Growing

Once I killed a cactus. Who can kill a cactus? It hardly requires water, yet I killed it.

My excuse for killing it was that I was oversea for about 40 days, and never bothered to ask my parents whom I was living with at that time to care for the poor plant.

Again in college, I was unsuccessful to care for two potted plants. After that, I was called "Plant Killer."

Now 12 years later, I decided to give another try. I have tried potted flowers as well as vegetables. Had not tried many at the same time, and seems to be working. Now, I have Mizuna just sprouting in a big planter, another planter waiting for Shiso to be transplanted once they are ready indoor, a couple of pots with herbs, and more flowers in different sizes of pots on my tiny balcony. Everyday is exciting to see the changes in the plants and to observe the small growth they have made in a day.

Once a plant killer, not always a plant killer. And, I hope that is true...

Creating

I had never being a creative person as growing up. My art class grades were always around B- or C+, not good enough to be an artist or bad enough to have to repeat the class. My painting was picked once for an award in 6th grade, and I was thinking "what just happened?" That was totally unexpected.

But, becoming a mother changes everything. I don't know if it actually changes EVERYTHING, but it certainly changes several things for me. I started creating.

Sewing...

I learned sewing as a little girl. I was an only girl in the family and youngest. So, my mom spoiled me making skirts and dresses for me when I was little. I watched her make them, wore them, and tried sewing with her sewing machine.

However, most of my sewing experience came in junior high when we all had to take home economics class and learned how to use sewing machine. The basics. Since then, sewing was lost for a long long time.

That is until when I had my oldest daughter 6 years ago. I borrowed my mother-in-law's 30 plus year-old sewing machine and made my baby girl a crib bumper, pillow cases, drapes etc. Then, baby girl number 2 arrived. More drapes, pillows, crib bumper, crib skirt, then eventually the girls matching tops, skirts, bags, bibs and more. My husband gave me an nice sewing machine one christmas and quit using the old sewing machine whose pedal gets really hot as I sew.

My hobby expanded enough to share with strangers by having a shop online. It is a tiny business, but what a great feeling to hear customers happy with my creation. Especially when customers come back again and again and again. I guess B- in art class does not have to tell me what I am capable of. After all, I got C and C- constantly in English classes in high school, and look at me now, I live in US!!!

"Beauty" of Motherhood

These are some things we "mothers" get to do.

1. wake up almost the same time every morning without the alarm.

2. clean up a training pants with poop thinking "I wish I could just throw them away..."

3. answer millions of questions coming from preschoolers mouth from "are babies born with clothes on?" to "what is the difference between DNA and RNA?"

4. try to figure out how to sneak vegetables in meals without kids noticing them.

5. eat with one hand while holding a newborn with the other.

6. eat in 5 minutes without tasting anything.

7. "Don't" get to push elevator buttons any more.

8. step on small plastic toys in the dark.

9. have the "pouch" after having kids and being asked by kids' friends "are you having a baby soon?"

10. order/make one serving of meal thinking I could share with my daughter and end up not being enough

AND order/make two servings thinking that would be enough for me and my daughter and she hardly touches her food.

Here are some things that I, "the hybrid mom" get to do.

1. realize my kindergartener's english pronunciation is getting far better than mine.

2. try to balance the exposures to each culture my children have, especially the languages without upsetting neither of grandparents.

3. find reliable information on good sales, restaurants, schools, and events from other hybrid moms. This network information is more suitable for me than other sources.

4. enjoy what Americans do such as having a huge birthday party for your own child.

5. learn to deal with long trips back home with little kids. Going to airplane lavatory with two small children hovering in the tiny space is nothing!

6. and learn to ignore those dirty looks when my child screams on the plane thinking to self "I will never see these people in my life again."

7. get used not to be humiliated when my kindergartener makes some rude but innocent comment in English in US and in Japanese when in Japan.

8. laugh at myself still when I mis-pronounce "l" and "r". I am still a typical Japanese who learn English later in life. "Would you like some peanut butter and Jerry?"

9. Not have to deal Japanese in-laws.

10. cannot answer a question like "how do you say that in your native language?" because I have been here long enough and start use the English word even among the hybrid moms. How do we say "share" in Japanese? I don't know...

Capacity of Love

When I was about have my second child, I was worried whether I was capable of loving this new baby as much as my first born. My best friend who also has two children and I recently talked about the fear we both had. But, the truth is that we never had to worry about loving the second child any less. I never knew exactly what happen to "my love" that I thought I had to divide into two children.

Then, the friend put in the very easy context that I can understand.

"Love expands." You don't divide your love. Capacity of your loving someone expands when someone important comes into your life. You don't love your existing loved one any less because of the new arrival. Your capacity of loving someone expands to accommodate the new arrival. That is true not only having a new baby but also having new friends and anyone special in your life.

My capacity of loving others expanded. And, it will keep growing.

