Golden Week

Once more a month has slipped by and I have written nothing here... My schedule is no different to before, but I do feel busier recently. One reason is that T (Now With Added Vigour!) has mastered the art of opening/climbing over any baby gates and fences, and has free run of the house. I seem to spend a lot of my day running after him and checking what he's up to. When K was that age, he was still generally content to stay gated in the main living area and never bothered to climb over the fences. T is different though, and loves to get into the bathroom to play with the water, head to our bedroom to pour perfume everywhere, or raid the kitchen for tomatoes or carrots to eat. We now have locks on the outside of the toilet, bathroom and sewing room doors, and an alarm on the double-locked front door...

Anyway, we had some days off and some good weather over Golden Week so, employing the Avoid-Trouble-With-Taisei-At-Home-By-Going-Out-As-Much-As-Possible technique, we had several little outings as well as fun as home.

An afternoon at the Tengu park at Daisen.

Colour sorting (with cheeky grin caused by deliberately putting blue pom-poms in the yellow circle)

At the beach at Kaga

Exploring the rockpools

On the big roller slide in a park in Sakaiminato

Measuring the wisteria at Fuji-dera.

Musical mischief on the piano.

Dressing up at Muki Banda...

...and exploring the Iron Age houses.

We also had a couple of barbecues at our place and at Lisa's, H took K to the local shrine's spring festival and I did some sewing, but more on that later....

March round-up

A little collection of things from last month, otherwise at risk of slipping through the blogging net...

H made a special 'prince and princess' meal for Hina Matsuri (the Doll Festival)

K enjoying his new Junior Monopoly

Lately T likes to hide in the living room cupboard and close the door behind him...

At our local mother-and-toddler group

We've been doing sorting activities lately

While T was at nursery, K and I made Chuggington models

At the park

K's robot costume, using MakeDo he got for his birthday

After our lunch at Agni, the boys enjoyed exploring the fake, indoor jungle

And in non-photographed events, we watched Mary Poppins, had a visit from Bud and Kyoko, K and I went to a performance of 'The Musicians of Bremen' and I skived yoga a lot...

Back to school

K started back at kindergarten this week for the new school year, after a 2 week break. He's one of the 'big boys' now, in the last year before elementary school. The classes get shuffled each year, so he has a lot of new classmates plus a few who were the same as last year. The teachers also change classes each year, and K was surprised to learn that his teacher this year will be... the same as last year! She's lovely, so everyone's happy about that.

During K's spring holiday my schedule was virtually the same as usual, H was at work of course and even T had his usual swimming/nursery/play centre commitments. Still, we did manage to fit in a bit of fun here and there...

The new, if tiny, sand pit was popular and will do until I get around to building a bigger one

The now-traditional trip to Toy Kingdom...

...now enjoyed to the full by both little monkeys.

A little picnic under the cherry blossoms

The 'cardboard funfair' - can you name that blur?

A day at the park...

...where T was determined to keep up with K

And of course there was also a lot of indoor tent-building, Octonaut-watching, puzzle-making, sibling-teasing, book-reading and general riot-running at home. So, not much different from term-time really...

Easter

Did you do anything special for Easter?

We're a pretty secular family, living in a non-Christian country where the marketing potential of Easter has not yet dawned on the chocolate companies, so Easter tends to pass us by unnoticed. On the other hand, I always welcome the chance to do some craft, and eat some chocolate, so a little effort was made.

The boys made some Easter bunnies, although T's didn't last the day...

...and we tried planting some grass seeds in eggshell 'heads', but they haven't come up...




K made the stands - I told him he could decorate them as he liked. Yup, they're solar systems.




On Easter Sunday, the Easter Bunny hid 6 eggs in the garden for the boys. I briefed K to let T find some of the eggs himself, but soon realised he didn't need any special treatment.

After finding all the eggs, the serious work of unwrapping began...

Later we all went to Lisa's place for a barbecue lunch. It wasn't terribly warm, but it was good to see her parents again, visiting from Australia, and H was glad to get to see her new house for the first time too. All in all, a good day!

