A cultural experience...

So, we did like any normal people would do, we took out Italian friends to a football match! We arrived early and for some reason they had a load of animals to pet?! Ebi-kun was quite taken with the rabbits...

and Gaia was acting like a 32 year old going on 6, there was a lot of silly giggling that I am sure the boys couldn't figure out what we were laughing at - mostly reminiscing of times gone by.

Then we got down to the serious stuff and watched the match, well Gaia and I most chatted. Luca was funny, the typical passionate Italian and he was completely into the game, even thought the day before he had never even heard of either of the teams. I asked Ebi-kun to hold my beer whilst i got my camera out and just look at the little monkey...

After the match Ebi-kun and daddy headed off to eat and go home and I hung out for a bit with Gaia Luca, lots of fun, lots of laughs, it is hard to believe it is 20 years since I lived with her.

I should warn you now, it is Golden Week next week so my blog posts might be all over the place, I might attempt blogging form my new iPhone! or I might not. And apologies to those who commented on the last post, I managed to delete instead of publish aghhhhh. I am not a fan of bloggers new set up, I did answer the question about bicarb of soda though.

a nice bit of crumpet...

I recently found golden syrup in Kaldi and although it is not something I would eat a lot of at home I couldn't resist getting a pot.

One of my favourite treats back home is hot buttered crumpets slathered in golden syrup, I did say treat! I did try making my own crumpets a while ago, they tasted great but I managed to burn myself in the process so I haven't tried them again since, until last night that is...

1tsp sugar

625ml warm milk

2tsp dried yeast

400g plain flour

1tsp salt

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

This will make about 15 normal sized crumpets, there are only 3 of us so I halved the recipe.

Dissolve the sugar in the milk then sprinkle the yeast on top, leave for 10 minutes until frothy.

Sieve the dry ingredients together and add half the liquid and mix well, slowly mix in the rest of the liquid. Cover the bowl and leave to stand in a warm place until the mix had doubled in size.

Normally you use metal rings to cook the batter in, last time I tried party cutters but it was a bit of a farce so this time I just spooned a load into the hot, lightly oiled frying pan and made giant crumpets instead.
As they cook the surface starts to bubble, when most the batter is cooked, flip and do the other side. The Bottom should be golden brown and the top sort of holey.

Eat hot, slathered in butter and golden syrup!

Settling into a new rhythm....

We have made it! Ebi-kun had his first full week and full days at school this week, we are just getting into the swing of things and then next week will throw us off again since it is Golden Week so Monday, Thursday and Friday are holidays.

The week has gone quite well, before we used to get up at 6.10am, OK that is a lie, Daddy and Ebi-kun got up then and I would get up at 6.30am so that they could spend a bit of one-on-one time together, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it! But now, Ebi-kun has to be out of the house by 7.20am so we all get up at 6am.

I am more of a morning person and I hate starting the day off with manic rushing around, it just sets me off on the wrong foot for the rest of the day. So I prefer to forgo that extra 10 minutes of sleep so that we can have a nice relaxed breakfast. It is the only time during the week that we all sit down together, talk about what has been happening during our days, share some quality time together.

This is how the day seems to pan out for us...

6.00am - get up, get dressed, put PJ's away

6.15am - eat breakfast (Ebi-kun is a slow eater so we need to have plenty of time for this bit!)

6.45am - wash & brush teeth

7.00am - clear the table & put dishes away

~ 7.20am - play/read with daddy

7.20am - leave for school/work

I then have the day to do what I need to do. I try to get important jobs done earlier in the day, along with pattern writing or cutting out, if I leave them until the evening I know I will just end up making a load of mistakes. After lunch I do the post office/supermarket run if needed and then finish 'work' 30-60 minutes before Ebi-kun is due home. I use that time to do some cleaning or whatever needs doing around the house.

3.20pm - Ebi-kun gets home. Unpacks bag, prepares what he needs for the next day. I wash his cutlery set and it goes straight back in his bag. He hasn't started with homework yet but this is the time he will do it.

