hiro is pretty busy with the end of the school year coming up. last saturday he and his class went on a field trip. they took the train to fukuoka (city, i think) to do something (sorry, my japanese reading skills are kinda crappy, but i think they went to some JR (japan rail) museum to look at trains?) but i'm not sure what. asking hiro is futile. he tells me about the train ride, about who dropped their bento and how obata-sensei pretended to fall down while walking on the train. oh, and how the train was always stopping. i think he had fun, though.

saturday morning we all had to leave together to get the other car, which yoshi had left at work since he had a drinking party on friday night. then i took hiro to 7-11 to get some onigiri, tea and a snack. then i took him to the train station, but i couldn't quite figure out where to park! i knew there was a 100 yen shop next to a grocery store near the south entrance, but when i drove by, i couldn't find the entrance to the station. (it's a small station and not near our house, so it's not one we use often.) anyway, i decided to park at the 100 yen shop and just happened to get there just as some of hiro's classmates (and their mothers) arrived so that was easy.

after sending hiro off i spent some time browsing in the 100 yen shop but didn't get very much. then i thought i'd like a donut so off to misudo i went. i got there just in time for the morning special so i had coffee and donuts. then i spent a couple of hours to myself in blissful quiet. i decided to go home and it was a good thing i did because it was cranky-pants central! i made sasha go to bed and took tommy to bed and before you knew it, the house was peaceful! i sure hope yoshi appreciated that!

just before three i went out again to get hiro. it was nice to leave the house without multiple meltdowns. then hiro and i went to the grocery store so i could get something to make for dinner and hiro could get a sweet snack (for his ensoku he chose a potato-chip type snack, but i guess everyone else had sweets.) then we went home where it was chaos and mayhem, just as usual.

today i had to take the kids to school because it was their sobetsu-kai, or the big goodbye for the school year. they will still be in school until next week, but this was for the parents to go to the school and thank the teachers. it's pretty boring but that's the way things go.

in typical illahee household fashion, yoshi was reading off the paper what we needed for today! hiro needed a cut up milk carton and sasha needed an empty tissue box. well, i just did the recycling yesterday!! luckily we drink a lot of milk around here so i could get the milk carton, but poor sasha had to go without a tissue box. (but not to worry, there were plenty of extra at the school.) the milk carton was to be a kind of pen holder, and the tissue box a picture frame. sadly, tommy needed a change of diaper not long after we got to the school (grrr...) so i didn't have time to help either of them with their art project!

after the arts and crafts, the classes gathered in the main hall and each class sang a song. then the teachers sang a song. then the mothers (with the kids) sang a song (that SMAP song about the flowers, shit, you know the one...



...with some of the words changed.) then we (the parents? the kids? whatever) gave the teacher the memory placards that they give each year. just imagine all this with speeches and things and oh yes, i was bored out of my mind. oh well, not another one for another year.

after that i paid for sasha's school supplies and then we could leave. tommy had a great time running around like a crazy person. sasha was so over it and wanted to go home. and hiro...well, i don't know how much he realizes that he won't be coming back to kindergarten. he knows there's only a few days left and he knows that he'll be going to elementary school but....his teacher was telling me that every morning he runs up and basically attaches himself to her hip. he is always hugging and jumping on her. and she's a very sweet person, a great teacher for hiro. well, i guess we'll still be visiting the school frequently, since sasha and tommy will be students there!