When I started this blog it was meant to be a pregnancy blog, hence the name born in japan. I intended to write about the pregnancy and the few months that followed. It was a way for me to log my thoughts, feelings and experiences for my own purposes, as well as to share with distant, interested, friends and family.

Now the pregnancy is over, obviously, but the blog still lives on. So it seemed necessary to give it a bit of a facelift (I hope you like it!) and think a little bit about how I intend to use this space in the future.

As I began to rethink this blog and its purpose, I really started thinking about the title, and whether or not a change was necessary. The more I thought about it, I realized that even though the babe has been born, the title still resonates. It is still so very true.

I began to realize that so much more was born in Japan than my son, Ewan. This experience of living abroad, working abroad, and becoming a mama abroad has forever, I hope, changed my life and the way I look at the world. So, not only was Ewan born here, but in many ways I feel as if I have been too. So much of who I am as a person and certainly who I am as a mama has been influenced, greatly, by my time here.

The purposes of this blog will, of course, evolve with time. I still intend to use it as a space to record all that I can about Ewan. I don’t want to forget how precious this time with him is. But more than that, I want to start reflecting on our life as a family and my new life as a mama. I want to write and photograph more about the rhythms of our life, the choices that we’ve made, the way we do things. In part I want to write about these things to remember, in part to share, and in part to reflect on what it is about life that truly makes me happy.

In the coming months our life is going to change drastically. We will be leaving our happy home in Japan and returning to Chicago. Our house will, inevitably, be bigger, our family income will definitely be lower, and I think there will be a lot of changes and choices that need to be made. I intend to chronicle that transition as a way to reflect on all that is happening, to slow down and be present through it all.

As we move our family across the great wide ocean there are a number of things that we want to preserve from Japan, and the simple life that we made here is certainly a big part of it. So, there you have it, the blog will be about me preserving the simple family life that we carved out here in Japan and making it continue to work for us in a new place and into the future. Hope you’ll stick around. It’s going to be an awesome ride.