The Quarterback

...a.k.a. "little guy", "QB", or "cube," and every once in a while, "Isaac". Since we don't live close to family, whenever we visit home both of our families always seem interested in what we call our kids. Their nicknames always seem to start with a story and then they evolve, until we have a hard time remebering how we got the name. Isaac has been no exception. It started in the hospital after we had just decided on the name Isaac. We were saying the name and then Isaac turned to "I-sack" which then became "I-sack the quarterback" which then shortened to "quarterback", then "QB" and when that is too much to say, just "cube". And since he is the littlest member of our family, we often just call him "little guy." So, when we go home in a few weeks (yeah!!!) you may choose any of those names and at least Cailey and Bryant will know who you are talking to.

Little guy is now over 7 months old and he is doing great. He has been neglected on this blog lately so I thought I would post a few pics. At this age they change so much. It seems that each day he starts doing something new. Here are a few of the recent changes.

Crawling and climbing a few stairs (No...not the stairs!!)Clapping

and standing in the crib

We love our quarterback!!

Shigoto wa nan desu ka

...which translates to "What is your job (work)?" Lately I feel like my job has been full time yochien (kindergarten) mom. As I look at my calendar over the last month most of the days have been filled with something to do with yochien. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. Some of it has been really fun, like the lunches with the moms. There has been the walking group mom's lunch, the lunch for the moms in Bryant's class, then another one for Cailey's class. I have had fun getting together with some of the moms for language exchanges. One girl named Emiko is helping me with Japanese and in return I am helping her start running. But then there are other things, like going to observe them in class. It really is interesting to see what they do, but after 30 minutes I feel like I have seen enough. And then when every other mom stays for hours you feel obligated to stay so that your kid isn't the only one in the class whose mom isn't there. There have been two observation days in the past month. One was for PE (with a special PE teacher...now that was interesting, I couldn't believe some of the things they made them do, I swear there would be lawsuits if they did those things in the US) and another day to watch them during the day in the classroom. But times that by 2 kids and that is 4 observation days in the last month. I took a few videos and pictures so that you can see a day in the life of a yochien student in Japan.
This is Cailey's class singing a song together in the morning.

Here is Cailey working on an art project.

This is a video of Bryant singing the song that they sing right before they eat lunch. They sing about being happy about eating lunch."Obento, obento ureshii na..."Obento" is the lunch they bring to school in a lunch box (not that you can understand what they are saying...)



I was trying not to laugh while Bryant was doing this art project, because they gave them these pre-cut faces and they were supposed to draw on the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. Notice how nicely Bryant's class mates have done theirs and he was just happy to use every color in his marker set on his "face."

Oh yes...I do have a third child and Isaac has been a really good sport joining me for all of these Yochien activities. There have been a few days when it has just been Isaac and me at home, and oh how nice those days are.