3.30pm - have a drink & small snack if he is very hungry.

~ 5.00pm - play with friends or me, do a craft or watch some TV.

5.00pm - prepare dinner and prepare clothes for the next day

5.30pm - eat dinner (daddy eats when he gets home)

~ 6.50pm - he reads to me, free play and 3 or 4 times a week we chat to my mom via Skype.

6.50pm - tidy up, make sure desk is tidy.

7.00pm - bath & brush teeth

7.30pm story & bed

I take a bath once he is settled in bed, bath time is often when I get my next great idea or when I can work through a problem, probably because I am in a small room with no distractions. When I get out I make notes, jot down ideas or fix whatever it was that has been causing a problem. 

9.00pm ~ 11.00pm I put the TV on and put my feet up, sometimes I work in my sketch book, playing around with new ideas or designs or I get my hand sewing out, I quite like to sew and watch TV at the same time. Daddy-ebi usually arrives home around this time too so I zap his dinner whilst he takes a bath. By 11.00pm I am done for and it is off up the wooden hill (stairs) for me.

This past week I haven't organised any projects or crafts because I wasn't sure how tired he would be but I always have supplies to pull out if need be. We did start making another star wars craft, we are planning to finish it today and he wasn't quite as shattered as I imagined he would be. I imagined that by 5pm Wednesday he would be horrible but daddy had been away in China and came back Wednesday afternoon so Ebi-kun forgot all about how tired he was with the excitement of having time to spend with daddy.

As it turned out, his first full week has felt quite relaxing, I have made real headway with the current project I am working on and even had time to make some extras. This first will be sent out with the newsletter this weekend (sign up on the top right). The only downside is that I have spent so much time on the computer that my wrist is killing me today. I therefore declare that today is minimum computer work day and I that I must go and make myself a new bag!

Child Art Portfolio II

A couple of years ago I made a portfolio book with all of Ebi-Kun's artwork in it along with a few pictures of the artist at work. Doing this meant I could clear out some of the mountains of work without feeling guilty. When Ebi-kun finished yochien he came home with a big folder full of work and some of the pieces are on massive A0 sized pieces of paper, too big to hang on our walls!

Thanks to keeping the blog I tend to take pictures of all his work as he has finished them so I added the collection of work from the last three years to the massive pile of work from yochien and made a second portfolio book.

I used Blurb again, I actually use Blurb for all my photo books these days, I have tried several other sites but their software combined with the quality and price make Blurb my favourite site to use and if you sign up for their newsletter you often get discounts and offers.

So, I kept with the same style book as before, I like artwork displayed on plain black, I think it shows off the work better and is less distracting than a fancy background.

I included some of the things that have been made from his artwork too, like the Surfing Silver bracelets and added a bit of text about the story behind the Ninja Wendy bracelet.

A few pages show the work in progress, this was his fabric design for a Spoonflower competition, he started off with several dinosaur pictures, he picked his favourite and worked on the background. Once we had the fabric printed I made it into an art carrier for his birthday.

With the Blurb software, it is easy to check if your image is the right size, if an image is too small it will print out blurred. There are also several layout options to choose from and you can edit them to suit yourself if you wish. If you want to make a quick book they also have an option where the software auto-fills all the pages for you.

I love how the colours come out, the abstract pieces look like gallery works of art in a modern art museum, it also means we don't have to keep all the robots and sculptures he has made, we usually have them on display for a while, I take photos and then they get recycled.

And best of all, Ebi-kun loves looking through his book and showing it to friends. He often gets his first book out and will ask to paint with a specific method after remembering some of the work he had done previously.

Sunshine on the wall...

I saw something like this somewhere on the inter-webs but I don't remember where, it was basically a load of circles strung together, simple but effective. Anyway, there is a blank wall in my studio that has been crying out for something but I haven't yet found the right thing, I was hoping for a fun print, I'm not sure what, I will know when I see it.

