Posts Tagged: housewife

Family — 5 Comments
29
Dec 07

Life Changing Moments from 2007

2007 was an eventful year, starting with fortune teller Kazuko Hosoki predicting that it would be the best year for me in over a decade. I’m not really into astrology, but she wasn’t far off with that prediction.

My Top 5 Life Changing Moments from 2007

5. Taking better care of my health

On July 1st, I put out my last cigarette. With a baby on the way, I wanted to be a responsible father so gave up a habit I had had for about ten years. Being smoke-free for half a year, I can’t say that I feel much healthier, but I do know my stress levels have increased and I have no fingernails left. Smoking was the best bad habit I ever had and I miss it dearly, but at least I made a life-changing decision, instead of a life-ending one.

4. Becoming the sole breadwinner

Two months before Rikuto was born, Mami gave up her job at the hospital. She had more time to prepare for the baby and became noticably happier without the demands of work upon her. However, that left me solely responsible for supporting the family, and I wasn’t going to let them down!

3. A change in perception

2007 was the year I wisened up. It started with some research into the terrorist attacks on New York, and resulted in me spending sleepless nights reading up everything I could find on the topic. I discovered there is very little substance in the “official” story the public were fed by the media, and a mountain of information supporting a contradicting theory. The lack of interest in what would be the biggest scandal in a hundred years saddened me, and I blame the money-hungry media for manipulating the public and removing our ability to think for ourselves. Not anymore. I’m sceptical of everything now.

2. Moving house

We started 2007 in our new house, and while not technically new, it was in excellent condition and perfect for us to start a family in. Buying a house was a life-changing moment for me because it forced me to agree to a lifetime in Japan. I don’t mean that in a bad way, and of course we could always sell it, but I am now focused on raising a family here in Kakamigahara.

1. The birth of our son, Rikuto.

Since late 2006, I had been blogging about Mami’s pregnancy and posting photos of ultrasound scans. When Rikuto came into the world on July 22nd, he didn’t just change my life, he became my life! From that day forth, everything I do has been with Ricky in mind, and that’s why I my son is the winner of the Top Life Changing Moment award!

I’ll wrap up the year with a photo slideshow I’ve put together called 2007 – The Year of The Baby. Let me wish all my readers a Happy New Year, and I hope you’ll join me again in 2008 – the year I become self employed!

If you can’t view the video, watch it here on YouTube.

Family — 2 Comments
7
Jun 07

Mami becomes a housewife

This evening, we ordered a pizza to celebrate my wife’s last day of work. I’m not so sure she should be eating pizza, but I guess she’s got two mouths to feed.

Mami only worked at the hospital for a year, but it felt like much longer. Rarely a day went by wihtout her coming home three hours late, absolutely exhausted. You hear stories all the time of Japanese people working ridiculously long hours, and nurses are no exception. The amount of “required overtime” she did was a joke, and I had wanted her to quit much earlier.

She originally handed in her notice back in November, with the intention of finishing at the end of March. Her supervisors agreed to this for just a week before asking her to stay until the end of May, without really giving her the option of saying no. Even when eight months pregnant, her immediate boss was still giving her a hard time about finishing up, implying that if she had planned to get pregnant, she should never have accepted the job in the first place. Anyway, here we are, one week into June, and she has finally left.

So, what happens now? Well, with less than two months to go before Rikuto’s birth, I just hope she gets some much needed rest. You can see how big the baby has got, and you can even see when he moves around in her tummy, which is both wonderful and weird! Unfortunately, Mami is quite shy, and isn’t too keen on me taking photos of her stomach to put on the Internet. Sorry guys!

Now of course, I have the responsibility of being the sole breadwinner. We should still be quite comfortable, but I’ll be working even harder to make sure things stay that way. I don’t see Mami ever going back to work at the hospital, at least not that one. She may well take on some kind of part-time work in the future. Hopefully though, that will be through choice rather than necessity.

In the meantime, the only request I have made is that she makes me a cup of coffee every morning. I really don’t function properly without my morning dose of caffeine.