Born to be loved

 HG has been into outer space for a while. First he got into planets and solar systems an year ago probably when he was given some books. Then at Montessori school he extended the interest, but with some life changes   and starting at a public elementary school, his interests might have moved on to some (many other) things else. Then, at a Japanese language school he started  he was asked to borrow books. Naturally he picked books by visuals. Then some books happened to be space related, which lit the fire again. The past several weeks, HG and 3-yr old AK have been reading very scientific books about space almost every night in bed with me. HG's interest stayed with planets for awhile, also the size of stars seems to be fascinating, but when he was ready to explore further, he even learns the life cycle of starts and galaxies (we're here now). Then I noticed he's only "learning in books" even though space is up there in the sky for everyone. I found the physics d

 As predicted in earlier in the month, August was the beginning of new schools for HG and AK. HG started elementary at a public school, which my wife m and her sisters even have had no experience. Meanwhile AK started going to a private daycare, which we've already experienced back in California except that this new school doesn't seem to be a part of chain. m finished her work by the end of July and the new work won't start until several weeks later, so she's enjoying post postpartum and household chores, basically for the first time.  HG seems to be enjoying the new school. He seemed to love the previous Montessori school too. He might have realized that he likes schools for whatever reasons, or he's lucky that these 2 schools he's recently going fits him well. He had been looking forward to riding to the school by a school bus, which leaves our neighborhood before 7am, but he not just never misses it, he is even making sure prior night that he has all clothe

July 2021 turned out to be filled with full of life transitioning events. We moved from an apartment in suburb of Atlanta to a home in a city 1-hr south from Atlanta for my wife m's work. Younger son AK ended his Montessori school at the end of June while the elder son HG continued going to the Montessori school until a week before his next school starts, so I drove 2.5 hours almost every weekdays for dropoff and pickup, then I rented a cowork space in Decatur, GA, which gave me a pleasant experience of working in an office. To support our lives for watching AK and the newborn, while m went back to her work for July, we asked our previous babysitter to stay with us for 3 weeks. Then birthdays for both boys came, we hosted a birthday party for HG for the first time in 6 years (bad parents!). Then HG ended his Montessori school where some of his good friends are. Now, new school year started so both boys started going to new schools of each. Lastly, m ended her 7-year long training c

One month has passed since baby LM was born. She's been nocturnal and fussier at night. Since she's mostly breast-fed and we haven't fully started feeding from bottles, my wife m is fully attached to LM. So m is deprived of sleep, and she mostly lets me sleep at night so far. Once we start feeding from bottles more (which we should as she's going to go back to work in July), I should be able to help more. Other than a newborn, we're also moving from an apartment to a house we just bought. And although it's just an hour away, kids will change schools again. Elder brother HG is graduating this Montessori school we loved, and will start a public school. Can't really imagine how stressful all these changes are going to be especially when they are coming all at once. Before the daughter was born we expected some/much mental ups and downs for boys, particularly almost-3-yr AG who we've been seeing being aggressive for more than an year by now . For the past fe

 My wife m and I agree rock solid on maintaining our Japanese heritage and teaching that to our kids. First of all both sides of kids grandparents are in Japan. My side of grand parents don't speak English as much. Kids would be in a trouble in the future if they can't communicate in Japanese with their grand parents in the land their parents are born in. In the US I've seen some/many parents came from Japan send their kids to a weekend-only school, typically called "hoshu-ko / 補習校". As far as I understand most of those schools are privately operated and teach subjects in Japanese language, and likely using Japanese textbooks. Idea is that because the school curriculum between US and Japan are different (most notably the students in Japan learn math much quicker, and likely deeper. Calculus is taught in high school in Japan) so when a family moves back to Japan children would have to catch up a lot if US curriculum for certain subjects is behind. Or history class

Our first baby girl is coming around the corner. Are we ready? My wife m is doing well. We're probably ready from any directions hopefully. Are kids ready, especially is the 2nd son AK aware that he's going to be superior to someone in the household finally? We've been struggling with his aggression and strong will over more than an year already. We've kind of figured out most of times when he gets particular he's likely craving for attention. When he knows one of or both parents are all his then he gets very cuddly and sweet. He also mentions a baby is in mom's belly. How cute is that. Knowing all of these, we'll see how he reacts when he actually sees her. Cats must be used to another newborn. Elder brother HG is excited about getting a girl. That said, we've noticed he whines more often recently. Our weekends have been energy blackhole -- At least all of my energy is used up for kids and I just pass out at night at their bed. Today I felt like even c

 Just because we have parents and grand parents in Japan, we're looking into whether it's possible to go to Japan in case of emergency. Also hoping the pandemic to start settling (really it's just a hope at this moment though). It has been a surprisingly non trivial journey for us to find the credible, official source of info. A few major reasons are that even on the .go.jp (Japanese national government's domain) there are many pages that provide very simular info. Also many pages are outdated (to worsen, sometimes only a part of a page is outdated but the other part of the same pages is up to date). But I think we finally found the good resource. NOTE that things must be still very fluid, so what you see below is what we found as of April 30th, 2021. I've prioritized sources written in Japanese as I can imagine Japanese administration writes in Japanese first so that it's more possible for English materials to be outdated. Also I do not cite every single words

I had been wondering what's the right way for an adult who doesn't work for an entity in the state of Georgia (I remotely work for a company in Texas). Turned out appointment can be made through the Georgia state's Department of Health website. But as far as I looked around, there's no clear information I could find, so I'm putting together the steps I found. Note I'm non-essential, live in the city of Decatur. I'm sure there are other ways to make an appointment, so what I'm describing here is just one way to do that. Also note this webpage is a blog post of an individual. You need to register yourself to wait in a line to make an appointment. Without registration, I'm afraid I would have not gotten the invitation for making an appointment.  Go to covid-19 page on Dept. of Health https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-vaccine . Click "Health Dept Scheduling" icon. This will take you out of dph.georgia.gov website to https://gta-vras.powerappsportal

Chocolate cake for girl. White vanilla cake for boy. Cake comes with white frosting so you can't see the color of inside without cutting it. We ordered a cake without knowing which content, a tradition we recently heard and have been interested had we had a chance for 3rd child, which we do now! My wife m and I are expecting our 3rd in Summer 2021. We both grew up as one in 3 siblings and m has been determined for 3 kids since I remember (maybe even before we got married), and no more than 3. Knowing this will be the last, and combined with pandemic where our families have been isolated, we wanted to make it a bit more festive so decided to go for remote Gender Reveal Party (GRP) inviting direct families of both sides. I guess our plan for the GRP was straightforward...I think m got a sealed note (at a 19th week OB appointment?) in which a gender is written. Then we ordered a cake, giving that note without us opening it (so that we didn't know the gender either until GRP day),