I consider myself pretty Americanized despite my very Japanese upbringing.  I went to preschool, kinder, elementary, junior high and 3 years of high school in Irvine, California.  I only spent my Junior year of high school in Japan where I attended an International School for a year.  I am proud of my heritage and learned a lot about my parent’s home-country growing up.  I endured 6 years of Saturday Japanese school (Asahi Gakkuen) and came out speaking the language fluently.  I guess despite it all, I lead a pretty charmed childhood but the one thing I did not like was when my mom packed my lunch.

I brought a bento box to school almost every day in elementary school before bento boxes were a thing.  I hated it.  When I was growing up, Irvine was pretty homogenous. Of course there were Asian children, and a sprinkling of kids of other or mixed races, but I don’t think there were other Japanese students in my grade?  If there were, I was not friends with them so I don’t remember.   I fit in just fine and had lots of friends, but when it came to my special lunches, I felt like an alien and kind of ashamed.

My lunch never came in a brown paper sack or a tin lunch box.  My mom tied my lunch and snacks up, FUROSHIKI style.  You know, because that’s what she knew, so that’s what she did.  And mind you, my lunches were perfect.  Always nutrition packed and so excruciatingly Japanese.  Rice was the staple.  They never looked like this,

but all I wanted was a normal lunch.  A PB&J and an apple, or a damn lunchable please! Why couldn’t my mom wrap her head around this one request?  It would have taken less time to prepare!  And I would have felt normal.

Flash forward to today.  My older son completed 3 years of Japanese Immersion preschool, then went on to kindergarten and is now in 1st grade at the school up the street. My younger son is still in Japanese Immersion preschool.  I pack their lunches everyday except for when the older one wants to buy lunch on Pizza Friday.  And guess what? Their lunches eerily look a lot like the dreaded ones I used to take to elementary school myself… those bento lunches that I hated so much.  The difference with my kids is, they don’t complain or seem to care what their lunches look like.  They actually kind of love them and every morning they ask to see the contents of their bento boxes before they go into their lunch bags…  Hmmmm…  Was I just over-sensitive as a child?  Will R and R start asking for PB&J one day or will they continue to happily eat what I make them?  It’s like a mini social experiment and I’m curious to see how it pans out over the years.

On any given night, if you ask my children what they want for dinner, the answer is always the same.  Rice.  They could eat a rice based meal 3x’s a day if I prepared it that way.  Since my husband is an American of German-Sicilian descent, we do eat pasta and other types of American dinners (think mac-n’-cheese and chicken nuggets) but honestly, the kidlettes are full-on Japanese when it comes to their food habits and tastes.  It’s not chips, it’s rice crackers.  It’s not soda, it’s YAKURUTO, CALPICO or RAMUNÉ.  And get this, they don’t like Mexican food!  WHAT?!?!?  I adore Mexican food!!!  Sushi is a treat, but we eat more sushi than any family with young children that I know.  And I’m not talking about California rolls.  My kids love IKURA and Fatty Salmon nigiri style.  🙁 $$$$  How did this happen?  It’s not because I’m a good cook.  My cooking prowess is mediocre at best.  But I can make my dearly departed mom’s meals because that’s what I know and that’s what I grew up with.

In Jr. High, I used to eat mint flavored ice cream sandwiches and a Cactus Cooler with Funyuns for lunch because by that time, I paid for my lunch every day at school and I decided what I wanted to eat.  Good Lord!  If my mother only knew what kind of disgusting crap I ate when she was not looking in those days!!!  She’s probably rolling in her grave!  High School?  The Taco Bell down the street was a regular. I must have consumed over a thousand bean and cheese burritos with fries and a coke. Barf.  All that shitty food makes me cringe now and all I want is a bowl of rice with pickled cucumbers and some baked fish.

