Toukasan Festival

Yet another summer festival. This one is in the middle of town and is connected to one of the old temples. We stopped by the temple briefly, ran into one of Kellan's teachers, Masakane Sensei. You can see her in the yukata (summer kimono) and see how shy Kellan suddenly became when she came over to us. I guess he was just surprised to see his teacher outside of the school setting. We then decided to forgo the festival food for some nice sandwiches from Andersen's. It was nearly 7:00 when we got there and after buying the food, we noticed a man making really intricate balloon animals, swords, etc. for free. We stood in line with the boys for about 10 minutes and when some other people came up to get in line too, the man told them he was finished. He hadn't said anything to us and we'd been waiting awhile so we were stuck wondering if the boy in front of us who'd just requested a sword AND a gun was actually the last customer. It took the man another 10 minutes to make the sword and gun.....he was a professional and used different colored balloons, different balloon shapes and sizes, and even different sized pumps. I knew that Jolon had his heart set on a sword (or more likely a gun, but he probably knew we wouldn't let him get a gun) and we were all going to be so disappointed if the man told us that he was finished for the evening. But what he did after the little boy walked away was just that. He said he was sorry but that he was all done....and then he took off his amazing balloon hat and told Jolon that he could have it. As you can see from the pictures, it was an amazing hat, but I was still a little worried that Jolon would be sorry about not getting his sword. He wasn't. He LOVED the hat and had a ball wearing it around the crowded streets and all the way home.

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.

Things I love about Kellan these days

1. The way he goes to sleep so easily now and stays asleep all night.

2. the way he usually goes along with being "Pidey Jr." when he, Jolon, and I play Spiderman.

3. the way he looks while he's sleeping.

4. how he mimics our facial expressions.

5. almost every time I'm trying to get him to go to sleep, I'll end up saying, "close your eyes," and......he does. It's so cute to see him struggling to keep them shut.

6. how patient he is with me when I wash his face, especially in contrast to Jolon, who hates it, and in contrast to how much he hates it when I brush his teeth.

7. Blue is "balloon". Lion Gumi is "Gion gumi". Cereal is "cererururu". Auntie Erin is "Auntie Terin."

8. the way he will still nearly always stop what he's doing and come give me a "sugar kiss" when I ask for it.

Things I love about Jolon these days

1. the way he looks at me quizzically when Jan has said something and he doesn't know if Jan is joking or not.

2. one way I compliment Jolon is by telling him how good he is at something in contrast to Kellan. So I'll say something like, "Kellan tried his best, but he just can't draw a picture of a sword like you can. Recently he's picked up on the idea and it's so cute when he whispers very seriously, "Kellan isn't very good at drawing, is he?" It's adorable that he always whispers so that Kellan doesn't overhear him.

3. "Mommy, will you play Spiderman with me?" I sing the theme song while he crawls around on all fours and shoots imaginary spider webs from his wrists.

4. He still has that cute lisp. one, two, fwee, four. library is "liberry". thumb is "fumb"

5. "You look pretty, Mommy," when I wear a skirt, wear something pink or yellow, or paint my nails.

6. Whenever he gets some dessert (a treat) he always points out that it's because "it's a special day." I guess I've said that to him for years, in hopes that he won't expect dessert after every meal.

June 3, 2009: river crabs, cooking takoyakisoba (Kellan's original word. Takoyaki is one dish and soba another, but he's combined the two to make his own original word) and ice cream.

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Sound quality is bad, but had to include this one because of how cute Kellan is when he shows me that he was scared to touch the crabs his class found down by the river yesterday. 

June 29, 2008

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Eating pancakes, syrup discussion, Kellan finds the pencils (ji ji) on the cup.

Bedtime story