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Breathe Deeply

Second day back at kindergarten and Kenzo and his friends are at it again.


They love writing letters to each other. Today, however, I opened up Kenzo's bag to check for notes from his teacher and to empty his lunch utensil case into the kitchen sink and found a stack of pictures that he and his friends drew and traded. It's a collection of silly, scary faces.

This week Eri has no days off from her night school. Monday was a national holiday, so it's four straight days of attempting to do my job while also taking care of the boys from mid-afternoon to bedtime. Today, though, Zanma-san came over. She's the nice old lady who Eri found through the ward office to babysit from time to time. Even just one day a week is a huge relief for me. The boys love playing with her and I can shut my office door and concentrate and even take a break and go for a short walk at sunset, which refreshes me for last hour of work.

Around 4 p.m. Osamu came into my office while I was on a phone call with our sales manager. I was having a hard time finding an appropriate place to insert a polite, "Could you hold on for a moment?"

Osamu was getting my gestures of "be quiet" and "go back downstairs" but he really had something he needed to tell me. He started whispering and gesturing for me to bend down to listen to him as I was continuing to try and listen and respond to what my colleague (and soon to be direct supervisor) was saying on the phone.

Finally my call ended. Osamu had already retreated back downstairs. I ran down to make sure everything was okay. Kenzo was crying. Zanma-san was confused and trying to figure out what was bothering him. I intervened. Apparently Osamu had come upstairs to ask me if it was okay to go with Zanma-san to play outside. I couldn't reply and Kenzo really wanted to go outside and show Zanma-san his jump rope skills so he got upset. Neither of the boys took a nap so they were tired, on the edge of grumpiness, and likely to fizzle out completely earlier than usual.

I told the boys and Zanma-san that they could go outside and play in the driveway but not in the street, which settled everything.

I went back to my desk and took a moment to lean back in my chair, shut my eyes, and breathe deeply.

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