A little boy can find playtime everywhere, any time. Empty toilet paper rolls become bowling pins in the hallway. The slices of bread takes the shapes of boats, fishes, rockets and moons all while being eaten. The soap and schampoo bottles in the shower are being used as materials to make a sculpture on top […]
When I moved to Japan I got convinced that moving to another country will, like nothing else, make you see things you have never seen, think about things you have never thought about, experience things you would never dream of experiencing. And I was stuck in that belief until I became a dad. Since then,
March is the end of the school year in Japan, and before next year starts in the beginning of April, the children have a few weeks of holiday. Our son had found a pamphlet at kindergarten regarding events for kids where Tomica toy cars and other types of vehicles were the center of attention, and
A short anecdote from our little family. One busy morning this week as we were getting dressed preparing to go and wait for the kindergarten bus, my son took an interest in the top of my head. I was bending down, arranging his socks, when he suddenly said pappa, du har en ladugårdsplan på huvudet.
My son and I have been playing with letters for more than a year now and he has gotten quite good at recognizing and pronouncing them. He has come to the point where he is enjoying trying to read shorter words and while in Sweden I bought a couple of learn-to-read-books that we have started
Making gingerbread cookies is a Swedish Christmas tradition that our son has grown very fond of. This year he started out by using the shapes and making hearts and stars and Santas, but also he took some creative liberties and created a host of figures and animals from his own imagination. Thus we ended up
Ever since he was one, our son has been happily greeting people we are meeting in passing. When he sees a neighbor walking by he opens the window and says good morning or hello, when we are out walking he always says hello to the people we meet, and the other day his aptitude for
Every autumn our son’s kindergarten organizes an art exhibition with objects and pictures that the children have created since summer. Our son has been very secretive about what they are doing. The last few weeks, when coming home he did not want to share much of his day in anticipation of having his parents come
Every weekday I put the alarm at 7.15 to have time to do all the morning preparations in a not-so-stressful pace before going to the kindergarten bus with our son. (Although sometimes I treat myself to a little snooze if I managed to prepare his clothes and bags the night before.) On Saturdays however, we
Every time I take the bicycle to the kindergarten to drop off or pick up my son, we stop by the biggish pond on our way. There are a lot of lotus growing there, and hiding among them are carp fish. We park the bike by the fence, and each time there are carps coming
Here comes the alphabet rain, said my son one day when we were playing. It was raining outside and we had just finished a board game where you roll the dice and go around looking for letters that you need to create the words you have on the game tile in front of you. The
A big patch of rain passed by and left behind 15 degrees lower temperatures. Suddenly, I found myself turning off the air conditioner, finding the long sleeved pajamas from my son, and having cold feet in the literal sense for the first time in many many months. Of course, with a rapid change in weather