So, as I have already been back now for ten days I think I should at last get this winter holiday story over with.
Transport
We put MiniHot on the train for the first time. He was fine, keeping busy looking at people. In Tokyo we had to change not only trains but stations as well, and we learned that the train we usually take to the airport was not running due to an accident (usually meaning a suicide jumper). So we had to go back to the first station, go to Tokyo Station and take another train.
We arrived at the airport still a little early. The line up for check in was long but because we had a baby with us we were escorted to the business class counter where no one was waiting. We had requested a bassinet seat but all were already taken. Also our plane was five hours delayed due to snow in Vancouver. Air Canada gave us two 2,000 yen tickets each so at least we could eat dinner.
In the plane to Vancouver MiniHot was mostly pretty easy to manage in that his fussed only when he was hungry. But for the first six hours or so he only snoozed briefly. At last he became really tired and began crying a lot. He was really upset. The breakfast trays had not yet been collected and the man next to me was wrapped in his blanket. My wife was shooting daggers at me from her eyes and spitting venom because I wasn’t doing the obvious and getting up to walk with MiniHot. At last I asked the man to excuse me and he got up and removed his tray so I could get out and hold the tired baby in the aisle. MiniHot fell asleep almost immediately and slept in my arms until we had to disembark.
In Vancouver my sister arranged for us to take a limousine to my parents place because the price was the same as a taxi since my parents live a little far from the airport. This worked out well because MiniHot did not take to the car seat for long, so at least my wife could sit with him where the seats faced the back.
Car seats proved to be a problem for MiniHot. My parents had rented a seat for him to put in their SUV but he usually protested loudly after a few minutes. I think my mother was annoyed that we took him out of the seat.
On the way back to Japan we requested row 25 which has only two seats. This was much easier for getting up and walking with a very active baby who didn’t take to sitting still for long. During the 10-hour flight he only slept about 40 minutes but then slept almost the whole way back home on the train.
Meeting People
MiniHot proved to be a charmer right form the airport. He smiled at two Southeast Asian girls and they were so charmed they wanted to take photos with their phones. He smiled at the check in counter woman and smiled at a woman seated in the waiting area. I noticed he tended to smile mostly at pretty women in their early twenties.
In Canada he smiled at my sister, smiled every time he saw my parents, smiled at my friends, except my best friend whom he just studied intently for several minutes before deciding it was okay to smile at him too.
He seemed to have a particular interest in my sister’s and my friend’s wife’s bust. I guessed he was wondering if they were just for show or if they had anything for him.
He laughed at my friend’s crazy dog. And then back on the plane he gave two women his cutest smile and then rested his head on my chest while still looking at them with a finger in his mouth. I tell you, he knows how to melt a woman’s heart.
My Parents
Of course, my mom and dad were thrilled to meet their first grandchild. But it wasn’t easy for them. Though a greeting and a smile made him beam a bright baby smile back, looking after him required more energy than my parents could muster. He was not content to sit on my dad’s lap for long and though my mom tried to carry him around, he got heavy soon and my mom had to sit down. This did not always please him and he would become fussy. I realized how well my wife and I understand our son because even before MiniHot would protest something we knew that sitting down with him, or holding him the wrong way (wrong way for him at that moment) was going to upset him. I felt sorry for my dad especially who tried to bounce MiniHot on his lap or say something funny only to be rewarded with baby complaints and squirming to escape.
My mother was also difficult at times for us too, especially my wife. My mom often asked about my wife’s cooking. Actually, my wife can cook and cooks very well, but she doesn’t cook very much because on the weekend I usually cook for us and during the week she is busy with MiniHot and doesn’t feel like trying to cook meals. I don’t mind at all. But my parents seem to think that she can’t cook at all and that I have to be the slave chef. My wife often ends up feeling like she’s not a good enough wife to me in my parents’ eyes because she doesn’t cook, clean and do everything. Though my mother was a very modern girl in her youth and a socially advanced woman as an adult, she has become a traditionalist in her senior years.
On top of the cooking remarks, she also had to comment on MiniHot’s sleeping schedule, which was turned all around with the different time zone. When he slept just before dinner my mom said, “That’s why he can’t sleep at night; he sleeps all day.” And when he wouldn’t nap during the day she said, “He needs to sleep, Hotaka; babies need to nap during the day.” She also seemed to make remarks about whether MiniHot could fall asleep on the floor like a normal baby or if he fell asleep only while being held. If she had made her remarks in Danish at least only I would have understood, but she made them in English and my wife overheard and got angry. She felt she was being criticized as a wife and as a mother.
MiniHot’s Development
During our stay in Canada, MiniHot learned three new things. First, he learned to play by himself for up to 15 minutes. This meant that we could have a meal without having to hold him on our laps while he tried to pull things like place mats, dishes, or cutlery off the table. We set him on his play mat and arranged his favourite toys round him and left the other toys in a paper bag that he could easily tip over and look inside. Since he sometimes tips over backwards we also put pillows from the sofa around him. As we ate we looked at him and he looked up at us and gave us his charming smile and then went back to biting and chewing whatever he had. When he tipped over he usually was fine to roll onto his belly and examine things around him and little more until at last he would complain and basically let us know it was time to pick him up.
He also learned to communicate his desire to be picked up in a new way when we were seated next to him. Instead of whimpering and crying the tearless cry he now turns toward us and starts trying to climb onto our lap.
Finally, he also learned that having fun can mean screeching like a baby dinosaur. Anything that was fun he screeched about. This was amusing at home but not so much on the plane back to Japan.
One interesting moment was when I handed him his first snowball. Naturally he reached out to take it but withdrew his hand slowly after touching it. He looked at me, at first perplexed and then with a knowing smile that seemed to say, “Nice trick, dad.”
Doghouse
As the husband and father you can bet I was in the doghouse a lot. Anytime MiniHot seemed upset my said, “You wanted to come to Canada!” When the sun barely shone for more than a few hours for two weeks my wife complained about the weather and I took it to mean, “You wanted to come to Canada.” There were times that she really seemed to regret marrying a non-Japanese guy. She was often counting the days until we could go back. But in the end I think it wasn’t so bad. She didn’t actually say so but she lightened up a little on the final day. Oh, she wasn’t in a bad mood always. Just some moments were hard for her and I was to blame. That’s how it goes being a husband I guess.