2 little monkeys

Birthday season seems like a good time to write an update on my boys, so please forgive a bit of doting-mummy-ness...

K turned 5 at the beginning of March, and will start his second, and last, year of kindergarten next week. He remains as planet-obsessed as ever, and likes to draw and cut out diagrams of the solar system. In fact, give him some paper, scissors and tape and he will entertain himself quite happily. He will spend hours poring over reference books and starts many a conversation with 'Did you know...?' Lately he has gotten into Lego, and also tells everyone that he loves Cars and Lightning McQueen, despite never having seen the film. He likes to watch The Octonauts and Chuggington. He reads confidently in English, and can read hiragana and katakana (the 2 simple syllabaries) in Japanese. He can write quite well in English too, but still prefers to have things to copy in Japanese. He speaks Japanese well now, and has started to use it a bit at home too.

K has been going to swimming for almost a year now, and has recently become a lot more confident. Yesterday I watched him jump into the pool without hesitation, going completely under the water. The classes focus more on confidence in the water and proper technique than learning to actually swim so I think it will be a while until he can swim by himself, although he gets along quite well with a float. He's generally well-behaved (and his eating pace has definitely picked up, although getting dressed has slowed down), but there are rebellious moments, plus rather a lot of selective hearing, especially when related to tidying-up...

T turned 2 last week, and is in full mischievous toddler mode. A few examples, just from today: undressing himself half a dozen times throughout the day; weeing on the floor, and in his stacking cups; climbing onto the kitchen counter from the living room, leaning over to get the liquid soap and then pumping it out all over the place; moving the coffee table to the living room gate and then using it to climb over said gate, before going to the next room and playing the piano; having a mouthful of mushed-up brown stuff which I presume was a piece of cardboard. And those are just the things I know about... He sleeps well, from around 8.30 till 7.15, but doesn't nap or ease up at all in the daytime.

Still, he gets away with it because he's very cute. He eats well, usually as much as K, and uses spoons, forks and training chopsticks confidently. His vocabulary is growing in both English and Japanese and he makes little 2 word 'sentences' like 'Daddy bus' and 'stick gone'. He loves to be read to and often sits looking at a book by himself too. Lately he's interested in counting; yesterday when I pointed out some birds and counted out loud '1,2,3,4,5', he continued '6,7,8,9,10!' (although there were only 5 birds...). Going down the escalators, he pointed to the number 2 written on the floor and said 'two!', although when I pointed to '1', he said 'eight!'... Still, he's interested!

T loves Maisy, and anything Maisy-related. He even refers to any elephant as 'Eddie', and crocodile as 'Charlie'. He likes to 'draw' with crayons, and play with stickers. He likes playing outside and riding the tricycle, and impressed me at the park yesterday with his confidence in climbing, navigating obstacles and going down quite big slides! One of the questions on the 2 year check up was 'Can he run?'. Oh yes. He can certainly run, especially when it is away from me.

Both boys are quite into imaginative play nowadays, and enjoy dressing up and using the play kitchen. This is a rather recent thing for K, but T has been doing all kinds of 'pretend' play for a while. He really likes soft toys too, and will often pick up a teddy for a cuddle. Today they were being doctors in the play tent, bringing in all the teddies to be taken care of. Apparently K was the doctor, giving injections, and T was the nurse, supplying cuddles.

I'm sure I could carry on like this for ages, but that's probably enough for now. They are both beautiful, sweet little boys who I love dearly, and who drive me crazy at times...

Elegant Dinner Party

Earlier in March, my friend and local legend Cian organised an 'Elegant Dinner Party'. Basically consisting of dinner and drinks at a restaurant, the key point was that everyone had to dress up. Now I spend most of my time in jeans and am quite happy that way, but I do love to dress up now and then and I happened to have just the dress...

Lots of people complimented me on the floor-length, sleeveless dress I wore, and I had great fun telling them that not only did it belong to my mum in the early 1970s, but that she made it herself!

