This'll Just Take a Minute

Kenzo asked me if the word "submarine" has a letter u /u/ or a letter a /u/. Both are "uh" sounds and wasn't sure which letter it was. I told him it's a "u", and he confidently wrote the word submarine on the submarine he made out of toilet paper rolls and tape. Sumren. If you say it out loud phonetically it kinda sounds like submarine. Sum-reen. Submarine. He showed me. And I praised the heck out of it. He has the natural fear of any human about making mistakes, but in this arena my thinking is that mistakes are not only fine, but natural and necessary. How is he supposed to know how to properly spell the word submarine? And what's more, why does it matter? What matters is that he is curious and excited about writing, curious and excited about phonograms and phonemes, and most importantly curious and excited about submarines. I have the power to crush all of that curiosity and excitement with a single stroke. By telling him he's wrong. Or ...

I had to meet the old people down at Higashi Park to check the supplies in the sheds for upcoming events like neighborhood grass cutting and flower planting. I invited the boys along and we headed out the door about 8:45. When we got there Abukawa-san and her husband and a couple more of the retired folks who basically take care of all the parks and flower beds in the neighborhood were well into whatever soil and garden preparation they had started at goodness only knows what time. They said let's meet at 9 but in old people speak that obviously means you be there at 9 and we can do lunch.  Abukawa-san gave me a clipboard to take inventory with, but I decided to use my phone to take down notes so I could transfer the information to my cloud drive for easier sharing later. It may be futile, but I am aiming to modernize the neighborhood association bureaucracy, even if it's just by 1%. Osamu and Kenzo used the clipboard and the pen to draw pictures. They also made themselves usef...

Seaweed wasn’t something that was part of my life until probably mid elementary school when I started visiting aquariums and the ocean. It certainly wasn’t something that would be related to my snacks and meals growing up. The boys love seaweed. They love it in soup and in rice balls, but they especially love just eating the dried sheets of it, at mealtime or snack time or whenever. Once in a while we get Korean seaweed, which is objectively more delicious than the average Japanese varieties. It's salty and kinda greasy and it's hard to stop eating it once you've started. After a long week of fun and shenanigans, plus Eri caught a cold and wasn't feeling great, we had sushi from the supermarket, a fast bath, and everyone was in bed by 8pm.

Fresh off his double skinned knees last week this guy bungled it on the steps at kindergarten and got another bandaged knee today. He seemed okay with it, though. He even proactively announced he would like to take a good boy picture. He had his class picture today so he was practicing. Recently he's been copying Kenzo and resisting picture taking. There's a girl named Kotona-chan who was in Osamu's 3-year-old class last year but now she's in a different class. Osamu likes her a lot and they play together all the time apparently. This morning before heading off for the bus stop he decided he wanted to write her a letter and tell her he likes her. Mama helped. When Osamu got home the letter was still in his bag. I feared the worst.  It turns out Kotona-chan was absent. She went to visit her grandma. I love that Osamu knows why she was absent. 

Kenzo has been super uptight about forgetting things. Last week he forgot his jacket or something at school and cried walking back to get it. This morning he checked his backpack multiple times to make sure he had everything. It was a rainy morning so Osamu stayed in and the elementary school caravan was a little disjointed. I took the day off for a special endeavor and headed out on foot for the subway as soon as Eri and Osamu left for the bus stop after 8. I love walking down the street and passing cars that are stuck in a traffic jam. There's a good chance that my 25-minute walk got me to Izumi Chuo Station faster than a bus or car. It was seriously jammed up around the Route 4 bypass intersection at the bottom of our neighborhood. Even though carrying an umbrella is sort of a hassle I love walking in the rain. I like the sound of the rain hitting the umbrella and the fact that my hands are occupied so I’m not looking at my phone. Sometimes I'll walk and check Microsoft Team...

I cherish simple Tuesday night dinners with my family. Eri hasn't been feeling well the last couple of days but she's still working as hard as ever to take care of our house and cook amazing food. Tonight she made this radish salad with mayonnaise that was unbelievable. I gave Osamu a taste. He loves trying everything, and he usually likes everything. Tonight not so much. I think he has a thing about mayo. Eri drove to the kindergarten for a parent-teacher meeting after lunch where she learned that Osamu is more like me than we thought. Apparently he is methodical about the process of everything when it comes to getting ready for things like recess time. His teacher said he has to put everything away and get everything in order before he can confidently head out to the playground. Around 13:35 I invited Osamu to walk with me to go meet Kenzo on his way home from school, but the invitation was declined. He was watching his favorite Netflix show Little Angel . So I headed up the ...

