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Intense Focus

Osamu fell down and bumped his knee during warm-up time at soccer club. Actually I don't know where he bumped, but he was upset and came over to me sobbing and said his leg hurt. I checked for blood and bruises. Nada.

Soccer club started as always with roll call. When the coach called Osamu's name he looked over at us and I said he's fine, just takin' a little break. After roll call is stretch time. Osamu and I watched all the boys and girls do their stretches. He was still sorta sobbing next to me on the bench in his coat with the hood on. I didn't try to cajole him into going back out. That always seems to have a negative effect.

After warm-up stretching the soccer club kids started their drills. The first one was running through a cone course. Suddenly Osamu got inspired, stood up, took a deep breath, and marched out onto the field to join Kenzo and the rest of the soccer club friends.

He stopped though, and ran back to me. I asked what was up, thinking maybe he wanted to take off his jacket or blow his runny nose. He pulled me down and said into my ear, "I love you papa." Then he took off and started running drills with intense focus.

Afterward, when I presented the boys with a special chocolate treat that Eri prepared, I heaped the praise on Osamu for overcoming his adversity and heading out to play. He barely seemed to remember. That was over an hour ago. He's a four-year-old who lives in the moment.

I wanted to maximize Eri's time to do her sewing in peace, plus I just love going places with the boys. We left soccer and went to play at a park we've driven past numerous times but never played at. It's a neighborhood park in Tomiya, kinda by the Cainz Home Center that we shop at sometimes, so there's no official parking. I parked on a side street out of view of the signs that said no parking and we played like crazy.


We played tag and generally ran amok under a gorgeous Saturday morning sky.


I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. Just a routine cleaning. Apparently my teeth were pretty dirty because it took an hour. I love our dentist. They really scrape that plaque off. The head dentist who does the final check, Dr. Igarashi, is a huge soccer fan and has Vegalta Sendai decorations all over the place. He's also pretty rough with checking mouths so I make sure and properly apply chapstick before he gets a hold of me.

Eri made a delicious pot of oden tonight. 


I tried not to, but I ended up eating too much.

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