So I made this as a temporary measure, just circles in yellow and gold, some are stamped with inspirational words the sewn together, it is very cheery on a dull day.

One woman's trash is another woman's....

Treasure... and it comes in various forms. We had a box delivered yesterday full of crafty bits and bobs, ribbons, buttons, polystyrene eggs to name but a few items. All stuff that Sarah was getting rid of but the best part was 3 ziplock bags full of beautiful embroidery thread, the majority of which is unused!

Part of me wants to get out the hoop and get stitching but the 'little miss sensible' side of me says I can't play until I have finished my work. I know it looks like I haven't been doing much recently but that is because I haven't got anything I can share with you just yet. I am working on a BIG project and I am hoping that this week I can get all the techie-geekie side sorted so that I can pull it all together. It is a steep learning curve because I am using a load of new software and plug-ins and other such things. The project has been in the cards for quite a while but it wasn't until recently I figured out how I can put it all together to share with you. I am super excited about it and hope you will be too.....

stay tuned.....

(does anyone under 30 actually understand what that means?)

Baby Sumo....

Yesterday, Ebi-kun and I went into Asakusa to meet my friend Gaia who is visiting Japan at the moment. She was my first English student and I lived with her family in Italy, 20 years ago! Anyway, her and her fiancé wanted to see the baby sumo (nakizumo), I have never seen it in real life so I was up for it.

It is held at Senjoji, the big temple in Asakusa, of course it started with the usual amount of pomp and ceremony that you would expect in Japan but it soon got underway. First the babies are introduced and then one of the sumo wrestlers pick up the baby and take it to the ring. Once the bout starts the sumo wrestlers jiggle that baby up and down until one of them cries, the one that cries the loudest first is the champ! This rather odd tradition is about 400 years old and it is believed to bring the child good health (and possibly nightmares for the rest of their lives!).

 

It was an amusing start to the day, we didn't watch all the bouts instead we went and had a look around the temple then headed off to get some rather late lunch.

We had arranged to meet at noon but I knew Ebi-kun would be hungry by then so we turned up a bit earlier and grabbed a bite to eat, okonimiyaki on a stick! a first for everything.

Gaia and Luca had met some Japanese guys when they were travelling in Turkey so we also met up with them, of course Ebi-kun got pampered by the big boys but it was also handy as they are students so they were on the look out for somewhere cheap to eat.

Obligatory group shot with Japanese v sign pose! It was a fun day, we headed off about 5pm and managed to catch the train just before daddy-ebi (he had to work yesterday) so we met up in town and ate dinner out - double plus, no cooking for me!

Gaia is heading off to do the tourist train, Kyoto, Nara etc. and come back up here next weekend so we are trying to think of something exciting to do with her then....

duties...

Yesterday I was on meet-the-kids-from-school-and-walk-them-home duty. I think there are 28 different walking groups and 5 are in the green group which Ebi-kun is in. As I said before the route is set and on the way home it is just first grade kids because the older grades finish at different times.

There are so many little kids it was a stream of yellow hats and bags. Their hats have a special badge so if there is an accident and they are wearing their hat they are insured. At least with there being so many of them the drivers all slow down, it still worries me some what that little 6 year old are walking home alone. After Golden Week there will be no parents with them.
Ebi-kun got home absolutely shattered, his first full day and first school meal, he is a terribly slow eater and didn't manage to finish it all, he will have to try and speed up.

Today I am off to Tokyo to meet up with Gaia and her fella, should be a fun day just wish the weather was a bit nicer. Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend?

Ebi-kun's art carrier...

Oops! I just realised that I never actually blogged about this and I made it for Ebi-kuns birthday, his last birthday, which was in July! Last year Spoonflower had a fabric design contest for kids and Ebi-kun entered, I ordered some of the fabric but 'forgot' to show him when it arrived. Once he was in bed I got busy making this for his birthday.

