Back to School and Project Play

It's official (and the announcement a couple of weeks late), Mimi and Kuri are both back in school. Mimi kicked off her second grade year with a send off from her siblings.

With Mimi off at school, Mari and Kuri were free to spend quality time, just the two of them. Mari is fascinated with Kuri. He's always the first person she asks for when she wakes up (even before Mama).

A few days after Mimi kicked off her school year, Kuri reached a major milestone: he had his first day of Japanese preschool. There were a couple tears at drop off the first few days, but each of these ended with Kuri proudly stating, "Papa, actually, I really like Japanese school."

We've been tremendously blessed, and surprised, to find a Japanese preschool just five minutes from our home. When we first moved to Marin, we were worried that there wouldn't be a Japanese community here. How wrong we were. Right now, Mimi is in a class that has four Japanese speakers. Kuri is attending not just a Japanese preschool, but one with a full-immersion program. We couldn't have asked for more.

Before school started, Sumie had one project for me to complete to make the transition a bit easier, at least for us. Because we keep a semi-Japanese home, shoes are always taken off inside. This inevitably led to our small entryway being littered with shoes, sandals, and slippers for five. With no closet in the hallway as well, backpacks and jackets migrated around the corner and started taking over the living room. Sumie demanded a fix. A quick trip to Ikea, some measuring, bolting, and minimal swearing later, we had ourselves organized.

There were other projects that needed attention as well, especially now that the kids were back in school. The steering wheel in the 911 had cracked, making it a chore to drive quickly. This was remedied in the driveway late one night with a Momo wheel.

I also decided to replace the speakers of my main stereo (ones I'd had for 20 years) with a pair of Klipsch Fortes I found on Craigslist. These being 30 years old, I couldn't help but give them a few upgrades. First came new titanium tweeter diaphragms...

...and then new capacitors in the crossovers. This last job meant a lot of de-soldering and soldering, something I hadn't really done for about 15 years. It all came out OK, and the speakers sound amazing, but man, my handiwork could easily be the dictionary picture for "amateur," if not, "incompetent."

I'm not the only one of the family who enjoys the odd project. The kids all love them, both academic projects and construction ones. Just before heading back to school, Mimi finished up her Kumon subtraction book. Papa proudly completed her certificate.

Mari also found some time to study between her demanding of cookies and giving of hugs. For some reason she adores working in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Kuri, as readers of this blog already already know, is obsessed with transportation, particularly cars and trains. For projects, there is his ever-growing train set...

...his intricate "car parking" displays...

...and his beloved collection of Lego vehicles.

Several of the vehicles above had to be scrapped so we could pull off Kuri's dream project: a Lego Big Rig with a multi-level Car Carrier. He'd been asking Papa to build this for him for weeks, usually just before we had to take Mimi to school. A while back we had a free morning and so we tackled it together, Kuri finding pieces and Papa trying to figure out how to build it from the Lego scraps of his childhood. 

Whenever  a box arrives at our house, Mimi makes a bee-line for it. She doesn't really care about the contents. She just wants that box to build something. This time, it was a car for Mari.

Mari enjoyed it quite a bit...

...but, as is her wont, quickly destroyed it. So, it was back to the pillow-stuffed, wheeled toy box for Mari.

So proud of what these kids have been accomplishing, both in school and at home. Can't wait to see what the next box will become, what the next Lego fascination will be, or what they'll share with me about their school adventures.