Playing with water on the balcony

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What's for dinner?

How about freshwater eel? This is a traditional, midsummer Japanese dish. They call it stamina food. The eel has lots of fat to give energy to keep moving in the heat. Jan had a late class and I had to get dinner on the table and sometimes it's easier to enlist the boys' help rather than fight to keep them out of the kitchen. In fact it was a lot of fun cooking with them. Jolon did an excellent job cutting the eel with the BIG knife and I had another little helper who did his part equally as well.

Asami

We went to the Family Pool on Saturday and since Jan was working, Asami came over to help me out. She was a big help and the boys really enjoyed her. After lunch we watched a bit of a movie before naps.

Our neighbors probably think we're crazy,

but a pool on the balcony is actually a lot of fun. Jan has even started bathing them out there (notice the shampoo cap on Jolon). Why not?

Every once in a while....

things get a little too quiet around the house. These days the toilet is the first place I look.

Jolon's favorite t-shirt

Hiroshima Carp, the local baseball team. He'd wear it every day if we let him.

Chadokuga (Poison tea tree moth)

Jolon got bitten by a poisonous moth. He came home yesterday with a rash on his abdomen and a slight fever, but he'd been for a long walk at school and a trip to the family pool with his class. We were pretty sure it was just a heat rash. But when we got to school this morning and showed his teachers, they knew right away that it was the moth. Jan took him straight to the doctor and she gave him some oral medication and cream to help stop the itching. As it turns out, it was most likely poison that was on the body of the moth that got on Jolon, and not actually a moth bite. These moths are out in the trees and parks this time of year. Poor thing, the rash is actually pretty nasty looking (click on the pictures to see up close just how bad it is). The good news is that it should clear up soon with the medicine. His teachers and the principal of the school all apologized to us profusely, although of course it's not their fault. I guess they must feel somewhat responsible when anything like this happens during school hours, but it wasn't anything that could be helped. I think a couple of kids from the older classes have the rash as well. When Jolon came home Wednesday afternoon, Jan said that the teachers had checked Jolon's temperature and mentioned that he had a low-grade fever but seemed otherwise ok (this was before the rash appeared). I'm actually amazed that with 20 kids, his two teachers even noticed that he was hot enough to check if he had a fever. It's nice to know that they take such good care of him and are that tuned in to how the kids look and feel.