melon

this drawing is called “mighty righty”. i drew it for a group show called “100 stories” at hosfelt gallery in NYC (april 11th to may 31st).

i’ve been breastfeeding elijah ever since he was born. i chose to feed one breast at a time. that means i would feed from the right breast at let’s say 2 am and the next feeding would be from the left one. nurses told me to feed from both sides about 10 mins per breast, and to always start with the breast that i finished with last time because better milk would come out from it. but it seemed to me that i might as well keep feeding him from one single breast from start to finish. that way, he’d get from thin milk to thick milk for sure. plus i wouldn’t have to interrupt him.

so that’s been my breastfeeding style. it was really interesting to see my breasts’ size change before and after feeding. before a feeding, both breasts would swell like a melon and get really hard. after the feeding, the one i used for feeding would turn soft and rather sad looking. and the other one would start shooting milk to release the pressure, so i had to press a towel over it.

i sometimes forgot which breast i used for the last feeding, especially in the middle of night when i was half asleep. my left breast coped fine with that, but my right one, oh boy. she would get really swollen and bumpy and her veins would stick out. if it went on too long my breast would look like biologically engineered cantaloupe with tumors.

and it would be very very painful — too full and too hard. i could pump some milk out, but i couldn’t empty as much milk with a breast pump or using my hands as elijah could with his powerful drinking.

so i must confess i had to poke elijah’s arm in the middle of night a couple of times, so he’d wake up and want to suck milk from my overfull right breast. luckily he won’t remember…

i really miss meron pan (”melon bread”). meron pan is a sweet pastry: cookie dough (like a sugar cookie) on top of bread dough. i used to buy meron pan at Family Mart (convenience stores) in japan. at one point, i was so addicted to them i was eating one for lunch almost every day. now i’m living in canada, where no one’s even heard of meron pan.

sushi is the best-known japanese food in canada, but i hardly ever ate it in japan. i like sushi but it was mostly for special occasions. once in a while my dad would bring some home after “settai” (business dinner) as an omiyage, but otherwise…

what i miss most is everyday japanese foods like meron pan. even T&T (the asian grocery store in vancouver, calgary, etc) doesn’t carry it. Nakamura Bakery in J-town (toronto) makes it, but i’m in saskatoon, so what can i do…

of course, i decided to make it myself. “don’t have it? you make it!” — that’s my motto. my first attempt (above) went relatively well. as is often the case, it was whole a lot tastier on the second day. the meron pan recipe called for a dash of melon essence, but i couldn’t find any so i had to substitute lemon essence. so i guess i ended up making lemon pan. hahaha!