I was inspired by the carrier in Meg's Growing Up So Liberated book but for reasons that I can't remember I ended up making it my own way. Inside the covers pieces are hard plastic.

And my favourite part, the pen's pencils and erase/sharpener are all attached with velcro (this idea led me to the fridge velcro pens shown here)

Ebi-kun really likes the fact that it has a handle so he can easily carry it and everyone loves pulling the things off the velcro strip. He has used it outside and taken it on road trips as well as just using it at home.

But the best thing was seeing Ebi-kun's face when he opened his present on his birthday, his first words were 'It's my fabric' 

If you are interested in buying some of his fabric you can get it here and Ebi-kun will get the profits from it, he will be very happy for any purchases as he is currently trying to save enough money to buy some Star Wars Lego!

Saute veg - yes please!

Ebi-kun is becoming quite the little chef, this week he cooked up some sautéed courgette and carrots to go with the baked chicken and potatoes I had in the oven. He used a recipe from Pretend Soup but we only had one courgette so I asked him to find something else to go with it, he decided on carrot. 

At first he was a bit reluctant to stray from the recipe so we discussed about it and talked about how new recipes are discovered. He loves trying new foods and combining foods to find out if it is a 'good combination or not'. As he was trying to decide what to use he went through the fruit and veg draw and had a think about how the particular veg would react if sautéed. He thought tomatoes would split and make a mess, avocado would be horrible hot etc. So carrot it was and they were good.

Often, kids cookbooks and websites focus on kids cooking sweet dishes such as cookies and cake, which is great and fun but cooking a main meal can also be fun and more useful too. Following a recipe is an important skill but thinking outside the box and using your imagination is equally important. Living in Japan, many of my tradition or western style dishes are impossible to make following the recipe, improvisation and imagination is definitely needed!

I am secretly hoping that by the time he leaves home he will have several main dishes that he can easily whip up to impress the girls with. Does your little chef have a favorite dish to make?

Look where I am today...

The lovely Miranda of Spry Spout interviewed me over on her blog, pop by and have a read! 

School Dinners...

We went to the doctor yesterday and got the all clear so Ebi-kun is back at school - hurrah! This week he will start school dinners and so we have been sent the menu for the month. I am surprised about the amount of detail that goes into it.

For non Japanese readers, I will go through the columns.

date

day

the days menu, the things in bold are sourced locally

Kcal - top figure is for elementary school kids the lower one for junior high

protein in g

then a breakdown of ingredient separated into

protein

vegetables

carbs

The sheet also states that they usually have rice three times a week and bread once or twice and noodles  3 or 3 times a month.

They get 200ml of milk a day

And their mission for the school meals has 7 points

• to provide meals the make the children 'genki' (good health, mind and energy)
• to show thanks for the food used 
• to show thanks for the people who provide/make the food
• to provide a healthy balanced diet
• to encourage good social skills and co-operation
• to learn about traditional foods and recipes
• to learn about where the food comes from

Our town also checks the radiation levels of the children's food and posts the results on the town website.

I can't read everything on the menu but some of the dishes include.. 

rice with miso ramen, shumai (steamed dumpling) and konbu salad 

butter roll with hamburg, salad and corn soup

melon-pan with croquet, corn salad and soup

curry rice with mini shrimp fry and something else!

It all looks pretty healthy and all the elementary kids I know say they like school dinner, I just hope Ebi-kun can speed up his eating a bit. If you want to know what the average school dinner looks like, pop over to this blog, the guy takes photos of the lunches he has at the schools he works at.

Egypt...

In the spring break, Ebi-kun received his latest issue of NG Kids magazine and in it was a kit to make a plaster King Tut. I had been planning a month on Nigeria but King Tut trumped it and we ended up in Egypt instead! There was one day in the holidays when I knew I was going to be really busy so the day before I prepared a pile of questions and worksheets so that he could get to work on his own. 

We started off together making the plaster King Tut, once it had dried I left him to his own devices to paint it. 

