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Parent-Teacher Conference

Kenzo was late coming home again today. Eri and Osamu went out to look for him, and while they were gone, Kenzo arrived home... with his teacher.

I was upstairs at my desk when I heard the door downstairs open. I knew it wasn't Eri and Osamu because their entrance would have been more dramatic. Instead, it was relatively quiet. Before I could react, I heard Kenzo's teacher's voice announcing his arrival. I quickly ran downstairs to find Kenzo with tears streaming down his face and his teacher huffing and puffing from the long walk home, probably after searching for him everywhere.

As soon as his teacher bowed and closed the front door Kenzo looked at me and said he didn't really hurt his foot. He took off his sock and showed me the, I'm not sure what you call it, blister that was forming from a nasty bug bite he got yesterday. He put a Band-Aid over it this morning but it was coming off and hurting his foot as he walked home so he stopped and sat down and started crying because he felt like he couldn't go on.

Last month Eri went for a parent teacher conference that I had actually signed up for myself but ended up not being able to go. So today we were both looking forward to going together to talk with Kenzo's teacher about things we're worried about. 

Eri dropped off the boys at Zanma-san's house to play for a couple of hours and when she got back we walked up to the school and sat down in Kenzo's classroom with his teacher and talked for about 45 minutes. She must think we are completely insane. Not in a bad way... I think. 

During the meeting I asked the teacher how often they send out those emails about parent teacher conferences. She said we'll be getting them every month. The way they do it here is parents who wish to have a conference with the teacher can sign up once a month via a webform that gets emailed monthly. She said some parents take advantage of it and others she hasn't really talked to that much. When we were walking home Eri and I joked that the teacher is probably dreading the idea of us signing up for a parent teacher conference every month. I assured Kenzo's teacher that we promised not to come in every time. She laughed and politely said it's totally fine if you do.

There are about 30 kids in Kenzo's class and when I walked into the classroom I noticed there were two desks with magic marker doodles on them, one of them being Kenzo's. 

His teacher confirmed what I already sort of know; Kenzo is a very nice boy and very friendly with not just the other first graders, but the older boys and girls as well. Some of his older 4th, 5th, and 6th grade friends from Saturday soccer club go to the same school and he plays soccer with them at lunchtime. He's become friendly with the captain of the soccer club and quite popular as well. However, he also excels at mischief. Like the doodling with permanent magic marker on his wooden school desk.

Eri and I talked all the way home about how we should handle issues with the boys and mused about what the future will hold.

While Eri has several worries, I, on the other hand, am relatively unconcerned. I believe our differing levels of concern strike a good balance. Then again, it's easy for me to say since I'm not the one burdened with worries.

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