On the second Thursday of every month I have a late meeting, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The participants are from all over the world - Michigan, Moscow, Seoul, Ulaanbaatar. It's challenging to set up a Zoom call across so many time zones. Someone's gotta wake up early and someone's gotta stay a little late.
I've lucked out when it comes to scheduling. That late meeting has mostly coincided with Eri's day off from school. I think we had her mom come and babysit one month.
Tonight, however, I had the boys on my own and an international Zoom call right smack dab in the middle of the evening. I've been mentally preparing for days. I had a plan to make it work.
The first step was planting myself at the dining table to work before Eri brought the boys home. I was able to keep an eye on my Teams chats and the tasks I was working on while greeting Kenzo and Osamu, making sure they washed their hands and went to the bathroom, avoid any arguing or crying about who gets to go first, send Eri out to school so she can leave without too much stress and focus on her studies, and most importantly get the boys to nap time so I could focus on work and then later attempt to multitask and get everything, including dinner, ready so we could do bath time, story time, and bedtime without going too far past regular bedtime.
Last night and this morning I reinforced the message: you have to take a nap today because papa's got a meeting and you guys need to save your energy for a potentially later bedtime than usual.
Kenzo woke from his nap first. He's first nine times out of ten, mostly because he doesn't even nap. He watches the clock and when it gets to 3:30 p.m. he figures he's done and heads downstairs or to my office. Today he slept for real, though. I could tell because when he came downstairs he was slightly disoriented and had crazy bed head.
In preparation for the evening I told the boys if they took a good nap then two special things would happen. The first things was... boxes.
Every month on the 12th we get our Amazon subscription stuff, like dishwashing soap and hand cream and household stuff that is so conveniently replenished by delivery. And the boys love cardboard boxes. Who doesn't, really? They're so versatile. Kenzo immediately set about making his box into a house for his stuffed monkey. When Osamu finally woke up and had his snack he put his box on his head and walked around the house bumping into the walls.
Between cardboard boxes and the Jackie Chan Karate Kid movie on Netflix turned down to a reasonable volume, I somehow got through my meeting while sitting at the dining table with just a few cameo appearances by the boys. And somehow we got through bath time and the regular routine without any drama, except that I was just really tired.
Eri prepped omurice for dinner and I got it ready, complete with ketchup art on top - an angry face for Osamu and a heart for Kenzo. Per their humble requests. I started calling omurice "mumurice." One of Osamu's nicknames is Mumu-chan. Thus, mumurice.
I nibbled on some leftovers while getting everything ready before my meeting started. When I looked in the fridge I found a couple of items with notes on top that were obviously meant for me.
Eri says I'm like a hyena. I go through the kitchen, especially the refrigerator, and eat up the scraps of leftovers and stuff that's about to expire (or often already expired). I should charge for my services.
The second special thing for the boys was a treasure hunt. Sometimes I am a genius. Searching around the house for their finger puppets kept them busy for quite a while. Plus they loved it. We shall be doing that again for sure.
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