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Seconds

Kenzo was like, "Papa, you ring the bell."

And I was like, "No way dude. This is your thing. You ring the bell."

So he did.

But when it came time to speak he froze up. And that's okay. It was his first time doing an official confrontation.

I could've encouraged him more or maybe even coached him up a bit on the way there, but when the moment came I had to step in or else total (as opposed to the regular partial) confusion was going to ensue.

We will never know what really happened. Like Rashomon. But something did happen. And that thing was that somehow there was an altercation between Kenzo and his classmate Ruan, either at school or on the front porch of Ruan's house, that led to Kenzo being upset because his lizard was no longer in his possession.

So I told Kenzo, "Let's just walk over to Ruan's house and figure this out." And we did.

Ruan's mom answered the door and did the thing that people do around these parts where they try to hide the reaction of seeing a random white guy right in front of you on your doorstep.

I did the proper greetings and told Kenzo to start talking, but when he froze I took over and explained what Kenzo told me about this mother's son taking Kenzo's lizard and that he'd like it back.

Ruan's mom was super nice about it, but she countered with some contradictory information and added that Ruan was out playing so she couldn't confirm a hundred percent.

Ruan's mom and I both agreed that we really have no idea what goes on in the culture of first grade boys and I apologized for the sudden visit to accuse her son of taking my son's lizard (even though I am pretty sure he did take it) and we were off.

Kenzo and I get home, Eri takes him to the bus stop for Friends Club, and when she got back I told her what happened. Right in the middle of our conversation the doorbell rang and I pressed the intercom button and it was Ruan's mom. On our doorstep.

She had Ruan with her and apologized and made Ruan say sorry even though Kenzo was out.

None of us still know what the heck happened, and I feel like I used up far too much energy on trying to figure it out.

I will continue to encourage Kenzo to deal with his own stuff, reinforcing the idea of course that I'm here to help.

This guy too...

Osamu is loving every day of kindergarten and my favorite thing is when he gets home and stomps up the stairs to my office and tackles me even when I'm on a Zoom call with my boss.

After the boys went to sleep, and after I got home from a neighborhood association meeting, I stood in the kitchen eating leftover yakisoba and talked with Eri about where we're at with raising the boys. And other stuff. We ended up having seconds of wine.

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