Deal with it

Last weekend, my in-laws held a family dinner at our condo to announce the fact that I am preggers. SIL (sister-in-law), her husband, and father-in-law were invited. MIL made an impressive array of celebratory Japanese foods, including Tai (a kind of fish whose name reminds people of the word "omedetai", which means "to want to celebrate.") and chawanmushi, a type of steamed custard with seafood inside. She said she had never made Tai before as she had never had anything to celebrate in the past. It was fun teaching her how to use my oven and showing her where all the tools are. However, I must admit that since we moved to this place, she usually ends up doing most of the cooking, as family gatherings almost always involve Japanese cuisine. Well, that said, we did appreciate her efforts and the food was wonderful. Photos to follow.

I am now 5 months pregnant, but SIL and the rest of the family were not let in on this secret at the insistence of MIL. Why, you ask? I thought a simple phone call would have sufficed (kind of like the one my mom got, and then it was word of mouth to the rest of the family from that point on), but MIL wanted to make a big deal of this special announcement. On that note, she planned this dinner which was to be held in September, and I figured that by then, we wouldn't need any "announcing" because it would be obvious.



Unfortunately, either these people are not that attuned or I am not that big yet. In any case, at the beginning of dinner and before the toasts, MIL served up the fish, which was dressed in a thick blanket of salt on both sides. Through the baking process, the salt had hardened, so my job (as Queen for the Day) was to use a wooden spoon to pound the fish until the salt broke. I had no idea this was coming, but when they made me do it and the salt blanket split in half, I was as pleased as a pretty little princess. See photo.







SIL's reactions went something like this.
"Oh my, pregnant? Well, we couldn't imagine why you had invited us over for dinner. You said you had something important to talk about, so we thought for sure that either you were getting divorced or transferred overseas. So, we thought that you were going to ask us to live in your condo. And, well, we thought, what the heck? Why not live there?" Nice, huh?

In any case, after getting lectured by Suk earlier that day, I made sure not to SAY A WORD whenever anyone said something that I even mildly disagreed with. Luckily, MIL kept her mouth shut and did not ask the usual questions.

MIL'S Usual Questions (and her opinions)
Will you be sending your child to a day care center or to a kindergarten? (because day-care centers are no good, really.)

What will you name the child? (because I think you should give him/her a name that can be pronounced in both languages.)

Will you be giving birth in Japan? (because I really think you should give birth in America so that child will have American citizenship.)

Will you find out if it is a boy or girl? (because I don't think you should. However, if you do, please do NOT tell me until the baby is born!)


She loves to ask questions and then give her opinions before I really have a chance to answer. So, I was glad that the only topic she brought up (since she knew her family would support her fully) was the notion of visiting a shrine during my 5th month to buy some kind of belt thing and pray for safety. Since I am Christian, and on principal, my husband is a converted Christian who has absolutely NO interest whatsoever in buddhist/shinto customs, I knew that he would not really encourage me to take part in such a custom. So, I sat there with my mouth shut, feigning interest in her explanation. Later, Suk told me that he was just waiting to see what my reaction would be because he, himself, had NO CLUE what the hell they were going on about. Since neither one of us seemed too excited about the prospect of visiting a shrine, MIL dropped the subject with a trailing off sentence about "Well, that's what I did when I was ..."

Don't get me wrong though. I am determined to get over my issues with MIL because I really want her to have a great relationship with my children, and I want my kids to jump for joy whenever they get to go over to Grandma's for a sleepover. They will not be able to do this so often with my parents, so I would never want to stand in the way of their relationship with MIL. So, we'll start with babysitting and go from there. I promise to trust her, even if her ways are a bit different from mine. I know she is great with Max, and Max practically has a seizure every time Grandma comes over to visit. And, she just "loves" it when I say, "Oh, Max. Look, Obaachan is here to see you!"