Skip to main content

BY the Hall!

Osamu fell down at kindergarten and skinned his knees again, so when he got home mama set him up with a waterproof bandaid and a cozy spot on the sofa to watch TV and take it easy. When Kenzo's out Osamu fully capitalizes on his temporary autonomy, so he had the remote control all to himself and binge-watched episodes of his favorite Netflix show Hello Ninja.

I walked up the street around 13:30 to meet Kenzo on his way home from school and waited a while. Almost 20 minutes actually. I got worried that I somehow missed him and called Eri and she said he wasn't home yet. Now she was worried.

Right at that moment Kenzo and his classmate Hidekazu came walking out of the community center. Apparently Kenzo had to go to the bathroom really bad, so he opened the community center door and encountered a group of old folks singing karaoke. He asked them if he could use the bathroom and of course they said sure.

Kenzo doesn't know what karaoke is yet, so he described the scene to me through his six-year-old lens as we said goodbye to Hidekazu and headed down the street to our house.

"There were a bunch of old people singing into a microphone and clapping and it was very noisy."

I told him that's karaoke and asked him if he wanted to go out with mama and papa and Osamu to sing songs sometime. He kinda shrugged his shoulders. I think his impression of karaoke at the moment is tainted by his bathroom emergency and the noisy old people.

This exchange occurred shortly after...

ME
Osamu, where did you fall down? At kindergarten?

OSAMU
Yeah. By the hall.

ME
In the hall?

OSAMU
BY the hall!

After everyone went to bed I headed out for my nightly walk. It's one of my favorite times of the day because it's calm and I can reflect on things. Before I go I peek in and check on the boys and Eri. I can't really describe the feeling, but it's soothing and gratifying to check and make sure my family is tucked in tight, safe and sound and cozy in their beds, before doing a little late night walk around the block.

When I got back fifteen minutes later I took a moment to enjoy entering my house.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

lookin tired/feelin good

I can't even read the clock right. Eri: "You're going to soccer, right? Aren't you a bit early?" Me: "Yeah! We usually leave at this time and get there right on time. We gotta go! Let's go guys!" Soccer club starts at 10 a.m. The boys know that when the long hand on the clock gets to the 8 (9:40) it's time to go to the bathroom and get our socks and shoes on and head down to the car. The big hand was on 8. The problem that Eri saw was the short hand. It was 8:40, not 9:40. I'm going nuts. Slowly . Rapidly. An hour later, after I slowly enjoyed my coffee and disposed of the last beetle (yes, all four beetles have now gone back to the earth) and cleaned his bug box to make room for new bug acquisitions and the boys chilled out on the sofa watching TV, we set off. While the boys played soccer I headed across the parking lot to grab them some juice boxes for a job well done. This is not standard procedure, but Kenzo made his comeback today after ...
1 comment
Read more

Experiences I Will Never Know About

Eri and I were checking out one of Kenzo's school notebooks tonight. This page has so much going on, and I love all of it. It made me realize something that I can easily forget - he's a person. He has a life separate from mine, lives each day having experiences that I will never know about, and has thoughts and ideas that I can't nor should get in the way of. "Thank you for doing everything," she said. Eri walked with me this morning as I went around the neighborhood and delivered planter box maintenance information and schedules to various folks.  We stopped at the first house and I rang the doorbell and handed the old lady the three-page information sheet I had made and copied and we exchanged greetings and then I realized this is going to take forever if I ring every single person’s doorbell and chit-chat with them. I’ve got 20+ more of these to hand out.  So we started just sticking them in people's mailboxes and made better time. Most folks aren’t home an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Friends and Co-workers

Taking a random Wednesday off from work means Thursday is going to be extra busy, and today was that. I was in meetings for a little over five hours and just barely managed to reply to emails that needed attention and attend to tasks that require daily steps forward. I have it so good because the people I work with are my friends. We even talked about this today in a meeting about our team culture. We do a solid amount of professional development and core values driven discussions. Officially, I am the manager, so my position has a certain nuance. For example, I know I'm not part of conversations that team members have amongst each other. And that's fine. It's natural. I trust everyone, as I would trust any friend, that they all have the best interests of each other and our organization at heart. They never let me down. The first meeting of the day was a two hour book study session. My team is passionate about growth, so we choose a book regularly, make a schedule, and meet...
1 comment
Read more