My unpublished and only one book in the world "Just the way you are."

Easter weekend is over, so I was doing a major clean up in my house (while kids

are gone), and I found two books that I made for my children when they were really young !  

My unpublished and the only one book in the world 

"Just the way you are."

My first son was born in 2002 January, and the book was written in 2003, so I must have

wrote it for him when he became old enough to understand the words.

Back then, I didn't have any access to Japanese children book, so I wrote it

in Japanese and in English. It is made of white stock paper, pages were cut

out by scissors and unevenly, that brought a nice and warm "handmade" taste :) . 

My intention back then was to keep writing a small book for my kids, but

I asked my sister to set up a monthly subscription of children book from Japan, 

so I never continued to make another books.  (Maybe I should have !!!)

Here is my little story, Enjoy ! 

Title : "Just the way you are" 

Three fish brothers are living in the river.

They are talking about their future.

The big brother thinks 

"I want to be a strong shark!"

The middle brother thinks,

"I want to be a eagle, so I can fly anywhere I want."

And I think,

"I want to be a turtle, because there is always a home to live." 

"Well, let's try!!"

"Oh, no... Something is wrong..."

"It is the best that Just the way we are !" 

"2003. January 10th" 

I'm not sure if my kids remember this little book, but I am going to show

them when they are back from the school today ! 

National Siblings Day, April 10

I didn't know there is such a special day as 

"National Siblings Day"

I have two older sisters, one is 6 years older, another one is 4 years older. I do not remember we had a sibling fight at all as we grew up because of the age gap with 
my older sister, and my other sister is a Down's syndrome. We had disagreements, but never turned into a fight.

Both of my sisters are pretty special and incredible people in my life, and

I always have a great respect to both of them !  

Today, I would like to write about Yuki, my sister who has Down's Syndrome.

She is 4 years older than me, but her mental age has been younger than me for the
most of my life. So my role as a youngest sibling become a bit different than
other family structure. I am the youngest, but I am not the youngest.

Yuki and myself

I remember often I would protect her from teasing from others at school, 
holding my arms wide open and telling other kids,
"Don't tease her! This is my sister you are talking to!"


I often carried her on my back when we went up the stairs coming back from 
the school. Because she had (still has) a weak heart and the stairs made her
heart pump too much.  It would be when I was in Grade 2.

I would run up the stairs and put my back pack down at the top of the stairs,
and come down to get her, and piggy back her and walked up the stairs.  

It sounds very nice of me,,, but the reason that I wanted to carry her up the stairs
were that I wanted to go home and have snack as soon as possible. But my mom had
told me not to leave Yuki behind, so I had to wait or walk slowly for her.  The only way to get home faster was to piggy back her...


Down's syndrome children might have some delay in physical and mental development,
but once they found their favourite things to do, they appear to be SUPER good at it.


My sister's favourite thing was "stitching".  She created so many patchwork art,
wall hangings, baby blankets, Christmas ornaments.

This is one of the most famous creation by her.

Many of my relatives and friends owns one of these

Christmas Wreath made by Yuki.

This is another Christmas ornament. She made only one of this as it was

confusing for her to put triangles together.

 

This bear is something she made after our mom passed away and 

she moved to the nursery home where she lives now. 

The care takers at the nursery home quickly realized that she is good at

stitching, so they gave her more tasks and she created bags. 

 

 

Now she doesn't do too much stitching as it requires 

lots of preparations and finishing work for other people.

I meet her when I go back to Japan once every 2 years or so. That is my dilemma, I should be living close to her, but I already established my life in Canada.... What can I do when I am so far away ...  

 

But I will be there when you need me to. 

I love my sister Yuki.