I just finished the well-needed motivational read for surviving multicultural mothering and realizing that I am not alone is this vast, solemn sea. The book is called "Call me Okaasan Adventures in Multicultural Mothering" by Suzanne Kamata with 20 women writers from around the world.
You can find it on Amazon. Also, take a look at Suzanne`s website: www.suzannekamata.com
Reading this book, relaxed me and calmed my many fears about mothering a bi-cultural child. It also helped me form a determination to ignore the ignorance and negativity that surrounds this issue, and focus on listening to my mothering instincts.
Now on to the topic of Taka and his playing with the Japanese and English language. Yesterday, again when I said the word "Bobby" his recall directly repeated his recent "booby" joke. In another incident in the car while talking about his friend who was moving to another city and I mentioned that Taka lived in the city of "Ono" he played with this too. He started saying "oh, no Ono" several times. He really has a sophistication for language. He even added theEnglish emotional tone to "Oh, no" and the flat Japanese intonation to "Ono". Again, biased, but he really is amazing. (He also plays a lot with the Japanese pronunciation of English words. Because of the structure of the Japanese language, they often had an extra "o" or "u" to the end of the word. For example, Taka says "Cheese" and "chizu" or "ice cream" and "iesu creemu" "apple" and "apuru". He always extra enucifies the ending that Japanese use. "Mommy says juice and daddy says jusu" or such things.
Taka tends to seek my help in the Japanese language when he can not express himself. Yesterday, he wanted his Uncle to stop holding him in a grip hold, but he did not know the words so he shouted "Mommy tasukete" or help me! His Uncle let him go, but I worry about his over dependence on my assistance when he gets himself into trouble.
He is an very active boy, who does get himself into problematic situations--often! Previously, many of this problems have caused by his love to follow, torment and most recently love my sister-in-laws cats. When he was 1, while chasing a cat, he ran ahead of me and fell into the cement mostly empty ravine behind the house. He smacked his head hard, so I took him to the Dr. just to make sure everything was alright. Of course, at the Dr. it was my fault causing my paranoia towards raising a clever, rambuctious child in quiet, conservative Japan. How much guilt would I have to endure throughout my son`s childhood?
Yesterday, as I was going to the toilet, Taka went to the mechanics next door. By the time I went to check on him, he had vanished to another hidden place that I could not discover. After an unsuccesful search, I tried to enlist the help of his uncle. His uncle did not understand me, so I was stuck with a lonely search. It did not last long though, cause I soon heard Taka`s cries. Then from a distant, I saw him holding his sweater and shirt and crying. I scanned for blood and broken limb, but luckily upon reaching him, it was just a bunch of prickly bears from the plants he had cut through in order to ride a digger. It was also a bit of shame and fright, loss of pride. With a hug, holding and gentle telling of his story, he was fine.
In a flashback, when he was about 1 years old, besides falling into the ravine, another day he fell into a carelessly placed cactus plant leaving him with two eye and hand/arm fulls of thorns. I could not get the thorns out, finally later in the day, it took me, his dad and his uncle to hold him down and pull out the thorns.
Taka is going to have so many stories to tell in this future!
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