So thanks to Mum for the dress, to Cian for giving me a chance to wear it, to my lovely friends Lisa, Adeel and Hiromi for letting me nag them into going to the party with me and to H for staying home with the boys. I do have one other dress I'd like to wear sometime though...

Happy Birthday T!

Yesterday was T's 2nd birthday. Being a Thursday, I also had swimming with T in the morning, and a class in the afternoon. Unfortunately it also coincided with H having a high temperature (suspected, but later disproved, flu) and being in bed all day, so there wasn't really much time left for birthday fun.

The night before, T had figured out how to get out of his cot, and the two little monkeys had had great fun Not Going To Sleep. I was up and down the stairs telling them to go to sleep, in between wrapping presents, finishing off the birthday crown, putting up the birthday banner and occasionally checking on my poorly husband. K (yes K, not T) was up at 6.30, full of birthday excitement, but I was ahead of him, already decorating the cake (including a quick trip to the 24 hour supermarket for emergency cream cheese at 6.50).

By mid-morning, there was time for present opening...

 

...before heading off to the pool. Then it was time for a quick lunch before I headed out again, leaving the boys with H's mum, in a living room still scattered with wrapping paper!

Finally, cake time!

The cake was met with smiles, and T had those whiskers out and eaten in no time. He can already blow out candles better than his brother...

See that little badge there, with T's face on it? H made that. It's got Maisy on it too...

Plan A (pre-suspected-flu) was to go out for dinner, meaning that there was very little food in the house, especially special party food. On the way home from my class I picked up a couple of pizzas at the supermarket and added extra toppings. Hardly a luxury feast, but the boys were happy and ate it all up with enthusiasm. Quick to prepare too, which is an important factor now that T's favourite game while I am in the kitchen is Throw All My Toys Over The Counter Into The Sink (Bonus Points If You Hit Mummy)...

Today we went to the play centre and then spent the rest of the day at home, playing with new birthday toys and clearing up some of the post-birthday-rush mess (can you guess who did what?). There were still a couple of birthday-related treats too, including rabbit cakes from H's mum...

...and an Anpanman towel/costume from Adeel and Hiromi:

So, although things may not have gone exactly to plan, I think it turned out to be quite a fun time for a freshly-minted 2 year old (and his big brother). Oh, and H is much better today, thanks.

End of the school year

The school year in Japan runs from April to March, and today was K's last day. He has now completed one year at kindergarten, and has one more to go before starting elementary school. When he started kindergarten last year he couldn't really speak Japanese at all and sometimes had difficulty expressing himself. It never seemed to bother him though, and now he is as much of a chatterbox in Japanese as he is in English.

I think it's been a great year for him there. He settled in very well, and was happy to go from the very beginning. He's made some good friends and has lovely teachers too. They don't overtly teach academic subjects, but focus on craft, music, physical activity and social interaction. K has had a lot of great experiences, such as sports days, the school play, day trips and picnics, and 'exhibition day'. He has learnt to do origami and to skip, he can swing around the horizontal bar on the climbing frame and he has become an enthusiastic artist and inventor.

Each month the kindergarten holds a little birthday ceremony for all the children born in that month. Being a March baby, K has had all year to look forward to his turn. I went along last week, and saw him join the other crowned children proudly on the stage.

 

In turn, the birthday children were asked to give their name and class, and to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. I couldn't catch a lot of the replies, even though they were using a microphone. Several girls said they wanted to be 'a mum', and there were also the usual 'nurse', 'cake shop owner', 'soccer player' and 'superhero'. What do you think K said?

'I want to research space' (宇宙を調べたいです).

This prompted several 'ooh's from the watching parents, and knowing nods from people who knew him well.

So today K said goodbye to his teacher and his classmates from Sakura (cherry blossom) class. The 3 classes in his year will be shuffled to make 3 new groups from April. He found out today that he'll be in Fuji (wisteria) class, but he won't know who the teacher is until school starts again. K is excited to be moving up, and hopes to get Teacher K, because he does magic tricks...

