Earnest and Meticulous

Soccer Saturday again. The weeks are flying by, and it’s kind of freaking me out. Five months until I hit 50, and sometimes I feel like I need to find a way to slow things down. It’s all going way too fast.

Kenzo was home sick last weekend, so he was literally jumping with excitement to be back on the field with his friends today. It wasn’t even that cold, at least not as bitter as it’s been all week. The sun was out, and all the kids were in high spirits. While Osamu played, Kenzo and I snuck off for a car wash. I went for the wax option. Winter grime makes everything look so dreary, and I wasn’t the only one who had the same idea... long line of guys waiting to get their cars back to looking decent, at least until the next snowfall.

Osamu was beyond thrilled when I announced it was time for Family Make Your Own Pizza Night. Ever since our first one last year, he’s been steadfast in his dream of opening Little Pizza Shop... a place with a big, open dining area but tiny pizzas. He reminds Eri and me constantly that when it opens, we must go every day.

He's so earnest about making pizzas.

Meanwhile, Kenzo’s passion is origami. He’s always checking out books on it from the school library, even from the public library in Izumi Chuo. Today, Eri surprised him with his very own copy of his favorite origami book, and as soon as it arrived, he ripped it open and spent the entire afternoon meticulously folding. He only paused long enough to battle me and Osamu in Beyblade. I now own my own Beyblade—Viper Tail—which so far has lost every single battle. It sits on my desk when not in use, silently judging me.

Kenzo grudgingly gave up the dining table when it was time for pizza night. We really need to do this more often because the pizza was amazing. And this time, I remembered black olives, clearly the best topping.

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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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