a lifetime of worry

Loss has been on my mind a lot. Last January, a son of my family friend was murdered. I did not know about this until almost March, when his mother emailed me. He had gone for a semester abroad to Barcelona and within the first week of getting there, he unknowingly got mixed up in a bad situation and was killed. It was a sort of story you read about in the paper and are horrified, but then you somehow feel that you are shielded from things that bad and so you move on. This was not the case. I know the family. I knew the young man who was killed. I was stunned. He was a junior in college, so smart and full of potential, a son of great people -- and now he was no more. And to such a senseless crime. My mother loved this boy since he was a baby and all I could think about was that somehow she found him up there and has taken him under her wing. I missed her because we would have spent a good deal of time talking about it. In April, a friend I used to work with who had moved across the...

There is a Japanese animated film called Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. I'm a bit of a Miyazaki nerd and this, I think, is my favorite of his. I saw this in the theatre in Japan in 2001 with my mother, my nieces and Philip and had a cinematic experience that was rare anymore--I had no idea what was going to happen from one minute to the next, totally immersed and invested in the world that was unfolding and walked away feeling like I was truly on a journey. And as good movie and theatre should, it le d to many good discussions a fter.  Nerd fact: this film won many awards including the Academy Awards for best animated feature, but the most notable is the Berlin International Film Festival where it won the best film, NOT IN THE ANIMATED CATEGORY. End of Nerd fact. I remember that my middle niece was about 7 and was scared of some scenes (as I was at age 32) so I had it in my mind that I would introduce this to Yuki in a couple of years. Yuki has seen other Miyazaki film, som...

I have a list in my head as my lifelong goal as a parent Things to Instill in My Daughter. Most every decision I make, I cross reference to see if it's helping the goal. That list will likely to be adjusted as she grows, but it's been like this: 1. Self confidence. Tina Fey, when she accepted the Mark Twain Prize said, "I'd like to thank my parents for giving me confidence that was disproportionate to my actual talent," which struck me. This is everything. Especially for girls. I know this from my work. If a child possesses self-confidence, they can do anything. I get paid every day to figure out how to make this happen for every kind of kid. It's hard. But I truly believe it's the single most important gift you can give your child. 2. Good relationship with food. I come from a culture where people LOVE to cook and eat and talk about food and post pictures of everything they are about to eat on Facebook. My culture is also one of the longest living na...

...but here is a poem called, September . Kiddo's teacher makes the class memorize one poem a week and this was one of the first ones. I promise I will write more on our kindergarten adventures, but for now, enjoy.

Well, Kindergarten is off to a pretty good start. Here is a recap on the last three weeks: 1. Homework. She gets a sheet Monday through Thursday. It looks like this: It is pretty much coloring. Yuki loves coloring. UNTIL IT BECAME HOMEWORK. She was not clear on the concept that it had to get done, and before she played. She put up a fight for the first week and a half. I mean, fits of anger and tears. I told her to get a grip and face the harsh reality of life--well, not in those words, but pretty much that. After we made it clear that it was not going away and reminded her that it is something she actually enjoys doing, she got over it. Then she decided she was going to get that done at her after school program. Then I learned in curriculum night that the teacher is required to give homework but he told us all he cares about at this point is that they put their names on the paper and bring it back the next day. "It should not be a pro...

Yuki is starting Kindergarten in a week. Let me say this again. YUKI IS STARTING KINDERGARTEN IN A WEEK. OK. I'm fine now. This is the path we took: When she was born, there was no question about raising her bilingual. It made sense. I spoke and sang to her in Japanese, and got on the waiting list for a Japanese preschool when she was about 3 months old and enrolled her at 14 months. For a while we felt like our job was done, though in the back of our minds we knew that 4 years would fly by and we would have to figure out the next step. Then I started to wish really hard that we would find a way to send her to this public school just outside of our district that was known for language immersion and Japanese was one of the languages. This was also overall an excellent school. So how do we get her in there? For a while, we just speculated. Not sure why we didn't just go straight to asking the school but we based our hope on various bits of information we got from friend...

A little while ago there was this thing going around Facebook about how you should photograph your child every day so you have a record of what they are wearing so if they go missing you have something you can give to the police to aid in their search. It doesn't seem like a bad idea, in theory, but it was delivered in such an alarmist tone that the reactionary in me rolled his eyes and defiantly said to no one, "I am not going to live in a constant state of fear." And I didn't want to have to tell my daughter every morning, "Let me take your picture so if a stranger puts you in his car I can tell the police what you look like." Of course when it comes to the list of parental nightmares, this one is right up at the top. And I was a kid who was left in a store on a family road trip and nobody noticed until they all (mostly) got back in the car and started driving. Anyway, a few days after my inner-reactionary assured me that my parenting skills are vastly sup...

Yuki enters master bedroom. Philip has already gone off to work. Mimi is sleeping.  Yuki: Mama, can I watch something? (The standard line by Yuki when she walks into our room) Mimi: Yes, but we must first cuddle. Yuki: ( climbing in bed) All right. Pause Yuki: Mama, who painted that picture on the wall? Mimi: Oh, that is a poster of a painting. It was painted by an artist named Chagall. He was famous. Yuki: I want to be a painter like that some day. Mimi: ( smiling) I think you should. That would be great. Yuki: I want to paint you a beautiful picture that you can have in your bedroom with a frame around it. Mimi: ( gasps from beautiful words coming out of daughter's mouth) Awwww, I would love that. Yuki: It makes me happy to do nice things for you, Mama. Mimi: ( fighting back tears from magic that is her child)   Pause Yuki: Now, can I watch TV? WHO IS SHE? A Fancy Nancy wannabe. That's who.

