Long weekend

We are spending the long weekend kite flying, castle building, and eating raspberry gelato. And most importantly, completely ignoring the clock. Happy Memorial Day.

Snowflakes

There has been a huge outpouring of love for Uta in response to his accident. Apparently the whole school was buzzing with worry in his absence. Upon his return, he was smothered with hugs from everyone he met, you could practically hear the communal sigh of relief. One of the sweetest gestures he received was from his classmate Willa. She was so concerned for Uta's well being that she spent the entire weekend making things for him. On Monday morning she presented him with an envelope full of tiny paper snowflakes. 

Face Dive

On Thursday afternoon Uta took a flying face dive over the handle bars of Papa H's bike and landed in the ER. He's OK, just bloodied and bruised. Luckily this happened in front of Uta's school and he was quickly ushered to the nurse's office to assess the damage and await a taxi to the hospital. I did not witness the accident but instead got the phone call all Mom's dread... Papa H calling to say meet us at the hospital, Uta wailing his head off in the back ground. That was probably the longest subway ride of my life. He's got a pretty nasty abrasion across his face, and a smashed finger that's tripled in size and blue. But nothing broken, no head trauma. We are on a steady course of bandage changing, keeping things clean, and antibiotic creams. 

Natto

Its easy to love the tea, the exquisite care for details, the artfully arranged food, but loving natto? Thats hard core. I like to think of myself as half Japanese, but the half of me that remains American is dead set against natto. Natto is fermented soybeans. Japanese people love to eat it for breakfast. Its incredibly healthy, apparently packed with nutrients, I really want to like it. But it has this very distinct odor, like something left too long in the back of the refrigerator. And its sticky and slimy, leaving long stringy cob webs from your mouth to the bowl as you eat. Hopefully one day I'll outgrow my disdain, but not yet. 

Uta, on the other hand, is really Japanese, and here's proof: he has been requesting natto! So the other day we picked some up at the Sunrise Mart. Here he is with Pop eating it up. Sugoi! (Wow)

Sleep

Uta just tried in earnest to convince me he's a bat. Its only the latest in his nightly ploys to evade sleep. I've heard of kids who sleep, unicorns too, but not Uta, not ever. With him its always a grand orchestration, like trying to get a thousand plates spinning in unison on the tip of my nose. When he was a baby I'd have to carry him in a sling with the vacuum going for hours on end. Now feels no different, the gimmicks have changed, but getting him down is no easier. Why would anyone not want to sleep? Papa H and I grieve for it, like some lost friend.  Its the only thing we truly want to do. Uta says its due to the fact that he has no 'sleeping skills'. What's 'sleeping skills'? You know, Uta says, the big yawn and stretch, the cozy position. 

Happy Mother's Day

To all the Mamas that we know and love, Thank You!

And thank you to my boys...

For a bouquet of bright yellow mums, homemade earrings, and three things crossed off my never ending to-do list. 

Now I get it

Ok, I know I'm at risk for sounding like an old fogey, but I never understood the trend of leaving stickers, labels, protective coverings (price tags?) and the like on baseball caps. In my opinion baseball caps look best when they are sun-bleached and worn out, like you've slept in it everyday of your life, a true fan. But that's just me, apparently.

The other day Uta explained this fad to me in simple terms that I could understand.... 

In the wake of Uta's Yankee stadium trauma he began wearing a Met's cap. His love for the Yankees hasn't waned exactly, he still pretends to be discovered by Joe at the park, but his yankee cap is decisively at the bottom of the hat basket. Everyday he choses the orange and blue. A silent protest, I guess.

On the way to school a few days ago, I noticed that Uta's Met's cap still had a round sticker on the underside of the lid. (Oh No! Not my kid too!) The conversation that followed went something like this...

Me: Oops, we forgot to pull that label off.

Uta: I don't want to take it off.

Me: Why not? 

Uta: Because its SOOOO shiny.

Now I get it! Kids are like crows, they covet all thats sparkly.

Pillow talk

After we turn the lights out at bedtime Uta always feels scared. Its not that he's scared of the dark, there's plenty of light pooling in from the street, glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, a bright crack of light coming in from under the living room door. Its more like in the darkness his fears get loud. He lists things that scare him, mostly to do with school, bossy friends and pressure from his teacher. After he is reassured about these things he shifts his worries to the more mythical: monsters, dragons, dinosaurs. He's desperately trying to make sense of what's real, what's not, what's made up, what's extinct. There's a lot of sorting to do when you're five. Here are a few things he was wondering tonight before he finally called it a day.

Do astronauts wear underwear? Does aluminum foil have any special powers? Can I have a motorcycle?

Story torture

Uta's hunger for stories is insatiable. He is not happy unless he is in the throws of some pretend drama. Unfortunately this is not something he is willing to do independently. He needs (demands!) writers, a cast of characters, costume designers, and most importantly a narrator. Uta is the director and of course the star of the show, all other roles fall to me, or whomever he has cornered at the moment. I know someday I'll look back fondly on this time, pine for it even. But now its story torture. The structure of play is simple. Each story features Uta as an invented assemblage of super heroes (usually in the disguise of a regular kid) who comes to the rescue of some perilous scene. Uta doesn't mind if you tell the same story over and over again, in fact he prefers it. Me, I'm tapped. I just want to walk down the street as myself with Uta as Uta. But thats not going to happen any time soon. I fear my sentence in the land of make believe is long term and indefinite.