Earnest and Meticulous

Soccer Saturday again. The weeks are flying by, and it’s kind of freaking me out. Five months until I hit 50, and sometimes I feel like I need to find a way to slow things down. It’s all going way too fast.

Kenzo was home sick last weekend, so he was literally jumping with excitement to be back on the field with his friends today. It wasn’t even that cold, at least not as bitter as it’s been all week. The sun was out, and all the kids were in high spirits. While Osamu played, Kenzo and I snuck off for a car wash. I went for the wax option. Winter grime makes everything look so dreary, and I wasn’t the only one who had the same idea... long line of guys waiting to get their cars back to looking decent, at least until the next snowfall.

Osamu was beyond thrilled when I announced it was time for Family Make Your Own Pizza Night. Ever since our first one last year, he’s been steadfast in his dream of opening Little Pizza Shop... a place with a big, open dining area but tiny pizzas. He reminds Eri and me constantly that when it opens, we must go every day.

He's so earnest about making pizzas.

Meanwhile, Kenzo’s passion is origami. He’s always checking out books on it from the school library, even from the public library in Izumi Chuo. Today, Eri surprised him with his very own copy of his favorite origami book, and as soon as it arrived, he ripped it open and spent the entire afternoon meticulously folding. He only paused long enough to battle me and Osamu in Beyblade. I now own my own Beyblade—Viper Tail—which so far has lost every single battle. It sits on my desk when not in use, silently judging me.

Kenzo grudgingly gave up the dining table when it was time for pizza night. We really need to do this more often because the pizza was amazing. And this time, I remembered black olives, clearly the best topping.

Comments

Not About Baseball

I stayed up past my bedtime again last night. I almost made it. I watched a couple of episodes of Ted Lasso and came to a good stopping point where I was satisfied with myself for enjoying some quiet TV time with my favorite show and even though it was after midnight, I was confident I could still get a pretty good night's sleep. But no. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to just lay on the living room carpet and put on a movie. I saw the first seven or eight minutes of Goodfellas and then I woke up when the end credits were rolling with Sid Vicious' is cover of My Way . I brush my teeth and I can see the light of day already shining in through the bathroom window. "It’s almost the longest day of the year," I told myself, to at least rationalize why I'm brushing my teeth and crawling into bed at this hour. I was trying to minimize the mental anguish I regularly put on myself for not just going to bed like I should. I told Eri that I was thinking a...

Overpriced Highball for the Big Guy

I keep falling asleep at my desk and waking up all groggy and surly in the middle of night, stumbling downstairs to brush my teeth without waking anyone, and slinking back up the steps and into bed. So I was the last one up again this morning, but I made up for it by quickly getting ready and taking the boys out on a Sunday morning walk to look for bugs. Kenzo has been particularly keen on capturing another lizard. He doesn't understand that lizard season is ending and those guys are becoming more and more rare. He got his hopes up when we came across a little one walking up some woodsy steps. After that we took a break. Eri's sister and her husband stopped by to grab the car seats that the boys just graduated from. Their little girl Emika is just now big enough to start using one and next spring she's gonna have a brand new baby brother or sister who will also need a car seat, so the timing worked out nice for all of us. Emika apparently loves Thomas the Tank Engine (who d...

Mr. Blue Sky

Man, I conked out so hard on the living room floor tonight. Right after bath time, before story time. I barely remember. Completely exhausted. Big adventure day. Another in a long series I hope the boys will remember when they’re older... our first IMAX movie, a downtown city outing, and some life lessons in the game center. We left the house at 9:15 a.m. and didn’t get back until nearly 6 p.m., totally spent but full of pizza and memories. The Wild Robot in IMAX was totally stunning. The scale, the colors, the sound. We could feel every gust of wind and rustle of leaves. I made sure we had prime seats, row G, right in the center. Two big buckets of popcorn too, which, according to Kenzo and Osamu, I absolutely should not be sharing. “You should get your own!” they kept saying. I think a little bit of popcorn thievery is well within my rights as the papa. After the movie, we headed through the cold and wind across to the game center on the other side of Sendai Station. Being...

This'll Just Take a Minute

Search This Blog