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Hard Work

Yesterday evening while I was getting the boys' dinner ready (Eri does all the prep before she heads out for her class) Kenzo called me over and said look at this. He wrote his name by himself in hiragana, and he was pretty proud. I was too. 

He goes through phases weekly and even daily. Right now he's in a writing/drawing/coloring phase, and I love it. He knows I can produce coloring sheets in my office. Any coloring sheet that his little heart desires. Over the last 48 hours he has come to me a bunch of times and requested Cars 2 coloring sheets. He loves Cars. I do too. He's getting good at coloring, and this morning he was hard at work on his creations.

He loves mama the most and he doesn't miss a chance to show off his work to her.


Auntie Grace, in all her graciousness, babysat the boys for a few hours again today. She does that about once a month. No charge. She just likes it. Eri and I are so thankful for her friendship and her generosity. The boys love Auntie Grace. She spoils them like an auntie should, even though she doesn't have to. 

Eri and I are spoiled too. We get three hours pretty much every month to "get away". I don't want to "get away" from the boys, though. It's just time for us to be able to talk and reflect as adults without distraction. If the boys ever thought mama and papa were trying to get away from them I'd be destroyed.

However, when Auntie Grace came over this morning, after he calmed a bit of his excitement, Osamu pushed me to the front hall saying, "Papa you go now!"

Eri and I ventured over to a cafe I discovered in a magazine I was reading while I was waiting for a haircut recently. It's in the backwoods of Izumi. Country roads. She had a cappuccino, a first for her. She's a tea person. She took this picture of me as I sipped my black Columbian brew.


After that we played it by ear, settling in to a delicious seafood lunch. 



While the boys (well just Osamu) napped I took a walk. Gotta get my steps. I was sleepy, though. I was up late last night catching up on work and even this morning I was wrapping up loose ends and sending emails and reports. I love listening to podcasts while I walk but today was one of those days where the podcast of my own thoughts was more than enough. 


Eri casually mentioned that the car is filthy, which is accurate. Kenzo was as great a helper as he's ever been helping me wash the car inside and out. I told him he could make ten yen for doing a good job (his usual rate), and he went above and beyond. He scrubbed the tires and vacuumed the floors and used the hose to rinse everything down, and since he stuck with me until the end even though it was a long and tiring task I gave him a ten yen bonus. He got 20 yen.

He scurried up to my office to get paid and immediately set about his accounting. 


Recently he used a good amount of his money, about 500 yen, to purchase a police gun and handcuff set, which I must say was a good get. The suction cup bullets really stick. So he's learning about cash flow. He's got his own wallet (my old one) and adds up his coin amounts on the back of a piece of origami paper. I gave him a little assist with the math since he's six. Turns out he has 280 yen, all of which was earned. He's got a bank account with the free money from relatives and whatnot, but his walking around money is completely the result of his hard work.

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