Decluttering

I've been gradually decluttering the house, sorting out clothes, books and a wide variety of stuff that I no longer need. Actually, much of it is stuff that I never really needed in the first place but we do have a tendency to accept other people's cast-offs and freebies. Like someone being offered an unwanted dog in danger of being put down, H and I are both suckers for things which 'will be thrown away if you don't take it'.

So last Sunday K and I loaded up the car and went off to a flea market. I'd had a booth once before at this particular flea market, and sold quite a lot. This time I had even more stuff, and it was quite a challenge to get it all set up before the waiting hordes of bargain-hunters were allowed in.

And then the doors were opened.

And 3 people wandered in.

Sadly, that set the pace for the day. There were very few customers, and most of what I did sell was to other stall-holders. I made enough to pay for the pitch, plus about enough for the pizza we ordered for dinner that night. My main aim though was not to make money but to get rid of the stuff! It was quite disappointing to have to load it all back up into the car again, and then to find space for it at home. I think I'll try again at one more flea market, and then I'll just give up and give it away to anyone who'll take it.

Looking on the bright side, I had a lovely day with K. I wasn't sure about taking him with me, but he was really well-behaved. It helped that the stall opposite ours was being run by the mum of one of K's classmates! She had all 3 of her daughters with her (plus her husband, who helped me pack up my stuff at the end), and K had great fun playing with them. Several stalls (including mine) had 'please help yourself' boxes, and the children were very pleased with the treasures they managed to acquire for free. K also had 100 yen to spend as he liked, and was very proud of the toy dinosaur he bought All By Himself. Overall, a fun day out.

K is 5

As usual nowadays I am very behind in posting here, but last Tuesday K turned 5. He was so excited at the prospect of his birthday, and the little party we'd planned for a few of his classmates. I was surprised at how much he remembered from his birthday last year when we started talking about what he'd like to do this year.

The day started with crown-wearing and present-opening...

... and then moved on to birthday pancakes and a phone call from Gran and Grandad.

Then after kindergarten came the best part, the party! 5 of his classmates came, plus all their mothers and a couple of baby siblings. Here's the birthday boy eagerly awaiting his guests by the front door:

We kept things very simple at the party: a few party games, birthday cake and a bit of running around in the garden since the weather was lovely. Simple as it was, it was probably more than most of them expected and I think everyone had fun.

 

I may need to rethink the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey blindfold for future use, since 4 of the 6 tails were stuck in exactly the right place...They also played pass-the-parcel and musical statues, all new to everyone except K.

Months ago, K told me that he wanted the same train birthday cake as last year. It's a bit of a fuss to decorate, but I'm glad that he liked it so much. And of course, it does tend to impress the audience ;-)

After K's guests had left we all headed out for a nabe dinner with H's parents, and before bed there was even a bit of time for star-gazing. Lots of K's favourite things all squeezed into one busy day! Once again, his friends and family proved how well they know him in their kind gift selection - Lego, toy cars, Roald Dahl books, space-themed things, puzzles, maps and more.

Finally, a little collection of photos from March 5th, from 2008 to 2013. Hasn't he grown?

Valentine's Day

Did you do anything special for Valentine's Day? We didn't really, but the boys did make some hearts to decorate the living room. I cut out lots of paper hearts, then the boys painted one half and folded them to make symmetrical prints. T got really into it, choosing colours and splodging the paint on. K approached it differently, painting careful lines and patterns onto his paper.

Once they were dry we taped them onto some string and hung them up at the living room window.

We also wrote a list of things that each boy loves. K and I decided T's list between us, and then K told me what he loves. I thought it would be fun to do this every year and build up a collection of hearts showing the boys' interests over time.

K takes a packed lunch on Thursdays, so I thought I'd make it a little bit special on Valentine's Day, putting heart-shaped carrots, cheese and mini-tomatoes on top of the rice. I very rarely put any kind of dessert into K's lunch, but this time I added one (1) individually wrapped chocolate. After school K told me that his teacher said I must never do that again. Sigh...