Last Saturday, Yuki graduated from the preschool she has attended since she was 13 months old.  We have attended the graduation ceremony there in years past and found it to be pretty stinking adorable. They do some sort of performance, sing songs, introduce staff, short speeches from the teachers, and do the handing of the diploma.  Like everything else they do, this is done in a very Japanese way.  Each child it called up to the stage, and they face the principal. They both bow deeply, then they take a step forward, receive their diploma by taking it one hand at a time, step back and bow again. I did it when I was in school for all levels and they honor that tradition. When I first saw it, I wondered if Yuki would be able to do it well, or she would crumble under pressure. I think probably from all of her Creative Drama classes and other things she had to do in front of people, she has turned into a kid who can do as practiced.  Behold, her diploma receiving: ...

Fighting Kiddo's night-owl tendencies is pointless. So we are looking for ways to at least get her used to us not being in the room the whole time with her. My favorite method is "here, read something." It works surprisingly well considering she can't actually read. Recently she decided to dive into the box of 35-year-old comics I've picked up at some comic convention or another. She didn't want to touch them for a while because they had "fuzzy pages" (newsprint) and she only liked the comic books with "soft pages" (glossy pages). Modern comics are all printed on "soft pages". I told her once that she was missing out on some really good stories (I may or may not have been talking about The Wacky Adventures of Cracky ). Then last night, after cleaning and organizing her room, she decided she wanted to look at the "fuzzy" comics. She even said, "There might be some really good stories in there." (Dadoo weeps....

Against the advice of the IKEA instruction manual, we did not wait until our child was 6 years old to convert her convertible bed from a regulation bed to a quasi loft bed. Somebody tell their lawyers we will take all responsibility for it. What does this mean? Will she go back to going to bed by herself? We told her that we can't lie in the bed with her anymore because it won't support us. One day she will think to ask what kind of nonsense logic that is since it is the same bed that was on the floor just yesterday. Until then, though... Will it make her go to bed any earlier? I was talking to a friend today and I mentioned that Kiddo was still up last night at 10:00. She asked, "You let her stay up that late? Our kid goes to bed at 7:30." What I didn't say was "Eff you, you come over and put her to bed at 7:30. See how you like sitting in her room for four hours waiting for her to fall asleep." Kiddo remains a night owl. A clingy, clingy night...

It has been roughly six months since our last visit to Tokyo, which is a pretty short time compared to our previous cycle of 12 to 18 months. But since my mother's passing in October, I wanted to make an effort to visit my father slightly more often so we decided to take a trip while the weather was still pleasant there. It was totally insane though to try to leave just three days after Yuki's 5th birthday (yes, I said 5th--what is THAT??), which kind of blew up into this whole pirate extravaganza as birthdays do sometimes. Next year she gets a cupcake and a phone call from a friend. Anyway, we did all that, wrapped up things at our jobs, threw some things into suitcases and poured onto a 10 hour flight. This was Yuki's fourth trip, with twice happening last year, so she is now versed in long flights. And by "versed" I just mean we throw all of our regulated "screen time" rules out the airplane window and she gets to watch an unlimited amount of T...

Some day I hope to be able to write a book based on one of the titles that Kiddo comes up with for things. Both of you may remember "Fairy Dreams, I Love You" and the delightful and not-at-all-salacious "Put Your Legs In Front of Me" from the days when Kiddo's imaginary sister, Hoddie, was directing musicals at her theater in the town of Friendship (where everybody smokes, by the way). Today when I picked her up from school there was a drawing in her cubby. I asked her what it was and she said, "Oh, that's instructions for the rainbow machine. Don't plug in the red one because that's the poison plug." There is a great deal about rainbows that I do not understand. Anyway, lately I have been going through one of my attempts at getting back into some kind of shape that is not "pear." So I've been running a few days a week. Last week we had a nice day (first in a looooong time, it seemed) so I decided to go for a run after work. ...

In which we return with a song. Is it really a return? Who knows. But if you are reading this, you are more loyal than we deserve and we will endeavor to update you on what's doing with a little more regularity than we have shown in the last few months.

Recently, Kiddo and I finished reading a comic-book adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . It was written by Eric Shanower (Go find his Age of Bronze books and read them. Now. Spectacular stuff.) and illustrated by Skottie Young (whose work I only know from this book but I am a huge fan now). Here is what the cover looks like: And because we take the dust jackets off of all of Kiddo's books (the ripping... the ripping) this is what ours looks like: Remember this. It will be important later. This weekend, Kiddo came into our room rather early (it's her thing) and climbed into bed with us. Then she got out of bed and was really quiet for a while. Then I could hear paper rustling and the squeak of markers. What was she doing? Making her own Oz book. Her cover: Page 1, the Good Witch. Page 2, Dorothy and Toto Page 3, The Cowardly Lion This one makes me grin like a fool every time I see it. That hair! Page 4, the Tin Woodsman Go back up and look at the illustrated cover. I think...

Often at bedtime we will ask each other "What are you going to dream about?" Tonight I asked her and she said "A rainbow camel with rainbow bunnies riding on it." Then she grabbed my neck with both arms and pulled me close, as she is wont to do lately. Then she gave me a big, wet, not-all-the-way-over-a-cold kiss on the cheek and whispered, "I like your head." I am dumbfounded by this weird, hilarious being of pure love who lives in our house. Some days it feels like time is hurtling past so quickly... There are moments that I want to preserve in amber and keep with me forever. And then I am reminded of a poem I love. I've loved this one for the last 25 years but it means more to me now than it did when I first read it at 19. I guess poetry is like that. Anyway, here's a little Galway Kinnell for you, because it's on my mind. Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight 1 You scream, waking from a nightmare. When I sleepw...