Kenzo was so jealous last week when Osamu got to stay home with mama and he had to go to school. Today the tables were turned. Osamu was off to kindergarten and Kenzo got to stay home since Saturday was open house and school was off. The boy had big plans. He's been looking forward to this day for a week. Eri told him that he was gonna go to the supermarket with her, which was exciting enough for him, but there was more. Mama had to stop by another store called Birthday to pick up some clothing items for the boys, and Kenzo knows they also have toys there. He was gonna use his hard-earned money to buy a new toy for himself, on his own, without Osamu bugging him, with mama present to witness his independent move. Poor Kenzo only had the morning with mama, though. It's the first month of the school year so the kindergarten kids go home before lunch. Last week when Osamu was home he got most of the day with mama all to himself since the first graders get out at 13:30 and Kenzo doe...

Man it was windy today. When we got out of the car and headed across the park at 9:15-ish I kinda wished I'd worn an extra layer. The boys are little and the strong wind was making them upset. It was really strong. And chilly. We forged ahead though. I knew it was gonna be worth it.  The boys and I left the house at 8:35 and headed up to Ohira Village to the Create Park to play with our friends. I brought Kenzo and Osamu here a while back, last year or the year before maybe, but they were too little for it at the time. The forest adventure course is aimed at elementary school age kids and adults, and of course boys like Osamu who are technically too young but go for it anyway. The red arrow is where Osamu is. Kenzo didn't make it to the top, but Osamu did. Kenzo and his friend Max love catching bugs. We brought our net and bug box and the boys explored and searched for lizards and bugs and tadpoles around a big pond that's being refurbished. Kenzo ended up with a water bug...

I had neighborhood association meetings at 14:00 and 18:00. At 47 years old I am the youngest member of these groups by decades. The 14:00 meeting at the community center up the street was one that I called. I am, after all, the vice-chairperson as well as the head of the neighborhood betterment committee. Totally unqualified, mind you. Luckily these nice old folks know what to do.  We spent about an hour-and-a-half going over plans for the flower planters at Higashi Park, how to get volunteers for grass cutting cleanup, and fertilizer delivery, all of which I have to organize. My to do list at the end of this meeting was an 8 bullet point opus, including submitting an application to the ward office for a neighborhood beautification subsidy and faxing a manure order. I asked my octogenarian colleagues if there was a fax machine in the community center, and they laughed and told me the convenience store was the place to go. Kenzo had his first elementary school open house this morn...

Osamu has had waterproof band aids on his knees since he fell in the street and skinned them real good a few days ago. That has allowed him to get in the bathtub without complaining too much and go about his daily 4-year-old business. He's been wearing his school uniform long pants to cover his knees as well. Kenzo never wore the long pants. Today was the day the band aids had to come off. You can't leave those super sealed ones on that long. I was worried about what was under there.  The windows all over the house were open this afternoon because it was 20 degrees outside and a perfectly soft breeze was blowing. Eri approached Osamu in the living room, with me flanking him. He got suspicious and looked worried. We explained that it was time to take the band aids off and Osamu immediately went into fight or flight mode. I had to use my arms and legs to hold him down. He started wailing. The neighborhood was echoing with Mu-Mu-chan's futile crying. I felt terrible but I als...

Kenzo squished an ant with his fingers while we were waiting for the kids down the street to join the walking to school caravan. I told him that was gross and that the ant probably didn't want to be squished. He said he didn't do it on purpose. I timed my afternoon walk perfectly today and was just in time to catch Kenzo and his walking home friend Hidekazu up to some mischief. There's a designated way to walk home that all the kids are supposed to follow. No detours are allowed. Kenzo and Hidekazu are new at this, and they are loving the independence of walking to and from school on their own and with their friends.  When I met up these two they were not only heading off down a street that is not the right street, they told me they even stopped to play at a park. That is also against the the rules. They're supposed to go straight home and then if kids' parents say it's okay they can go do whatever. When Kenzo and I said bye to Hidekazu and finally walked in th...