I didn't make much this time but instead got onto the Internet and printed out a pile of things such as this pyramid box, I printed it on yellow paper, came out great the he made a little mummy to keep inside. I used this hieroglyphics chart to make a quiz and Ebi-kun used it on his work too. I printed the Pharaoh Rules prompt sheet from here and if Ebi-kun has his way, there will be no drinking beer in his land! There are some great Ancient Egypt colouring sheets here. He used The Magic Tree House Mummies and Pyramids resource book, it was lucky I ordered this a while ago!

Ebi-kun worked through the project pretty much unassisted but there were a couple of pages he hadn't finished. Unfortunately, he is like me and if something more interesting comes along I forget to finish the current project, this is what happened to Egypt so yesterday I suggested he finished it off.

The pages he hadn't finished were more about Egypt today so he got out the maps, it is quite a while since he has had the map of Africa out.

I asked him not to pester me while I was working so he went off on his own devices, looking up in Africa in his Most Stupendous Atlas - a great book incidentally!

Then it was to Flags Of The World to find the Egyptian flag and got his Flags of Africa 3 part cards. Although he wasn't supposed to pester me he couldn't resist telling me his exciting facts that he was finding as he was reading through the various books, he also took it upon himself to write his exciting facts down!

I found a great Mummy Making online game and a friend suggested You Tube and Horrible Histories, I wish these had been around when I was a kid, I know some adults don't approve but I am all for making learning fun and interesting and humour is a great way to help remember facts. I found several Horrible Histories songs, I put them all together here.

And well, I have to share his favourite one...

Muffin Tin Dinner and green pizza recipe

This was dinner from sometime last week, I just re-discovered the photo!

Starting top left...

Broccoli & cauliflower pizza, strawberries, tomato & sausage pizza, sweet potato

Ototo crisps, pineapple, ototo crisps, avocado

Broccoli & cauliflower pizza, Italian cheese, chocolate crispy nest, mini tomatoes

The broccoli & cauliflower pizza had become a favourite in this house. It is dead easy to make, I always make my own dough, well I say make, I throw the ingredients in my bread machine and it does the work. For the green topping, I steam some broccoli & cauliflower so that it is just cooked. Stick it in the blender with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a 1/2 a cup or so of Parmesan (I have used grated cheese too instead of Parmesan). Season with salt & pepper and whizz in the processor until it is like a thick paste. Spread it on the pizza base, pop in the oven and you are done.

I never actually measure anything for this and the recipe was adapted from one I saw on pinterest but that included garlic too. I found that the garlic version wasn't so popular in this house. I have also thrown in other veg if I have been short on the main ingredients, onion and spinach both turned out well.

Sneak Peek...

I don't know about you but we had rather an uneventful weekend here, the spotty one is getting better, he had a fever Friday and was rather grumpy but he is back on form now, just a spottier version of his former self. He has been really good at not scratching and most of the spots have scabbed over now, we will go to the doctor again tomorrow and hopefully get the OK to go back to school.

Other news, my sewing machine broke again! Same thing, the APC plate again, there is a small moving part on it that keeps breaking off and once it is off the whole plate needs replacing, there must be a design fault and it is really annoying. That said, I love the machine when she is in working order!

Oh yes, and the sneak peek...

This was part of a present I made for a little friend then I made a similar one for my niece, I have decided to write it up as a pattern, I have become rather addicted to making these little fellas! This week looks like a week of hand stitching and pattern writing...

Planning to buy some books?

It is no secret that I love the Book Depository, it has saved me a small fortune over the years. They have a campaign at the moment, 10% off everything until May 12th. Just click on the button below and enter the code APMA12 when you check out!

See you later, I am off to buy some books....

Inspiration Sunday with Paula Sugawara

Today's interview is with Paula, a fellow Brit who is also married to a Japanese bloke and lives in Tokyo, she runs a successful business, Tokyo Coaching Services and is forever jet setting to different places.

Could we start off with you telling us a bit about yourself...

