Sunday morning. I was still kinda recovering from our forest adventure yesterday. The boys gobbled up their breakfast while I made coffee and stared out the windows at springtime.
Eri's friend Mai from high school married a German guy and they had their second child a month ago so we went to see them. Well, actually Eri visited her friend and the boys and I met up at the nearby Natori Aeon Mall to play with the German husband and their soon-to-be two-year-old little boy.
Falk, Mai's husband, is such a nice guy. We met last autumn when we visited their house to play. He and his son arrived to the mall play room shortly after us. Luckily it's easy for us to spot each other. I was already comfortably situated in a massage chair when he found me. Kenzo and Osamu can play independently now and I can't really keep up with them anyway, so when we go places I set up a spot where I'll be and the boys come and find me when they're thirsty, hungry, injured, tired, or just need to tell me something. And they do.
Kenzo came to me at one point and asked for 100 yen. I asked him why. He knows I'm not putting money into game machines. He's gotta work for the money he wants to put into those things.
It turns out there was a special Easter egg coloring activity that came with gummy snacks, so I went with him and investigated and gave him a shiny 100 yen coin and he colored Kamen Rider on his egg.
Later when he showed me his handiwork I asked him if that was a real egg he replied, "Of course not!"
Osamu climbed and played and let out all of his four-year-old hyperactivity.
He also made fine use of the all-you-can-drink juice bar. He loves C.C. Lemon. For some reason he has taken an early liking to carbonated beverages. Kenzo stuck with apple juice. I had about a half-dozen iced coffees to justify the 400 yen adult drink bar price.
We played for nearly five hours straight, with a short lunch break. I mostly just talked with Falk and enjoyed watching him deal with his son. I was thinking about how my boys are now at the stage where they don't need constant attention like they did when were 2 years old. I can enjoy the massage chairs at the play room, have a coffee while the boys run amok at the playground, and even catch up on emails while they ride circles around the traffic park. I buzz in and out of their activities. Today Osamu and I played a ball tossing video game and laughed like crazy before he ran off with Kenzo and their new friends to do something else. Then a little bit later they came back and found me and we drank more juice and headed to the ball pool.
We got home before dusk so I snuck out for a walk. It was barely 6pm when I got back but the boys were already in the bath with Eri. Their batteries were drained.
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