Children's Day @ School 2012

Children's Day is a big deal at Maiya's school.  It's the day where when the Nihon Buyo (traditional Japanese dance) classes put on full kimonos and makeup and share their dances.  Maiya and Eve were the only 1st grade girls in their class.  It took almost 2 hours for hair, makeup and dressing all the girls, for a 5 minute performance.

1st and 2nd grade girls

1st graders perform Kaeru no Uta Ga and Beethoven on Pianica

And a little J-pop "Oha Raku"

NaBloPoMo12 #11
(Backblogging May 2012)
Happy Bday to Darin, Maura, Erin

Jenni's Day Off

Had the day off today for my birthday holiday.  Took Maiya to school, then went to the gym and did 27 minutes on the treadmill.  I could have gone longer, but I had to get home to shower and head to the eye doctor.  The good news is my eyes are getting better, which explains why I cannot read anything close, since my contacts are too strong.  

Then booked it out to J-town, on my day off to have lunch at Toranoko with my cousins (from left to right above) Roxane, Cherie, Jackie, and beautiful cutie Harper (Jackie's grandbaby).  Planned on FB last night, it was a last chance to get together for Cherie, who heads back to France tomorrow after visiting for a week and a half.

This girl is such a cutie pie!

After lunch, I went back to pick up Maiya from taiko class, one of her after school classes.  When we were considering Japanese immersion education for Maiya, one of the main considerations for me was the cultural awareness and activities that go along with the language learning.  We are so fortunate that Maiya is able to not only learn to speak, read and write in Japanese, but she is also learning traditional Japanese dance, making Japanese and Japanese American friends... and learning taiko.  How many elementary schools have after school taiko programs?  I must admit, as a former failed taiko player myself (Bombu Taiko), I had hopes that she would be interested in taiko.  After two months of taiko class, I think she is already much better than I was after a year of playing taiko, and she definitely has better form and rhythm than I ever did.

Anyways, after school, I cleaned up all the Halloween decorations in the yard while Maiya did homework, then we went to dinner at Howard's Bacon and Avocado Burgers for turkey tacos, and then to Baskin Robbins to use a $2 off coupon.  And there, if anyone was interested, is a nutshell of my day off, and NaBloPoMo12 #5.  Peace. Out.

Kindergactivism, is that a word?

Some people say that if you bring kids to a political rally, that it's not age appropriate.  Well, we've been bringing Maiya to community events since she was two weeks old (Day of Remembrance commemorating the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 in 1942, which led to the incarceration of 110,000 Japanese Americans, including my parents as children and Tony's grandparents), and her first of 6 annual trips to the Manzanar Pilgrimage was when she was 14 months old.

I may not be as active in the API/activist community as I once was, as meetings and volunteer work goes, but we manage to squeeze political awareness and social justice values into most things that we do.  Whether it's going to the Farmer's Market to buy fresh, locally grown and organic fruits, participating in 5K walks in a stroller to help raise money for homeless or the arts,  teaching Maiya about the Nestle Boycott and how it affects her Halloween bag, bringing her lunch in stainless steel containers and cloth napkins, explaining in kid-friendly terms what it means to be gay-friendly, enrolling her in Buddhist summer camp to participate in Japanese/Japanese American arts and culture, or a Japanese language immersion school; we try.

These first pictures are from when President Obama came to our hometown and went to a fundraiser for his next campaign practically across the street from our house.  We went down to the corner to watch the POTUS motorcade with Tony's parents, who were in town for Passover (see NaBloPoMo#9).

Also attended a rally, a few streets away from our house.  Most of the participants were students in support of the DREAM Act, and a whole lot of Armenians about the genocide, something I know little about.  Some were talking about the Chemtrails.  Still others were protesting us and calling for no taxes, no government.  No one was necessarily protesting Obama himself (in the same way we used to villify Bush), more they were trying to get his attention for their causes.

A few days later, we took Maiya to the local School Board meeting at City Hall, also walking distance from our house.  The purpose was to protest budget cuts and to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, and that meant supporting all the teachers who received pink slips.  We saw Maiya's Kindergarten teacher in the audience, one of many red shirts, including us.  The room was packed and we had to leave the meeting before it was over because it was a school night, but we thought it was important to share this with her.

Here Maiya is reading the book "Mottainai Grandma," 

a story about not being wasteful, in Japanese, to her grandma. 

In a few posts, you'll see pictures of Maiya's participation

in Auntie Nobuko's music video called, "Mottainai."

Anyways, I've just coined a new term... Kindergactivist.  NaBloPoMo#10b. Peace. Full. Out.

School-age Maiya (#8)

Kindergarten Photo 2010 *Age 5 1/2

For the past five years, I've been working in the Early Childhood Education field, actually as I write this, I realize that yesterday was my 5 year anniversary at work.  As Maiya grew from infant to toddler to preschooler, I've followed the development of her learning as I learned about child development through my work at LTSC and developed my own philosophy of the kind of parenting I wanted to practice.  The term "school-age children" was always something that was beyond me and my knowledge.  I didn't need to know it for work (other than generally), and I wasn't there yet at home.

But all of a sudden, Maiya has started Kindergarten.  So we have been adjusting to things like homework, adjusting to 3 separate programs, including morning program and after school program, getting there on time and beating the gates as they close, learning how to read, write, speak, understand and pronounce Japanese, going through the 10 step program to become a parent volunteer in the classroom AND the school, starting Nihon Buyo dance class, starting JA basketball, and meeting new classmates, teammates and their parents.

There's a lot going on for this little girl and while she's doing well in school and is enjoying Japanese, new friends and homework, her emotions have been pretty intense and a challenge.  For me, a big change is that I am now driving in to work alone.  After carpooling with Maiya for 5 years into Little Tokyo, our radius has now shifted, with most of Maiya's activities being centered west of where we have been, and both Tony and I working downtown.  And while we were able to remain relatively active in the JA community and as activists with Maiya the baby, toddler and preschooler, I can definitely see why there aren't a lot of people our age (and younger) with children who are able to remain active in the community.  It wasn't that hard when she was coming with me to Jtown every day, but now we have to make much more of an effort to stay active.

Well, now I think I'm rambling, and I don't know exactly what I'm saying here, but my baby is growing up, and things are changing.

Here's a life-size drawing of Maiya that we did 

when she was 'Person of the Week' recently.  

NaBloPoMo#8.