Originally from Yorkshire, I am married to Shigeo. Two children - Hugo 13 (Year 2 at Junior High) and Romy 10 (year 5 at Junior School).

How long have you been in Japan?

I have been here 23.5 years. 

What bought you to Japan in the first place?

During my last year at University I applied for the JET program and was turned down for it (maybe due to my strong Yorkshire accent at the time??). However, the whole application process had sparked my interest in Japan so I started reading a lot of Japanese literature such as Kawabata, Tanizaki, Endo etc and particularly fell in love with the work of Yukio Mishima and decided I had to come and see Japan for myself. So I got myself here and managed to find a job teaching English within a week of arriving.  

What kind of level is your Japanese?

 Fluent/bilingual

For a long time you were involved in investment research, what made you decide to switch to coaching?

At Goldman Sachs I was a senior investment analyst with a research assistant, secretary and MBA intern as part of my team. Despite the negative impression a lot of people might have about investment banks firing people at liberty Goldman was not like that. If somebody in your team was not up to the required level then it was up to the analyst to get them up to speed and up that performance curve. So that got me interested in managing people, helping them to improve their performance and working together as a team. Plus, I had both my children when at Goldman and decided that as much as I loved my job I wanted more flexibility to be with them and organise play dates, attend yochien events etc. I had always had a long term plan to work for myself at some stage in my career so decided to leave finance and retrain as an executive coach.. 

How did you start on the coaching path? Did you take any courses?

I wanted to use my business background and interest in people to help other people realise their goals so I decided an executive coach would be a better option for me rather than just a life coach or one of the other niche coaching areas. I did my training online and via conference calls with the International Coach Academy and qualified in their Professional Coaching Certificate Program in 2004. 

What sort of clients do you have as a coach?

Multi-nationals and Japanese companies. As I have a backgrond in finance a lot of my clients are also in the same area - funnily enough my two largest clients are both my former employers - Goldman Sachs and Nomura Securities! Other key clients would be Panasonic, Coca Cola, AON, L'Oreal, Stryker, Guerlain (LVMH Group), Barclays, Astellas Pharma, Komatsu, Hitachi Group, Nippon Sheet Glass, Lenovo etc. 

If someone is interested in having coaching sessions with you, how do that go about that?

Mmmmh, I don't tend to coach people on an individual basis since executive coaching is quite expensive. It is usually the company who pays not the individual, so if I ever coach somebody who is paying out of their own pocket I charge them a much lower rate and it is only if I am feeling very very charitable or it is an interesting coaching case.... However, if somebody is really interested in being coached I can usually introduce them to somebody who focuses more on life coaching than executive coaching.

As a woman and a foreigner, what difficulties have you encountered running your own business in Japan?

I would say a lot of my clients view me almost as third gender. They don't treat me completely as a man nor as a woman - and in some cases are a little bit daunted by a professional foreign woman. I think the fact that I speak Japanese and am quite assertive helps too. But there are always going to be people here who discriminate against women and feel that a Japanese person or a male would do the job better. One very recent case was where I delivered a leadership training program for a client who said they had really enjoyed it and wanted to introduce the program to other management levels within the organisation - but they prefer a Japanese guy to do this so asked if I would introduce them to a Japanese male trainer and train him to deliver the program. They would pay me to train him but then he would take over and do the rest of the training on his own. Even though this would have been quite a profitable project for me I said no. If I am not good enough to train their employees then why should they think I am good enough to train a guy to do it. For me it was the principle of the issue and not the money.

Many foreigners fall into either the ESL teacher or translator style jobs but that doesn't suit everyone, what advice would you give to those who want to do something other than teaching/translating work.

There are a lot of opportunities open if you can speak Japanese so I would very strongly encourage people to work hard on their Japanese language. You can get away with not being able to read everything but if you can speak it then it can open a lot of doors. If you have another skill to offer then that will also strengthen your position. In my area of training and coaching for example, there are very few people who can operate in both languages so there is a real premium on people with those skills.

