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Mummy Questions

I didn't set my alarm clock last night. This morning my eyes opened around 6:30, or probably before, and I looked out the window from bed and decided to stay there. Eri was already downstairs but the house was quiet so I deduced she was doing her studying or bag-making and the boys weren't up yet.

Over an hour later the situation had changed. I could hear the boys jumping and carrying on downstairs. I got up and looked out the window properly and saw that it had snowed. The street was clear but the park and the rooftops and cars were covered in a nice white blanket.

So my plans to take the boys to one of our favorite parks was out. By the time I was finishing my first cup of coffee the snow was partially melting. Not enough snow left for sledding and too much melting to enjoy running and playing safely.

So I made some more coffee and headed outside and vacuumed the car while the boys played in the driveway. And that was pretty much it for this Sunday morning.

Eri made us some ramen for lunch.


The boys didn't take a nap today. Eri tried to get them to but their powers of resistance were too strong. So Osamu skipped bath time and went straight to bed tonight because he was on the edge of an exhaustion tantrum. I prefer to just weather the storm and do bath time, but Eri is a good mom and took pity on the tired little boy.

Kenzo was pretty pooped as well but he did a bath with me and then got a book for story time. Gotta do story time. He chose another one of his books from the library, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. We had a good time reading it but I don't think Kenzo will choose it again. He's getting more sophisticated with his taste in reading material. The story's gotta be just a little more complex than he can fully grasp or he's not interested. He'll sit and listen, but he doesn't get that sparkle in his eye like when we read a Shel Silverstein poem or Steam Train, Dream Train.

After story time Kenzo was asking me about mummies again. He told me to show him another picture of a real mummy, so I Googled the British Museum and got some more child-friendly mummy photos. Kenzo was intrigued even more than before.

He knows mummies are wrapped in bandages, so he asked about bones and skin. He asked me something similar recently when we were walking by the Dounji graveyard. He wanted to know more about the place. I told him this is where people go when they die. Through a cunning series of questions Kenzo found out that the graves all have dead people's bones in them. He asked me where their skin went and I just said they don't need it anymore so it's just bones.

He was cool with that.

Fast forward to tonight and Kenzo is asking me similar questions about mummies and death and bones.

Kenzo
Do mummies have bones?

Papa
Yes, they do.

Kenzo
Do they have skin?

Papa
Yes, they do.

Kenzo
They don't go to a graveyard?

Papa
They get special lotion on their skin after they die and then nice people wrap bandages around them so...

(I had no idea where I was going here.)

Papa
They get special lotion on their skin after they die and then nice people wrap bandages around them so...

Kenzo
So they're cozy?

Papa
Yup. Exactly. Time for bed.

In the late afternoon we were outside playing in the street and driveway again.


Playing outside is the best. 

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