Play areas and pinecones

On Sunday, we decided to explore the area under and around Morioka Station. Train stations in Japan are always full of good shopping and restaurants and this one proved no exception. We found a large imported food store where we were able to resupply Catie’s Skippy. For a child who rarely eats PB&J at home, she’s been pretty much living on peanut butter sandwiches since we arrived in Japan. It also sold such extravagances as premade graham cracker crusts and cereal! We didn’t buy anything else, but it’s nice to know it’s there. We ate lunch at McDonalds since there was no turning Catie away once she’d spied the golden arches. I’ve never felt the need to eat at a McDonalds in a foreign country before and it surprised me that the food tastes exactly the same. I even got my usual queasy stomach after eating it! That said, it really was a nice break from rice.

another delicacy in the basement of the eki- Catie now thinks Pop makes cream puffs!

We also headed across the street to check out the other open play area in town. It was pretty awesome! It is a bit more modern than Kokko and has a nice view of the mountains surrounding Morioka. As I was warned, there are a lot more babies there, so you have to be more careful playing. Catie had a blast playing with the trains and blocks. Now that she’s in school, I don’t know how much time we’ll spend there, but it’s nice to have another alternative for rainy weekends.

Catie & I both got warm welcomes from the other moms and kids at preschool this morning. I think she’s become a bit of a class mascot- she’s one of, if not the youngest student and the blonde curly hair makes her really stand out. From what I can discern, she’s doing pretty well. Eating lunch and changing her shoes a dozen times a day are problem areas, but she’s having fun during free time and appears to love science class. I guess she has been so enthusiastic about answering the teachers’ questions about textures (Friday) and things that float or sink (today) that she’s been jumping in when it isn’t her turn. She also likes the musical instruments, but so far refuses to sing with the other kids. We are supposed to be working with her on learning to take off and put on her shoes at home. Unfortunately, she had major hissy fits every time we tried to get her to put on her shoes this weekend (weird, since she's been doing this at home for months!). I’m going shopping with Yuki tomorrow and am going to look for a pair of fake Crocs that are easier to just step in and out of. Maybe that will end some of the shoe drama. The eating thing is also ridiculous and so not normal Catie. I think it will just work itself out in time, but right now it’s a little frustrating. Today she turned her nose up at my first attempt and cute bento- her favorite curry rice with carrot flowers all over the top. She ate about ½ a bite and then refused to eat the rest. Unfortunately someone interpreted the second box containing apples and almonds as dessert and didn’t give it to her, so she didn’t eat anything until she got home! Not good. I spoke with the school about it and think she’ll do better tomorrow (fingers crossed!) I’ve been meeting more moms everyday and enjoying hearing more about them and why they chose this school. I just wish I had more Japanese to actually be able to talk to some of them!

REJECTED!!!!!!

Andy taught his first class at Gandai today. I went with him to the university to eat lunch and hunt for some pinecones. This Thursday he & I have to teach a lesson at Catie’s school. Rather than go the US route and have the kids do show & tell, a different set of parents has to come in for “parents share day” each month. You can tell that all the parents dread their turn for Share Day from the all sympathy I’ve been receiving from the other moms. For my part, I just wish we’d known about this back in Indiana so we could have actually prepared something! Alas, we did not. We toyed around with talking about knitting and teaching the kids to finger knit, but since neither of us actually does this, we decided to stick with what we know and talk about fossils. We brought a couple of brachiopods from home, so we are going to focus on those and have the kids make “trace fossils” in clay and some cute paper trilobites. I knew there were some nice pinecones on the Gandai campus and was merrily collecting them in a bag when I looked up and found a professor staring at me. She wanted to know what I was doing. As soon as I explained about our planning a program on fossils for Catie’s yochien class, she got very enthusiastic and wanted to hear all about the activity. Instead of being in trouble, I ended up having a nice chat with her!