An ordinary Japanese mom in the US!

After a long interval, I have finally come back here!

Our family moved to Michigan in the US at the end of July because of my husband's job transfer.

We will be living here for about three years.

The first time we came here, we suffered from the terrible jet lag, especially my children!

My children fell asleep in the early afternoon because it was night time in Japan, and they woke up at night and stayed up all night!

Since I was able to sleep well on the flight, it was terrible that they interrupted my sleep every day.

I had to take a nap every day to compensate for the lack of sleep.

I would like to write about what differences I was surprised by between the US and Japan, after I started living here.

1. The different units of mesure

When I went shopping at the supermarket, I was confused the different units of mesure.

What is lb?

What is oz??

What is gal???

When I bought a bag of cherries, it was $3.99.

I thought it was very cheap because I believed that the price was for a bag of cherries.

But, it wasn't.

The price was per lb.

I ended up buying a bag of cherries for more than 9 dollars!

I don't understand Fahrenheit and mile well, either

They are still confusing to me.

2. The differences in traffic rules

I already passed the American driver's license test, but I was very scared of driving when I started practicing driving.

Because cars drive on the left side in Japan, but it's totally opposite in the US.

I often opened the right side door by mistake to sit on the driver's seat because the driver seat is usually on the right side of a Japanese car.

I often turned on the wiper by mistake when I wanted to turn on the blinkers because their places were totally opposite from Japanese one.

I was always saying "keep right, keep right!" while driving.

I was surprised that we still can turn right even the traffic light is red, if there is no car in the way.

We must wait until traffic lights turn to green in Japan.

I like this rule, it's very efficient.

I also like that highways are free!

But I was surprised and scared that cars drive so fast!

The speed limit on the highway in Michigan is faster than the Japanese one.

3. The days are longer

In summer, the sun sets around 9pm in Michigan.

It's about 7pm in Japan.

My children assumed that they could stay up late during summer.

I understood their feelings, it was too bright to go to bed at 9pm in summer.

But at a result, they couldn't wake up in the morning until after 9am.

I don't think it is a good for them.

4. Various diverse groups of peole

Needless to say, the majority of people living in Japan are Japanese.

Of course, some people are from other countries, but they are still very few, especially in rural areas.

Various kinds of people are living around here.

I realized that the US is a multicultural and ethnically diverse country.

People who live here are used to people who are from other countries.

They never seem to think that I may not be able to speak English.

They talk to me very fast and cheerfully.

Such kinds of small talk don't happen so often in Japan.

I can speak English, but it is often hard for me to catch what they say because they speak too fast.

I would like to improve my English more during our stay.

I would like to write more about the differences, but it would be too long to read.

I will write more about this over time.

Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!

My worst incident

Last Thursday, I was so irritated because of my children’s attitudes.

My 7-year-old daughter went to her friend’s house after school.

I always tell her to come home no later than 5pm because it’s getting dark by then and dangerous to walk outside alone.

She broke her promise last week, so I scolded her.

Then I asked her the reason.

“We took of our shoes and were kicking our shoes away from the top of the slider, then my friend’s shoes caught by a branch of a tree. It took some time to take it.”

She said.

I said,

“Oh well, I will only allow it this time. But you should follow our promise from now on.”

Although I explained to her why she should come home until 5pm again, but she still came home at 5:10pm.

I asked her why she was late.

She said she enjoyed playing with friends and forgot to check the time.

As a mother, I was glad that she had such a fun time with friends.

It was only 10 minutes late, but I wanted her to follow the rule.

I was really irritated about it.

On that day, my 9-year-old son had a reservation for an online English conversation lesson from 5:30pm.

I turned on my husband’s laptop and said to my son to prepare for his lesson and review the previous lesson before the lesson started.

I was so irritated because his laptop was running so slow, and I couldn't log in to Skype.

I tried to enter my password many times, but it didn’t work.

I pushed Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys together to close all windows to restart his laptop, but it didn’t work.

We had only 15 minutes before the lesson started.

I felt frustrated and expected that we would not make it on time if I kept waiting for the laptop to restart.

I turned on another laptop and kept trying to restart my husband’s laptop.

At that time, I saw my son had started reading a comic.

I couldn’t believe his attitude.

I wondered why he didn't prepare for his lesson and review the previous lesson even though we only had 10 minutes.

Then I flipped out as if a volcano suddenly erupted, and ended up hitting the keyboard of the laptop strongly.

“Why are you always doing things like this? Why don’t you study English seriously? If you didn’t do it, YOU would be in trouble in US!”

(Actually, our family have a possibility of moving to US this summer and stay there for about three years due to my husband’s transfer.)

