We live in a part of the world where seismic activity and volcanos are part of life. We live in a house where dinosaur-books and water-play is a common feature in everyday activities. We are a family where we use three languages in our conversations. Unsurprisingly, this all gets mixed, and sometimes in the cutest […]
Like the previous two years, come end of May, our son got a really bad cold. But unlike the time when he turned two and three, this year on his fourth birthday he had recovered enough to both go back to his kindergarten and to have a birthday party with grandma. He has been talking
Before going to sleep, I set my alarm at 7.15 to make sure we will have enough time for all the morning preparations needed for a little boy to go to kindergarten. In fairness I would not really have to set the alarm since I almost every morning wake up before it goes off, wake
Our son loves his eggs. Boiled, scrambled, fried, omelette, or poached in miso soup – they are all delicious to him. He often start the day with rice, some fish or meat and vegetables, together with some kind of eggdish. At first he only wanted to eat the yolk if it was mixed with the white
Having an energetic toddler at home I have come to learn, means always being busy (to put it mildly). We have a lot of fun together, playing games, doing puzzles, reading books, doing things around the house like cooking, hanging the laundry, watering the little vegetable garden. We are going grocery shopping, doing small excursions
みどりの日, or Greenery Day as it is called in English, is a holiday during the Japanese holiday week called Golden Week. GW has four public holidays during a period of a week, and Greenery Day is celebrated on May 4th, although I like to think of the day as the literal translation instead – Green
Sometimes there are coincidences that make life happening around me seem almost choreographed, like a ballet where each pose, each jump is decided beforehand, long before I get to see it. Saturday morning our son was doing funny-walk in the kitchen. He went back and forth in a way that reminded me of Charlie Chaplin,
The new school year has started and for our son that means that he now is in his first year of three where he will wear a kindergarten uniform. Our kindergarten has one formal uniform that the children use when they are going to and from school three days a week, and a sports uniform
Living in Japan and writing a blog about everyday life here, avoiding a cherry blossom post in spring feels like something almost unthinkable. The beautiful trees are sparkling everywhere in pink and white, be it in the city, in parks or in the countryside and on the mountain slopes. Going inside, cherry blossom decorations are
During the school spring break we had dear visitors from Tokyo who used their little holiday to come and spend some days in Fukuoka with us. It was such a happy occasion and our son was thrilled to spend time playing with his older friends. The difficult thing with being the youngest though, is not
Quite often mum is working late so it is only son and dad that do the before-bed-story time-routine together. We normally start with a Swedish picture book, or (as we have done recently) read a chapter from Pippi Långstrump, Pippi Longstocking, the famous and still very popular children’s books character created by Astrid Lindgren. (As
It is one year now since our son started kindergarten. In Japan the school year starts in April and there is a little holiday for the students between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. It is difficult to believe that it has already been one year, and when I