So, off to school my kids go.  Swinging their lunch bags with Bento Boxes in them. Today’s menu: rice balls and three or four “sides” all snuggled into their divided sections…  When will the plea for the PB&J come?  We shall see…

-K

Plastic rainbow-colored dishes, bowls and cups from IKEA .  That’s what my kids use to eat and drink from these days.  Right now, they are shamelessly out in the open for all to see.  In the future set-up, I’d like to conceal all the kids dishware in an accessible drawer and all that chaos will be hidden from view.  I have no desire to continue looking at rainbow plates cluttering up my shelves.

When I was growing up, my mother had the family use china from almost day one.  I don’t ever remember eating off of a plastic plate, or a paper plate for that matter.  That woman even used “real plates” on pizza night!  I wonder if that would work in my family dynamic today?  Can my 6 and 3-year-old boys eat off of porcelain plates without any disasters?  I suppose they could…  There will most definitely be a few broken and chipped plates, but I could teach them to use the real stuff.

“You must gingerly place these plates into the sink when you are done.”

Do I want to say these words and deal with all that right now on top of all the other things?  Quick answer: No, I don’t.  I didn’t even have to ponder that one.

It’s too easy to just bust out a plastic plate that I don’t care about and fling it frisbee style at my kids. On pizza night, I just scrape the crusts into the trash and throw those shitty plates into the dishwasher at the end of a long week…  Yea, I’m not changing the system for now.  So for a while longer, no-spill sippy cups and plastic rainbow plates for me and my kids.

“GOHAN DEKIMASHITAYO-! plastic NO OSARA O DASHITÉ KUDASAI!” (“Dinner is ready!  Get the plastic plates out!”)

-K

“We’re rollin’ dirty right?  LOL, JK.  But seriously, we aren’t looking fancy tomorrow are we?”

The night before a brunch playdate and I get this text from one of my besties.

Many kidlettes have already started school but Redondo Beach starts next week, so my family is still in summer mode.

Ha!  Rollin’ Dirty…  I mean, hells yea I’m rollin’ dirty!  My whole existence was just summed up in that one text because I feel like I be rollin’ dirty every day.

Every weekday morning during the school year, I am scrambling to make sure my children have socks and shoes on their feet and they don’t look like they just crawled out of a cave.  Some days I don’t even wash my own face until noon.  Or ever…  I know, gross right?

We all have them.  Those girlfriends that have all their shit together.  The ones that are perfectly dressed and made up EVERY time you see them.  You stop by their house on a whim and they not only look perfect after a 8 hour work day but their house smells of chocolate chip cookies.  Ones baked from scratch of course.  I envy the shit out of these girls.

Because in my dreams I’m that mom.

If you know me, mornings are my nemesis.  It is just who I am.  My dear husband accepts it.  I feel like a sloth before my first cup of coffee.  There are days when my hair doesn’t get brushed until I wash it that night.  IF I have time to shampoo at all.  These days, a spritz of dry shampoo is like my best friend.

Yoga pants?  Not just for yoga class in my daily life.  I want to change my ways and be more put together…  But, secret revealed: I sometimes wear yoga pants to bed just so I don’t have to change when I drop both kids at two seperate schools located 30 minutes apart.  Then straight to… you guessed it!  Yoga class and maybe, just maybe one errand before hopping back into the minivan to pick up two kids from afore-mentioned two separate schools and shuttling their little butts to what seems like 500 activities throughout the week. By the time Friday rolls around, I’m beat.  I sleep in until the last possible second after my littles have asked me to make breakfast like, 15 times.  When will they ever just eat cereal?  So yea.  I will most definitely be rollin’ dirty.

My life is #rollindirty and I have no shame.  When this new school year starts this upcoming Wednesday, will I be ready???  Kind of…  Actually, I’m a bit nervous about my older son who will enter First Grade.  What?  When did he get so big?

So tonight, I’m wearing my “park outfit” to bed and will even sleep in my bra just so I can pick up coffees for my tribe on-the-go before our playdate at the park.  I’ll be looking fine in my yoga pants and baseball cap.  I’ll be ready to laugh with my best mommy friends and talk about life and how crazy and wonderful it is to be raising our kids the best we can.

Rollin’ Dirty.

-K