Jolon latest

Jolon is going through a really easy stage for us. He goes to bed extremely well. After bath and books, he'll go to the toilet, and then get on Jan's back (the donkey) to be carried off to his tatami room, where he sleeps on his little futon (or more often than not, by the morning, straight on the tatami). He wants one of us to stay with him for a couple of minutes and then will often tell us it's ok for us to go. He rarely pees the bed these days, but rather will wake up at 3 or 4 and will come to us. Usually he'll go to the toilet by himself instead of one of us having to walk with him there, and then he'll come back and get in bed with us. Although the past couple of nights, he's gone back to his own room.

He likes to aggravate and tease Kellan, and will softly kick or tap him when he gets fed up with him, but he never gets too aggressive and tries to hurt him. He's much better at doing things when we ask (brushing teeth, getting dressed, etc.). He's very gentle and will often come up and feel the baby or ask me if the baby is moving. In fact we went to a party this weekend with some Japanese friends from hoikuen and Yura's Mom told me that of all of Yura's friends, Jolon, is by far the gentlest with Koto, her one year old. He'll run up to her as she's picking up Yura from school, and instead of pinching her cheeks like the other kids, Jolon will softly rub them. I was happy to hear that of course, but pointed out that it was probably because we had been so strict with Jolon when Kellan was born.

His Japanese seems to be very good and we seldom hear that he's having any difficulty understanding things at school. He has some very good friends and seems to get on well with everyone, girls and boys, although he does fight with his boy friends as well. Ibuki hasn't indicated that the fighting is out of control, and I think it's typical 4 year old boy play. Ibuki has said that he is doing quite a bit of "fuzakeru" (goofing off/making his friends laugh at him when he should be listening) at school, especially during the morning meeting while she explains the day's activities and when they sing songs, which he doesn't know all the words to and/or just doesn't enjoy singing very much. She wonders if it's not due to anxiety about the baby, but I think it's just Jolon being Jolon.