Guilt - Balance of Individuality and Responsibility

Center of my mother's world was her children - me and my two brothers. She devoted her time to us and nothing else. She did not go out with her friends, and her socialization was limited to her neighbors, other school parents and her sisters. When we grew older and she began to have more time to herself, she tried to find hobby. She was not very interested in anything in particular, and tried many things but never stuck to one thing.

My oldest brother was 6 years older than me, but three of us got married in less than 2 years. Since my middle brother was still living with my parents until he got married (which is very common in Japan), once we all got married, my mom was left alone. My father works late coming home 1 am every night, so she was truly lonely and alone. No hobby, no kids, and only things left to her was her cat and tv. She went into deep depression and did not want to talk with me for about a year because I was the least obedient child of her (I left Japan and married a "white boy" against her will).

After living in US, I learned that importance of individuality. Though you become mom, you are still individual and allowed to be who you are aside from the time you have to be responsible to your children. Watching my mom for the 20 years I was raised in Japan, I learned how much I was supposed to devote my time to my children.

If I do what my mother did to my children, I would be destructive to my "self"; I would lose my identity, not take care of myself, and put a lot of pressure on my children to meet MY expectation because I sacrifice my "self" to them. Since my mom invested so much time to me and my brother, she became very unhappy whenever we did not meet her expectation.

This is a very hard challenge for me. Who do I need to please? I need to devote all of my time to my children to please my mom so that I can be a traditional Japanese mom. If I do that, my American family (husband and mother-in-law) and eventually I and then my children will be disappointed because I will no longer be an individual. What I know is what my mom did for her children. It seems selfish to seek my individuality while being a mom.

The balancing of the two will be my goal. What can I do? Being a Japanese mom in US is certainly a challenge and confusing.

Miyazaki movies and my daughters

I saw my first Miyazaki movie in high school. I think it was in freshman homeroom class, when Mrs. H decided it would be fun to watch one of Miyazaki movies "Nausicaa." My family was never a big movie watcher, and watching movie was refreshing experience. To add to that, I know this is sort of disgrace that I had not watched most of Miyazaki movies until my 20's.

Years later from my first Miyazaki movie experience, now I own most of his movies in DVD. It must be like Disney movies to American families, but what a joy to share those movies with my daughters. Miyazaki's movies have deep messages in the stories, yet simply enjoyable to any generations.

My favorite to watch with my daughters are Ponyo and Totoro, the cute stories and nothing really violent in them. Spirited away and Mononoke are also wonderful, but I will wait to show Mononoke to my daughters until they are a little older.

Recently, I realized that "Little H" has been repeating the lines from Ponyo. She says "Ponyo, Sosuke Suki!" (Ponyo likes Sosuke!), and "Ponyo, Ningen ni Naru!" (Ponyo will become human.) Though this is just repeating words, it is impressive for her who is speech delay to talk in sentences. She now sleeps with a Ponyo plush toy.

Home

We moved into a high rise near downtown a few weeks ago. Having lived in suburb and been tired of it, this was a perfect move for us. Looking at the river and even steady stream of cars on I5 is so soothing. All these cars and trucks, they are trying to get someplace.

I lived in the south for a little while. We lived in a small house not too far from downtown, but the city itself was not that big from my standard, there was not much to downtown. After living in Portland so many years and being spoiled here, it was really hard to fit in the small city in the south. I was the one to move to the US away from Japan, but still enjoyed Japanese connection that I can maintain in Portland. Community, school, and food. There was close to nothing in the southern city for me. I missed it very much. And, the city living. I grew up in a big city and lived in Portland for many years. I missed that too.

Nothing wrong with the south. It's just that it was not for me. It did not provide what I needed. I did not feel invited or welcomed. Maybe because it was the small town, or maybe because that is the southern culture. Who knows? Could be my state of mind. Just that it was not for me.

I feel very much home here in Portland. This is my home. No matter wherever we move, I know I will be back here.

Who am I?

Well, I am hybrid. I was born and raised in Japan, but now have lived in US for over 15 years. Have two kids who are "hybrid" and I drive hybrid cars. I am not quite a 100% Japanese any more and I will never been a 100% American. (What is 100% American, anyway?) If I try to describe myself that way, I must be floating somewhere near Hawaii (geographically between Japan and mainland US). What a great place to be, right? Well not always and that can be confusing.

As much as it is confusing, I thought I should enjoy being a "hybrid."

I recently bought two t-shirts saying "Octagon, Hexagon, Oregon" and "Tree Hugger" at Saturday Market. Have you seen a Japanese hippie? I love recycling! I have not made my own compost, but that might be next.

You know how funky Japanese people dress? Well, I don't do that, but my kids started to. Have to love those "hybrid" kids.

Those are the reason, I chose the title. I thought I share my life as a hybrid mom with whoever might be interested in. Welcome to my world!