the house work at the same time never gave me time to look after myself. When I go to the supermarket with Nico, I always have bed hair and wear T-shirts and pants which Nico touched with his dirty hands. I don’t really have time to iron my lovely blouse. I don’t have time to put lipstick or contact lenses on.

When I see a mirror or window, I just think “who is this miserable lady?” Probably this is what Paul is thinking too...haha. It’s too different from someone who he got married 3 years ago - I always wore my makeup, nail polish and dressed up nicely.  But Paul is so nice and he always says “you look beautiful no matter what”. Well I know I don’t look beautiful with bed hair at all, so that only makes me doubt that all the lovely words he’s saying are just out of consideration...although I think he really means it - I think he’d better see an eye doctor!

I lost all my confidence. I started to think Nico must be pretty unhappy with this terrible looking mum and Paul better find a new beautiful wife. I’m not really contributing anything to my family and just eating food from our money.  I just hated myself.


Well…how did I got recovered from that point? Of course with my family’s support and encouragement. Paul said to me that if being a mother is a job, it has to be one of the most high-paying jobs and that’s how I’m contributing to my family. And then I could change my thought like this: “Well.. although I’m not making any money, we don’t have to pay $50 a day for childcare fee, so it’s same as I’m making $250 pw. It’s not zero at least! And being able to spend time with Nico is priceless.“  I know how working mums struggle too, this way of thinking just helps me feel more positive about my own situation.


About my miserable appearance? Well I try to look nicer on the weekend when Paul can look after Nico too, but on weekdays I just decided not to care much. I just don’t have time to feel depressed. No matter if I’m feeling down or up, the battle with new dirty dishes, clothes, nappies and hungry boys come. The most important thing is that I’m actually happier now than those times when I could spend all the time for myself and dress up nicely. Next time when I see myself miserable in mirror, I will just think “She’s trying so hard for her family!”


I hope this entry helps some mums (and even dads) thinking the same way - as parents, you're all doing something amazing!



With love,

Allie

3 years ago today

3 years ago today, Paul and I got married. We're still not marriage experts and are still learning how to be a good wife, how to be a good husband. Paul sometimes gets upset with me because I don't listen to what he's saying until he finishes his sentence. I sometimes get upset with him because he keeps playing games in bed without getting ready. We sometimes have silly arguments at Bunnings. But we love being together and spending time together. We never wanted a break from each other. (Our ultimate dream is to work together so that we can stay together for 24 hours a day!) Sounds weird? Haha...I know. Many married couples want some kind of break from each other sometimes. We want to stay together all the time, not only because we're loving each other, but we really are best friends. You know when you hang around with your besties, the time really flies? It's just like that.

Today, we're planning to go to South Melbourne, where we got married. The restaurant we had our reception at is under renovation now so we'll have lunch at our favourite cafe and visit the church where we got married. We're so excited about going there with our son Nico! Well, it's our wedding anniversary, so we could have asked Paul's parents to look after Nico so that just the two of us could spend some time together, but oh we looooooove spending time with that little guy sooooo much! Now when we think about "us" time, that definitely includes Nico, because we're family.

Hope everyone has a lovely day today!

With love,
Allie

Sweet home project 2 – selling an apartment (choosing an agent)

In the story of Sweet home project 1, I wrote about how I bought my old St Kilda East apartment. Today I will write about how we sold it. 

When I bought it, I didn’t expect to have to sell it so soon (I was there for less than 5 years!) so I was a bit sad, but I knew that was for something more positive. We really needed extra space for our little baby. We didn’t know anything about selling our apartment, so we just popped in one of the nearest real estate agent (let’s say agent A) and asked. We didn’t have an appointment or anything, but the guy there just made time for us anyway (it was 5 mins before 5pm-just before they were closing) and he told us that he would come to our apartment to have a look the next morning.

 He came to our apartment with his assistant next day. He prepared a nice looking booklet which had all the information about the selling history from our apartment and neighborhood. We didn’t have any experience with an agent, so we were very impressed. One disappointing thing was that he estimated our apartment a bit cheaper than we expected, but we thought he’s being honest. He was not pushy and that made us comfortable. He just left us to decide what we want to do. We really liked that approach. 

We nearly decided to use this agent A, but just in case, we went to see another agent (agent B), one that looked pretty popular in the area and located right next to the station. They came to our apartment soon after we contacted them.   

 

They brought a booklet similar to the agent A, so we found that this was the standard these days. As soon as they came in, they spotted the good parts of our apartment and looked impressed. They were a bit younger than the agent A and more “salesman” types of people, but looked enthusiastic. The fee was cheaper than agent A and estimated our place a bit higher. They wanted to get this business, so they even offered the lower fee. 

If you were in this situation, which agent would you choose? Agent A still looked genuine to us and I thought Paul was leaning toward it. But for me, the fact that the agent B really liked our apartment was quite big. It’s our favourite place and I wanted to tell all the potential buyers how wonderful that place was, but we couldn't be there at the inspections, so the agent had to be our representative. 

Agent A was nice and kind, but he didn’t really try to sell themselves to us - I wondered "How can they sell our place to someone else?"

We wanted to sell our apartment before winter (we thought that less buyers would be around in the cold weather!), so we decided to attend their auctions on the weekend and make the final decision...but unfortunately two agents’ auctions were scheduled on the same time. Paul knew that I was leaning toward the agent B, so he suggested that we’d go to the agent B auction and we asked Paul’s parents to go to the other auction. 

 In the end, we chose the agent B. At the auction, we’re impressed by how they handled all the potential buyers. They had many staff there and during the auction, they were all attentive. At the end they succeeded in getting a bit higher bid from the second highest bidder, so therefore they pushed the price up. 

 

 At the auction that Paul’s parents went, agent A couldn’t sell the place. Paul’s parents were a bit surprised that the agent didn’t talk to them at all (and didn’t even ask their contact.) Maybe the agent thought they were just neighbours, but still they could be potential buyers. 

It was pretty easy decision in the end. So we picked the agent. What’s next? I will write about how we sold the apartment next time!

 

With love ,

Allie