Today I have been thinking about the fact that Japanese parents sleep with their children until they are at least kindergarten age. It seems that American parents tend to try to train their children to not come get in their bed in the middle of the night. However, Hannah Lee has started crawling into our bed in the past month and as long as she will go to the bathroom first, since she is now in underwear throughout the night; I let her snuggle with me. Which is also a difference that my language instructor Yoko tells me that most Japanese children are in night diapers until kindergarten. I was just reading Hannah Lee her bedtime story and all of a sudden we were having an earthquake, again. This one was the strongest, and longest one that I have experienced. Her clothes in her closet shook for at least 30 seconds. I checked the Japan earthquake website, and it said it was a 4.7, and now there is a tsunami warning. I am now thinking earthquakes might be the reason to keep your young child as close to you as possible through the night! Yoko says when she was young her pillowcase was stuffed with a change of clothes in case an earthquake hit, and she needed to rush out the door. In all the neighborhoods I see bottles of drinking water outside of houses in case of a serious earthquake. I have prepared us a backpack with water in BPA free Nalgene bottles, a flashlight, and first aid kit that I keep by the front door. Tokyo is a ticking earthquake bomb, and is overdue for a huge one...and President Obama will be HERE in Yokohama next week for APEC!!!
Just wanted to let ya know that we were thinkin about ya. Hope that that earthquake and tsunami both wait until you are all home. Stay safe.
ReplyDelete