As a busy mum running your own company and with two kids, what are your top tips for other mums out there?

Delegate!! If you have extra income then use that to make your life easier. I have a cleaner who comes once a week for 3 hours which is not that expensive. If I finish work late then I pick up bentos or something already prepared from the station or local supermarket. I have my shopping delivered and am lucky to have my MIL living nearby so will ask her to do things now and again too. Don't feel guilty about working and make time for yourself.

Try to be at school events - Japanese schools and yochien have a lot of observation days, class events, park gatherings etc. I couldn't go to all of them but I tried to go to as many as possible and if I couldn't then my husband would try and go.

Anything else you would like to add?

I try not to get too heavily involved with some of the school mums! Some of these women have no work, hobbies, interests and spend a lot of time at home texting each other, gossipping and going out to lunch. I try and join them now and again but sometimes find that the gossip etc can get negative - a lot of it is about school, other people's children and other Mums so maintaining a balance between keeping them as friends/acquaintances but not getting in too deep is very important.

Thank you Paula, it is always interesting to hear about other ex-pats and how they make a living, or maybe that's just me being nosey!

If you want to learn more about Paula or hire her services for your company you can find her at Tokyo Coaching Services.

Waldorf Stars...

I think these Waldolf style are so pretty and a great way to brighten up a window and best of all they are easy to make! I found some lovely semi-transparent origami paper and decided that it would be perfect for this project.

Here are the step by step instructions, click on the image to make it bigger.

 

Throwing a sickie, what a palaver....

As I remember it, if you are throwing a sickie back home, you or someone else calls the school for you in the morning and it is done and dusted. Not in Japan, oh no, life could not be so simple!

Each child has a plastic wallet which is used to carry all the random pieces of paper that get shuttled from school to home and back again. When your child is sick, you fill out a form saying why they are sick and how long they are likely to be off, put it in the folder and give it to the hancho-san (head kid in the morning walking group). She/he then takes it to school and hands it to the respective sensei.

So far, so good.

But by 6pm we hadn't had the folder back so I went and asked hancho-san's mom, she explained that one of Ebi-kun's classmates should have bought it back. Hmm, I had no idea who was supposed to bring it back. What happens next couple have been material for a sit-com. I call my husband, he thinks he knows which kid should have bought it back so he calls his mom. In the mean time the hancho-san mama calls the school, she then comes round to our house where I am on the phone to my husband who is reporting back to say that the classmate goes to after school club and the mom was on her way to pick him up. I hand hubby over to hancho-san mama and they have a chat, looks like it is all sorted. Five minutes later sensei calls to say that the classmate forgot the folder and so he will deliver it back himself then the doorbell goes again and it is the classmate and his mom, 100 apologies because he forgot the folder (upside is that I now know who the mystery classmate is). She leaves and then sensei arrives with the folder. He then spends five minutes bowing and I am ready to bang my head against the nearest wall.

And guess what? Yes, we have to do it all again today! Hopefully without all the mix up and the folder gets returned by the classmate.

When we did eventually get the folder there was a note from sensei saying that he hopes Ebi-kun gets better soon and what they did at school today, sounded riveting

1. How to hold a pencil

2. How to walk around the school yard

3. and something else that was so exciting I have forgotten what it was!

Doesn't sound like he missed much.

I'm not sure if this method of calling in sick is the norm around Japan, it seems that our school has a lot more equipment and things to label than others, maybe we just pulled a short straw!

Oh yes, and about the invalid, he is spotty and seems to get itchy as the meds wear off. Last night he had a fever which meant he ended up in bed with me which resulted in me getting no sleep, someone will be taking a nap this afternoon and it might not be the spotty one. 

Modern Montessori Placemats...

