【保育園の話】Slipping back in to society
Fall is rolling in at a snail's pace. Days are still hot but we've been able to turn off the air conditioner on some days and get by with opening the windows and running some fans. Sweet potato and pumpkin flavored items are filling stores and hot coffee and tea tastes delicious on a busy morning.
September tested the positivity I was feeling in August. Early September, I received a call from Ryu's work letting me know there had been an accident at work and was being taken to the hospital with a probability of being hospitalized. Luckily, his protective gear had done it's job and Ryu managed to just barely avoid third degree burns on his feet, though his wounds were still severe and required him to make daily visits to the hospital. Even with pain killers, he wasn't able to walk or put any kind of pressure on his feet, leaving me to manage essentially all of the housework in addition to child-care and pre-existing appointments, as well as helping take care of him until he was able to move around.
Ryu's birthday was at the end of the month, but we couldn't do much. We shared a small cake and then decided that since my birthday is coming up as well, we combine our gift money and get something we could both benefit from -- like the massage chair we've both been thinking about now that we can't go out as often as we used to.
There are so many things to do with my childcare leave crawling to an end, forcing me to spend more and more time outside the home. I caught sight of my full reflection in a shop window and was surprised by how plain I looked compared to my pre-pregnancy days. Appearances, sadly, matter, so it's slowly time to start making an effort again. I'll begin by vowing to moisturize and wear sun screen every day and finally bagging up pregnancy clothing now that I am back to my regular weight.
Deadline for nursery applications is October 18. Japan has a major child-care shortage, making getting in to a school extremely difficult. We were told to apply to 20-30 schools and they would place us at one using a point based system. After finding only 5 schools near home that were a possibility with my work schedule, we expanded the search to include schools near my workplace and managed to write down 16 schools. 20 just isn't possible. Since there is no telling where we'll end up if we manage to enter a nursery, I tried my best to visit as many schools to compare but could not go to all. To give an idea as to how bad it is though, I visited about nine schools, and the combined total of openings for 1-year olds for the upcoming year is......10. So within my town, only 10 kids will enter a government approved school and the rest will have to scramble to find a private school, which are also often filled due to lack of public care, and will result in a wait of several months.
Unfortunately, there are no private schools near us, so if Reo does not make it in to a school, we decided to move instead of opting for a private sitter. The lowest rate for a professional sitter is 2,200yen (22$?) and we'd need them for roughly 11-11.5 hours a day. It really would just be cheaper to move to an area that has more schools, giving me more options that work with my work schedule and possibly a shorter wait on the list. Before we start looking at places, we're going to cross our fingers tightly and wait for results in February.
While we wait, we're shopping around for a decent ママチャリー. Regardless of whether Reo ends up going to nursery near home and I need to take him on a bike, or whether he gets in to a place near work in which we'd commute by train, I need a different mode of transportation aside from walking, to get around. It was "just a twenty minute walk" here and there when I was on my own. It's not "just a 20 minute walk" anymore when you have 8-9kg strapped to your chest. We've opted to get one with a motor, despite their being so much more expensive (It's almost a 100,000yen- 1,000$ difference :( ) but we can not decide on the brand. Something light, of course.
The bicycle won't be used until Reo turns 1 year old, so we still have 4 months left before we absolutely need it. However...I need to learn how to ride a bicycle before that! It's been 7 years since I have used one, and it was just a basic kick-bike I rode once a week to work. A ママチャリー is quite different to handle.
