Mentally Checking Out

At 4:15 p.m. I was pretty much done, so I put a couple of high quality sausages in the frying pan, prepped some spicy mustard and even a little chunky wasabi, and poured a can of Ichiban Shibori into a tall pilsner glass and called it a day.

The day was far from over, though. I was just mentally checking out.

I should do what Kenzo does.

He sits for long periods of time, working on coloring or writing or paper airplanes. Sometimes he faces out the window, and sometimes he faces the TV. Today it was the TV because he was coloring a Batman car so he needed to watch the movie Lego Batman again while he worked. Gotta that coloring accurate.

The boys brought home their recent kindergarten curriculum books, both English and Japanese. Kenzo noticed his English writing book had some post-it notes stuck in it, so he opened it up and showed me.

His teacher puts pink post-its where she recommends the kids try to finish at home. It's not homework. I love it. If I tried to force Kenzo to do writing practice he'd tell me to buzz off. But pink post-its from Miss Emily are enticing. He worked diligently without me even saying a word except, "Wow, nice, 'b' is a great letter."

Kenzo showed me his "b" and I helped him a little because he was doing it all wrong. I didn't tell him that, though. After tracing with his finger a few times he managed to write a decent "b" with his pencil, but the next one was a disaster. I asked him what the sound was and he looked at me like I was an unfunny comedian and said /b/.

So I told him good job and left him to it. He seems to like working quietly and independently. I like checking in on him but I need to take care and not smother him. He'll be better off if he can feel that independence and not constantly need praise from me to keep going.

I'll always be there with the praise and help, but only if he really needs it. Or if I need it.

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