I couldn’t control my anger.

At last, I had to hold down the power button of the laptop to terminate it.

After a while, I turned on the laptop, but it didn’t start up any more.

I tried the diagnostic program which was already installed on his laptop, it found out the reason.

It was a failure of the hard disk drive.

We lost our data that was saved on it.

Since my husband hadn’t come home yet, I sent him a text message to explain what happened, and apologized to him deeply.

He was disappointed to hear what had happened, but he never got mad with me.

I regretted and was deeply ashamed that I couldn’t control my anger.

I felt really sorry for my husband.

I am usually a calm person, but sometimes I can’t control my anger in front of my family.

When I feel that I can’t put up with my frustration, I tend to take my anger out on things.

For example, I have thrown a cup and broke it.

After I do things like that, I always think I shouldn’t have done it.

I hate myself for doing this again.

I know I still depend on my family, it is evident that I don't like dealing with things alone as an adult or mother.

I want to be a “real” calm person like my husband.

He is always calm, and rarely gets angry.

I was ashamed that I was unable to see things from another persons point of view and lost my temper.

I apologized to my children.

“I’m really sorry. I did it again, even though I tried to stop. I guess you two don’t want to see your mom gets mad too much, and losing my temper . Don’t be like your mom in the future. I will make an effort not to act like this in the future.”

My 9-year-old son said with a smile,

“I have already gotten used to it. I won’t be like you. Don’t worry about it!”

My 7-year-old daughter said,

“It’s a little scary when you get mad, but I love you even though you get mad!”

Forgive an immature mom.

I told my husband about this incident in detail early in the morning.

I also told him that I was sick of getting mad with our children every day.

In fact, I didn’t want to say “Hurry up” to them, but they will not do anything if I stop saying that.

But I have changed my mind that it’s their problems, not mine.

They need to notice it by themselves, otherwise their attitudes will never change.

I am wondering if I should stop saying scolding them.

My husband said,

“This incident was really so you. I have already given up thinking that your character will change, ever. You couldn’t help it. But we need to encourage our daughter to keep her promise. Actually, I'm so excited see if I will be able to extract our data from the broken hard disk drive or not. I've never failed to recovery data!"

I was impressd to hear that.

He is familiar with computers.

That's so him.

He told our daughter to eat breakfast quickly so as to be on time for school  many times.

It was rare for him to rush her.

Thanks to him, I didn’t have to say “hurry!” this morning.

I am really thankful of him.

He is always like so.

He usually doesn't ay overly sentimental words to me, but his attitude show me his kindness and consideration.

I really have to learn a lesson.

I will learn from this mistake, not to let my dear family feel uncomfortable.

Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!

Homemade Birthday cake

February 11 is National Foundation Day, one of the national holidays in Japan.

And it's also my father's birthday.

Since my children's school is closed on that day, we can go to my parents' house and celebrate with him every year.

My 7-year-old daughter said,

"I want to make cookies for grandpa!"

I suggested to her,

"Why don't we make a birthday cake for him? I used to make it when I was younger. Do you want to try it?"

"Yeah! I want to try!"

She was so excited to hear that because she loves cooking very much.

We went to the supermarket near my parents' house and bought some ingredients like flour, fresh cream, butter, strawberries, and so on.

My children and I started making his birthday cake at my parents' house.

My daughter said to her grandpa,

"Don't come to the kitchen, it's a secret. Look forward to it!"

Actually, he really wanted to see what we were doing, but he had to wait for us.

My 9-year-old son also tried to beat eggs.

It was rare for to help with the cooking, but it seemed to be fun for him.

The cake was baked well.

My children came to the oven and said:

"What a good smell!"

I sliced the sponge cake into two pieces, cut some strawberries, and put them with whipped cream between them.

My daughter enjoyed applying whipped cream on the cake.

She and I decorated the side of the cake with whipped cream, too.

I didn't agree with the idea at first, but my daughter insisted on sprinkling colored chocolate sprinkles on the cake.

"Grandpa! Happy birthday to you!"

My daughter said to him and I brought the birthday cake which we made to him.

He was so glad to see that and said,

"Wow! What a wonderful cake! Thank you so much, I am really happy."

I lit the candles, turned off the room light, and we sang a happy birthday song for him.

The taste was good, but I thought we could have improve upon it.

Of course, a birthday cake which is made by a pastry chef is better than our homemade cake.

But I thought it was really good to make a birthday cake because my father seemed to be really happy.

Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!

Internet auction

I put up some cloths for an internet auction because my children (and I) grew out of them.

I started putting up our unwanted items for internet auction about twenty years ago.

