like walking through a warm bath

it is too hot today. not florida scorching hot but heavily humid. i feel like i am underwater when i step outside. not that inside is much better. unless it is nap time and we indulge our sweaty nicolai in a cool room to doze in.

sorry to be so silent here. everything is good, just busy.
we aren't on the internet that much these days. will be again as school starts up and i go back to my proofreading gig. i should be on more with the writing workshop but i am kinda burned out with it. i think it is just not my thing. but i will stick it out and see it to the end. almost ready to see the start of classes again though with my leave of absence i now have a lot to make up. but it is doable. i am also in the throes of studying for the japanese test that will be in december.

sebastian is an inspiration there as he diligently does his japanese characters (hiragana and now kanji!) every morning and is beginning to read japanese books solo. we help him with english and numbers in the evenings. it is very step by step, maybe only fifteen minutes with each subject, but the daily sessions have made a definite improvement. he'll be reading japanese and english by the fall, i'll wager.

oy vey, as one grandmother we know would put it.
nico is insane. he's a little powerhouse of determination and willfulness and maybe that sounds redundant but if you knew him, you would know that he deserves the overemphasis. he's too smart. like in the, hey, i am smart enough to know all my abcs and be able to count to 30 so i guess i can go outside by myself and see where sebastian and mama went to. in a diaper. and a gross sweaty tee shirt. and rain boots. (we have double locks and he undid both of them, with the help of a chair) jason found him with a helpful local girl on the other side of the bridge. gasp. the river. the road. the cars (read: the taxis). heart attack city. then later that day we go for a family stroll and all the shopkeepers along the main street come out and tell how they saw him walk by their shops. walk by. alone. main street. intersections. driveways. did i mention the taxis? my hair is absolutely white now. mr. independence. he was following me and sebastian to school though that is not where we were (it being a saturday). jason was frantically searching the neighborhood, looking down steep concrete steps. it was when he ran to the river to face one of the dreaded places to search that he saw nico sitting with the girl. and was he upset? no. he explained that he was looking for me and sebastian and that we were going to go get ice cream.
you may wonder, how did jason not know he was gone all that time? nico had been happily building airplanes with his legos and jason stepped away from him for two minutes. one, two. and hearing the kids outside playing, jason assumed that nico went to join them (which he often puts on his boots to try and do). but in the meantime, nico was trotting along in the opposite direction. he knows how to walk on the side of the street, how to look both ways, how to wait for the green signal. but nico. is. too. smart. for. his. own. good.
yikes. anyway, the little devil is waking and it is time to retrieve sebastian from yochien. i'm home after another dentist appointment and jason is subbing for me. so i thought i would share a little snippet of our life with you. now it is your turn. yes, you. how are you?