With the Montessori method, children are encouraged to set the table themselves. When Ebi-kun was younger I made him a mat to help him put everything in the right place, he really enjoyed getting out his cutlery and setting his place every meal and snack time. I wanted to make some similar mats but with a more modern feel to them, these were the test run as it were. One side has the table setting and the back has a bright flower design so once the kids are done you can flip the mats over or as your child grows they can try setting their place without the aid of the pictures.

I couldn't decide of my favourite colour way and everyone I had shown them to have picked a different one! I only have one set of each colour way at the moment, the mats, as a set of two are available in the shop and you can use the discount code APRILMATS to get 10%, valid until the end of this month and remember to tell me which set you want when you check out.

So, for research sake, which is your favourite design/colour?

A quick note...

A quick note on his outfit for those who are going through this next year. I hate wasting money and buying an expensive suit that will be worn once definitely falls into that category. We got the suit - shorts and jacket from Book Off, we have a big one nearby that sells everything! I bought it back in October, there was quite a selection, his looks like it has only been worn the once before and was less than ¥2000. 

I asked my mom to send a white school shirt from the UK, they are cheap there, £8 for a pack of three! The tie, Ebi-kun picked his favourite from the ¥100 shop, I chopped off the end and then re-stitched it so that it would be the right length. Then he has black socks and black shoes, the shoes a friend gave to us, her son had worn them once and we were lucky that they were just the right size!

All in all we did quite well with his suit, I doubt he will wear it again, I will hang on to it until he has out grown in, just in case and then sell it on.

Oh No!

Ebi-kun had a successful second day at school, got home a bit tired so we watched a film and then I noticed that the spot he had on his neck had reproduced, so it was off with the shirt only to discover several of the little blighters on his front and back.

I suspected chicken pox so bundled him onto the bike and down to the doctors clinic as quick as I could. The doctor confirmed it is chicken pox and ordered a week off school, we have to go back to the doctor in a weeks time to get the all clear.

Ebi-kun was really upset that he would have to miss a week and well, so was I. He hasn't had chance to make any friends yet other than the girl he sits next to because they haven't had any play time so missing a week at the start of the school year is a real bummer.

And so my grand plans of getting back on the work wagon have been scuppered, we will be making use of the Montessori equipment over the next week and probably the Star Wars Craft Book!

The bag...

Introducing the randoseru. Almost every elementary school kid has one of these bags, although they are not mandatory at most schools it is like a rite of passage, a elementary school status symbol if you will and I have yet to see one of the local kids carrying something different.

The idea behind the bag is durability, they start off with it in grade one and they will use the same bag until the graduate elementary school, 6 years later. Traditionally they were made from leather and some still are but many are made from synthetic materials these days too. Also, it was always the rule that boys had black and girls had red. Some private schools enforce the colour and sometimes the brand too but our school anything goes. These days they are available in every colour going, Ebi-kun wanted green.

Now, these bags are not cheap, the ones I looked at this year ran in the price range of ¥20,000 - ¥59,000 ($248 - $731 / £156 - £460 / €189 - €559) Which, as far as I am concerned is a LOT of money to spend on a kids school bag. For those of you doing this next year, the kindergartens will send home a pile of flyers around summer/early autumn that is when you should start looking at the bags, don't do like we did and leave it too late. Also, in keeping with tradition the grandparents pay for the bag *phew*

We didn't know at the time but if you want a personalised bag you need to order early, by the time we got round to looking the only option was to buy one off the shelf. The personalised ones have a menu so you can pick the bag colour, stitching colour, what type of linings, add stars or hearts etc.

Inside will fit A4 sized books but really it isn't that big and you often see kids with extra bags either in their hand or hanging from the randoseru.

And to answer the question about the alarm, it is in case of an emergency and they are not supposed to set it off unless it is an emergency, that said, I heard quite a few yesterday, I am sure the novelty will wear off soon.

So, Ebi-kun's first day seemed to go OK, they didn't do much learning much to his disappointment and declared that he had no homework as soon as he walked through the door. He was shattered when he got in but once he had eaten he was bouncing off the walls as normal, here's to another 6 years...