Unpleasant Surprise

In an instant I had a feeling of horror and dismay combined with a weird sort of pride and satisfaction, which unsettled me. Suffice it to say, the TV remote control has been put in the basket on top of the refrigerator until further notice.

Kenzo got a "new" shirt today.

He was curious about it. He knew by the insignia on the front that it was a soccer uniform shirt, and he quickly did the math and figured out it was papa's soccer uniform shirt from when he was a little boy. He asked me about the name on the back and I told him that's what people called me a long time ago and that it's a Hungarian nickname that means "little bear," which delighted him. He said he's a little bear too, and then self-corrected and said he's actually a little monkey, which is definitely more accurate.

One of the boys' bus stop friends is moving, so Eri took the boys to play with him one last time before he goes off to his new neighborhood.

We also finally got pictures from Kenzo's snow play trip to Mt. Izumi a couple of months ago. Well, samples anyway. Eri ordered the good ones. The online photo sales racket is both amazing and expensive.

And totally worth it.

So it was a busy Friday and the boys, as is their way these days being 4 and 6 years old, resisted nap time. Kenzo usually just lays down and stares at the clock. Osamu conks out for a little bit, but now that it's getting warmer with springtime he gets hot and wakes up after about 30 minutes.

I started the bath after dinner and vacuumed the floor and gave my usual instructions to the boys as Eri cleaned up the kitchen and started washing dishes.

The boys love each other, but they're also little boys. They have limited emotional intelligence when it comes to things like waiting and sharing.

I saw the whole thing transpire, though there was nothing I could have done to stop it unless I could see the future.

There was a disagreement among the boys about who was cleaning up what or who was going to the bathroom first. My instinct is to observe. Eri's motherly instinct is to intervene, so she did. And as I observed the interaction Kenzo got as incensed as a six-year-old can and clocked Osamu in the face.

It was a pretty clean punch. Luckily Kenzo is scrawny and Osamu is a bit husky. Osamu cried of course, but not because the punch hurt. It was just an unpleasant surprise.

There was a lot of parental chiding of course, with Eri consoling Osamu and me quietly but dramatically putting the TV remotes on top of the refrigerator. All the while I had a feeling of horror and dismay at Kenzo's actions combined with a weird sort of pride and satisfaction with his ability to stand his ground, misguided as it was.

Comments

Mr. Blue Sky

Man, I conked out so hard on the living room floor tonight. Right after bath time, before story time. I barely remember. Completely exhausted. Big adventure day. Another in a long series I hope the boys will remember when they’re older... our first IMAX movie, a downtown city outing, and some life lessons in the game center. We left the house at 9:15 a.m. and didn’t get back until nearly 6 p.m., totally spent but full of pizza and memories. The Wild Robot in IMAX was totally stunning. The scale, the colors, the sound. We could feel every gust of wind and rustle of leaves. I made sure we had prime seats, row G, right in the center. Two big buckets of popcorn too, which, according to Kenzo and Osamu, I absolutely should not be sharing. “You should get your own!” they kept saying. I think a little bit of popcorn thievery is well within my rights as the papa. After the movie, we headed through the cold and wind across to the game center on the other side of Sendai Station. Being...

Not About Baseball

I stayed up past my bedtime again last night. I almost made it. I watched a couple of episodes of Ted Lasso and came to a good stopping point where I was satisfied with myself for enjoying some quiet TV time with my favorite show and even though it was after midnight, I was confident I could still get a pretty good night's sleep. But no. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to just lay on the living room carpet and put on a movie. I saw the first seven or eight minutes of Goodfellas and then I woke up when the end credits were rolling with Sid Vicious' is cover of My Way . I brush my teeth and I can see the light of day already shining in through the bathroom window. "It’s almost the longest day of the year," I told myself, to at least rationalize why I'm brushing my teeth and crawling into bed at this hour. I was trying to minimize the mental anguish I regularly put on myself for not just going to bed like I should. I told Eri that I was thinking a...

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Osamu said he had to go pee, and I make it a habit to believe him most of the time. Another habit I have is taking him to go pee, much of the time. When we came out of the restroom I decided it was time for a beer, so with Osamu holding my hand we waltzed over to the food concession and I was checking out the selection, and the prices. Seven hundred yen for a draft beer. I had a feeling. It was only 500 for a whiskey cocktail (whiskey with water on the rocks) but I wasn't about to be that much of a derelict this early with my four-year-old son in tow. The tickets were free, the seats aren't bad, might as well spend seven bucks on a beer. The problem was that the dude next to us with his little boy about the same age as Mumu-chan loudly and with braggadocio you don't often see in these parts ordered a Blue Hawaii snow cone for his kid. I heard this and panicked. Last weekend at Michinoku Park I got a Blue Hawaii snow cone for Osamu and he loved it. I looked down at my l...

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