犬の日 (Dog Day)

After our visit to Nakayama Temple for 帯祝い (Obi Iwai), Shin and I circled November 21st on our calendar - 犬の日 (Dog Day). 犬の日 is the day we get to bind up my bump in the name of safe delivery and good health for The Bean.

Why the 21st?

Why "Dog Day"?

What's the deal with the obi?

Why the 21st? No idea. Sorry. I asked around but no one could satisfy my curiosity. In November there were two 犬の日, the first on 9th and the second on the 21st. According to the calendar from the temple, the 21st was the more auspicious of the two and that's why we chose that day for our belly binding.

That's the obi all packaged up on the far right.

Why "Dog Day"? I've got this one in the bag. In Japan, the dog is the official mascot of pregnant women which I found rather unusual. Dogs are man's best friend. There's the hair of the dog to sooth a hangover. It's been knows to rain cats and dogs. One can be as sick as a dog. Could that be it? I very clearly remember being as sick as a dog for the first three months of my pregnancy and although it seeed to be a solid connection that's not the reason. Or maybe its the pregnancy hormones that can turn even the kindest of women turn into a bitch. Bingo!?

No.

After listening to all of my wild conjecture, Shin explained that dogs are associated with pregnancy in Japan as they conceive easily, give birth to multiple puppies in good health and labour is relatively short and without incident. Things that every woman hopes for when entering the baby making business.  

Of course. Why didn't I think of that?

Finally, what's the deal with the obi? On 犬の日 we opened up the obi to reveal a blessing and prediction from the Buddhist priest at Nakayama temple.

Ours predicted that we would have a son born The Year of the Dragon. Not bad for someone that we hadn't even met. The Bean is in fact a boy and was conceived in The Year of the Dragon, but will be born in The Year of the Snake.

 

A quick aside - I was born in The Year of the Dragon, our son will be born in Snake and Shin was born in Horse. Those three years appear consecutively in the Chinese calendar. I love the organization of it all!

 

We unfolded the obi and stretched out, it went from the kitchen to our front door. As I was contemplating just spinning in a circle until I met up with Shin in the entrance, he had the clever idea of reading the instructions. We rolled up the obi so that it was easy to manage and then Shin wrapped it around my bump mummy style.

 

 

As The Bean gets bigger it's becoming less comfortable to carry him around, and sleeping is next to impossible. But all bound up in my obi I felt more comfortable that I had in weeks. Perhaps I'll make it a regular part of my wardrobe.