Flurry of activity with three daughters.

　All three of my daughters, ages 4, 2, and 1 (*at the time of the interview), are in daycare while I work. The hardest part is getting them off to daycare every morning and picking them up in the evening and putting them to bed.
　My three daughters wake up at 5:00 a.m., followed by the rest of the family, and breakfast is served at 6:00 a.m. My husband prepares the children for daycare. My husband prepares the children for daycare while I feed them, brush their teeth, and change their clothes before he drops them off at 7:25 a.m. I pick them up in the evening and take them to daycare.
　In the evening I pick them up and return home at 5:30 pm. I get frustrated if they are hungry, so before I prepare dinner, I first make sure they have something to eat. It’s often cream puffs or some other high-calorie snack. Then I heat up the side dish I made and left in the morning, saying “Thank you Natsuko Yokozawa in the morning,” and have dinner at 6:00 p.m. From 6:30 p.m., we play and talk, and take a bath. After that, I play tag with the children, who have a lot of energy, and we turn off the lights at 20:00. After 9:00 p.m., when the three children are finally asleep, it is time for me.

An uneventful day is a miracle!　Children’s “firsts” triple the fun!

　Children go to preschool every day as a matter of course, but if they cannot go because of a cold or fever, they are always at a loss for what to do for the rest of the day. I am always on a tightrope. We have a few insurance plans in place, such as babysitters and childcare for sick children, but it is sometimes difficult to deal with sudden emergencies. We always have to have a strategy meeting to see if either I or my husband can somehow shift our schedules to accommodate the situation. It feels like a miracle that a day goes by without incident.
　But it is also three times as much fun. My eldest daughter is the one who wants to be in charge, like “the world is mine,” my second daughter is shy, and my third daughter smiles when we make eye contact.
　It is fun to see my children’s “firsts. When they see snow for the first time, when I make lunch for them on their first field trip, when they receive a letter from a friend for the first time, etc. “They make this kind of face” or “They have this kind of emotion” are so cute. I can also relive “firsts” from my childhood that I don’t remember, and I am very happy to be able to experience these irreplaceable experiences.

What is Nacchan’s way of thinking to have a relaxed mind?

　Sometimes I have to turn down work I want to do because of childcare. That is not the fault of the child or of me. When that happens, I feel much better if I blame God, saying, “I’m sure God is telling me not to work right now. I can give up on the fact that there is nothing I can do about it. I love morning dramas, but they usually start making me cry on Thursdays and end on Fridays with “There will be good things next week, let’s do our best. When I’m having a hard time, I try to think, “It’s Thursday,” and then I think, “Natsuko was depressed. I narrate my situation in my brain, “Natsuko was depressed, not knowing that something good will happen later on” (laugh).

With more children, “self-consciousness” becomes “openness”.

　With my first child, I was so determined that I would do everything. With my second child, I felt that I needed my husband’s help, and with my third child, I realized that I could never do everything perfectly, and I was able to open up or give up on that.
　I think I gave up on my husband, too. When I came home, I would often see all the things that were wrong or not done, and we would often fight, and I would think, “I want another Natsuko Yokosawa! I used to think, “I want another Natsuko Yokozawa,” but then I realized that was not the case. I thought, “I want another Natsuko Yokozawa! Not only my rules, but also my husband’s rules.
　I have come to realize that I don’t have to do everything according to my wishes, and my satisfaction level with the division of housework and childcare has changed a lot. I think my satisfaction now is about 80% or 90%. The remaining 10% is sometimes a “thank you. I can work as hard as I want if they say, “That was hard work, thank you. If they understand that it was hard work, and they even say “thank you,” I think I would be very happy.

Changes created in the couple when the husband experienced childcare.

　When our third child was born, my husband did childcare. When I asked him to go for one-month checkups and vaccinations while I was in childcare, I had my husband do all the paperwork and sent him off saying, “Don’t worry, someone will always tell you if you go. Later, when I said, “I’m going for a checkup today,” he said, “Thank you,” for the first time. Thanks to my child-rearing career, she now feels that the checkups are something she can go to as well. On the other hand, until then, I also thought that I had to make my own arrangements to go to the checkups, but I realized that it was okay to rely on them. We have both grown in many ways.

The “10-point game” solves the “nameless housework” division of responsibilities!

　The division of household chores between husband and wife is determined by a “10-point game. We list 10 chores and score them from 10 points, which is the “least objectionable” to 1 point, which is “not objectionable. My husband gets 10 points for cooking and 2 points for folding laundry, and I get 8 points for folding laundry, so we can divide the work between us by saying, “I’ll do the cooking, you do the folding. Since we both do what is light on our minds, it doesn’t take much stress.
　In the case of “chores with no name,” for example, there is the matter of setting out the garbage bags for garbage disposal. Once when we discussed “garbage disposal” as a couple, we decided to separate the garbage collection from the garbage disposal. We even made a rule that the person who collects the garbage sets the garbage bag. They would write down the “nameless chores” as items, give each other a score, and show it to each other. It is a fun way for couples to have fun while eliminating their frustrations.

Reward yourself at Hakone and Atami

　On weekends, I take a long bath to relieve my fatigue. After putting the kids to bed, I turn off the lights, light a candle, and soak in a bath for a solid hour. I call it “Hakone,” and sometimes it becomes “Atami,” a two-hour course (laughs). My husband asks, “Are we going to Hakone today?” Sometimes he says, “Atami is fine with me,” and I enjoy that conversation as well.
　To make weekend evenings fulfilling and enjoyable, we sometimes have a “whispering tea party” where we invite our friends over and chat in the living room so that the children don’t wake up. Even though my body is tired, talking with my friends helps me feel refreshed and energized.

I want to build a day-care center at Yoshimoto’s theater. Laughter for parents raising children!

　When you are raising children, you may smile when you see how cute they are, but you may not laugh from the bottom of your stomach as often as you think. When I was performing at the theater, I would often see mothers who would say, “I’m sorry,” when their babies started crying. Then a temporary day-care center was set up at the Omiya theater. I am a qualified babysitter, so when I went to support the nursery staff, the mothers who used the nursery told me that they really enjoyed it, which made me very happy. My dream is to someday create a permanent day-care center for parents who are busy raising their children.
　When I see moms and dads with children around the same age as mine on the street, I feel encouraged that I have so many friends. Let’s not overdo it and just think, “If we can make it through the day, we’ve won! Let’s not overdo it and just think, “If we can make it through the day, we’ll be the winners!