I'm not sure if I wrote about the trial baby lesson I gave at the end of January...the one where my "student" was two months-old. That time, it was just me, the baby's mother, and the baby. I managed to keep the baby's attention for the full thirty minutes of the lesson.
This past Saturday the class was a bit more challenging to teach. There was a significant difference in age between the two "students". One being the two month-old girl and the other was a 23 month-old toddler. The stuff which I could do with the infant wasn't fit for the older one and vice versa. Luckily, the baby fell asleep about fifteen to twenty minutes into the lesson. So I could focus on doing activities with the toddler. She's certainly developed a different sense on "play" since when I first had her in class when she was about 18 months-old. Back then the toy fruits, vegetables, and foods were there for her to take apart (they're held together by Velcro patches) or to put in her mouth. Now she'll take one of the toys and place it on the flashcard which has a picture of item. Hence the toy banana ended up on the "banana" flashcard, the cake on the "cake" flashcard and so on.
It turns out that the mother of the infant was originally from Yonezawa but presently, she and her husband live in Utsunomiya. She gave birth to her daughter there and returned to her parents' place (the Japanese term for ones place of family household is "jikka"). She intends to stay until May.
I suspect this pattern of returning to ones old homestead after having a baby is not unusual. One of our former managers did that a couple of years ago when she had her baby. I'm not sure if it's a custom or simply a move made due to practical considerations though. While it doesn't sound like a good idea to do any travelling in this day, in this case it happened. I don's suspect she brought the baby with her to Yonezawa by public transportation though. That sounds simply way too risky....