I usually use Yahoo, it's surprising how much it has progressed.

Twenty years ago, I emailed bidders using my own email address, but now, I don't have to let them know it because we can use the convenient navigation system to contact bidders.

Getting payment from bidders is quite easy now.

Exhibitors need to register the bank account which they would like to receive payments into in advance.

It's revealed to bidders only when they make a successful bid and need to pay to bidders.

The process of auctioning got much easier and quicker than before.

But due to this, bidders can get items without sending any messages to exhibitors.

Using the navigation system, you can only click the buttons to inform users that have finish transferring payments, receiving items.

And you can evaluate exhibitors using fixed form sentences which are prepared in advance, so that most evaluations are same responses, even though they are evaluations by many different people.

It's a bit disappointing for me.

When I sent an email to the bidder from my email account, her reply attached a computer virus.

Since she didn't notice it, I got rid of the virus from my laptop and emailed her to inform that her computer might be infected with a computer virus and how to clean it.

After a while, she sent me an email and thanked me.

I was really glad that I could help her.

I have also received a call from one of the bidders.

He asked me to send the item quickly because it was a ticket for a golf competition which was to be held in a week.

After he received the ticket, he called me and said,

"Thank you for sending the ticket so quickly, I was able to receive it before the competition. I'm looking forward to seeing it!"


I like such communications with bidders.

I am glad to know that bidders are glad to receive my items.

In my case, I try to send messages to inform on the progress of the auction to the bidders.

I try to answer questions form bidders kindly and politely.

I evaluate bidders using my own words.

Convenience and ease of use are important, but I think an exchange between people is more important.

Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!

What color will your Karate belt be next?

My 9-year-old son started practicing Karate 2 years ago.

He sometimes didn't want to go to the Karate school because it made him tired.

He had hesitated to take the promotion test, so he had been wearing the white belt, it means he is still a beginner.

One day, his Karate teacher strongly advised him to take the test after the practice.

He said,

"You can do it. Recently you seem to be stuck in a rut. Karate is not just a lesson or activity, it is a training method. I think you should try it."

I also tried to persuade my son to take the test.

At first, he didn't follow his teacher's advice because he didn't have any confidence that he would pass the test.

But, the teacher praised my son again in the next practice.

He said,

"Wow! You did a great job today! You seemed to be more motivated than before. I know you can do it!"

He was getting motivated actually, finally he decided to take the test.

The night before the test day, he seemed to be nervous.

He asked me,

"What if I can't do it?"

"Your teacher told you that you can do it. I believe this is so. If you don't do well, you can try it again. Don't be afraid of mistakes."

I encouraged him.


He woke up at 5:30am in the morning on the day of the test.

He was still nervous, but he did very well at the test!

After the test, he said,

"It was easier than I expected. I gained the confidence from today's test. Yes, I can do it. I want to try the next test in June!"

I was surprised and glad to hear that.

Trying to achieve a challenge makes children grow.

I appreciate that my son has met an awesome teacher.

I'm sure that the color of his belt will turn to blue in the next practice!

Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!

Mother's day

My children and husband gave me carnations as a Mother's day present.

I was really glad to receive them.

When we went shopping at the supermarket, my 8-year-old son suggested my husband to give it to me.

I didn't notice that they bought them at the flower shop because I went to different places in the supermarket apart from them.

I am really happy to be a mother, thanks to you!

Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!

My husband's masterpiece

My husband made "Shirokuma (しろくま)" for our 6-year-old daughter during Golden Week.

Shirokuma (White bear) is character of Sumikkogurashi (すみっコぐらし), which is very popular character merchandise among little girls.

Sumikko means at a corner of a room, and Gurashi means "living".

All characters of Sumikkogurashi like staying in a corner.

It means Japanese people tend to feel more relaxed staying at the corner of somewhere, for instance, a corner seat of a restaurant, a corner seat of a train, and other places like that.

Similar to other girls, our daughter loves Sumikkogurashi, she said during Golden Week;

"I want to have a Shirokuma stuffed toy!"

My husband said:

"But these are expensive. All right, I will make one for you."

"Really? Please don't make a promise which you will not be able to keep."

I told him.

"It's easy for me! I will definitely do it!"

He said.

"Wow! Thank you dad!"

Our daughter was so excited to hear this.

I wondered if he would keep his promise.

But, he did.

He made it using a towel!

"What an amazing dad! I can't believe!"

I was so suprised and said.

My daughter sew on its hands and feet.

I was surprised at my husband and daughter's incredible work.

Actually, I am not good at sewing.

I am glad that she is handy like her dad.


Thank you(^o^) for reading this article!