The Flower of Youth

This time of year in Japan seems to be all about two things: the flowering of the cherry blossom trees around every city, and the start of the school year (or career, for fresh grads). We've been admiring the pink-tinged white baubles for the past two weeks and the wind is now finishing off what the rain started. Everywhere is snowing petals. It's the only kind of litter that's tolerated here.
I braved the blizzard today and yesterday with chibbi-chan, as we hunted high and low for yochien (kindergarten) gear. I'd been trying to ignore it, this imminent parting from my little soul-mate (or demon?), but when Tristy called a few days ago and said she was on her way over with her sewing machine in the trunk, I knew it meant trouble. What was I thinking? she demanded. Where was the smock I was supposed to have hand-made, where were the toilette towel and hand towel with the loops 14 cm long? Had I ironed name tags on everything yet? Had I written her name on each individual crayon in the crayon box?
That's when I knew I was in trouble.
Chibbi-chan and I legged it down to Jusco and raided the haberdashery department, returning with totally unsuitable smock material which chibbi-chan in her wisdom had picked out. Tristy tut-tutted, and said we'd have to make double layers for the body. Then she got to work and I watched, helplessly, while our two kids played dodgems around the iron and the sewing machine.
It took the best part of five hours (we stopped for dinner), but it did look beautiful when it was finished. Tristy added cute pockets with round edges. My role in the smock-making was to iron chibbi-chan's name on the back of the smock (and even then I had to ask the clerk at Jusco to pick out the correct hiragana). For all I knew, I could be sending my child to school with the wrong name.
A day and a half to D-day (the entrance ceremony at the yochien) and I have sewn on my loops, ironed some name tags and written others on shoes and clothes. I've looped and named the gargle cup, and appliqued the set of three bags I bought ready-made (flat book bag; change-of-clothes bag; indoor shoes bag). I've got a horrible suspicion there may be more bags which need making/buying, but this is all we need to take to the ceremony. I haven't done the crayons.
Driving around today, I couldn't help but notice on every street corner, a mother with a son or daughter, dressed up in their smart school uniform (and the mothers also in their suited best), on their way out of a school entrance ceremony (yochien, elementary, high). Twenty-five years ago, apparently, this was not the tradition. The expert cook upstairs told me when she went to high school, there were no parents at the ceremony. You just went by yourself (after all, you got yourself to school). Was she hinting that today's kids were mollycoddled?
There's more justification to coddling a three-year old. I've promised chibbi-chan she can choose where she wants to go for lunch after her ceremony. I've promised myself I won't miss her terribly when she starts yochien. The cherry blossoms are almost finished, but we've done our fair share of viewing the cherry blossom together. We've admired the forest of trees at the zoo, we've picnicked under them in the park and we've seen them by twilight and lantern-light at our local shrine. We've spent the precious last few weeks together.
I won't get sentimental. I can't afford to. The next challenge, as Tristy point out, is waiting round the corner. Preparing chibbi-chan's kawaii bento box starts in May.