Children

Children

I love children.  You might say it's part of my nature: growing up the eldest in a large family with two younger sisters and four younger brothers.  For me, life with children is normal, and I can't imagine life without children.

That was all very well for my life and family in Wisconsin, but what about when I decamped to Japan?    Suddenly my family was half-way around the world, and I was spending most of my days in an office.

And this is where the beauty of LEX comes in.  At the LEX office, it's not unusual to see children.  In fact, hardly a day goes by without one mother (or more!) bringing her child into the office.  Also, through LEX clubs and homestays, there are many opportunities to spend time with children.  I love it!

This is Hanna: I see her at the office at least once a week.

This is Yuma . . . I stayed with his family last weekend.  He likes to wear sunglasses . . . 

He also likes to wear hats.  This was taken while we were walking in the mountains . . . 

There's only so much walking a 2-year-old can be expected to do on a hike!

Yuma's big sister Haruna likes glasses too.  We had a wonderful time together.  

We did an obstacle course together while hiking . . . 

We took pictures together.  Notice her earbuds . . . she was listening to music on my iPod!

She taught me how to make origami hearts.

Yuma "helped"

Haruna loved the bandz that I brought along. 

The poodle was her particular favorite.  She didn't know the word "poodle", but she had learned it by the end of the weekend!  

After a great weekend full of children, I returned to the office . . . 

Yep, that's me.  Isn't it a great picture?  The key is having a good photographer . . . 

Meet Thomas

Thomas happened by my desk on Monday afternoon.  He stopped to chat . . .

We inspected a highlighter that I was using . . . 

We talked and laughed.

I looked at Thomas' bottle caps.

If you can't tell, we had a lovely time.  Now, there's one part of the story that I haven't told you.  One part about all these pictures that I've left out.  Excepting Hanna, who's only a baby, all of these children spoke little, if any, English.  Did that stop them talking to me?  Not at all!  They just chattered away in Japanese.  Did this stop me communicating with them?  Not at all!  I just spoke in Japanese and did my best to keep up with and understand the conversation.  Even when I didn't know what they were talking about, I still contributed to the conversation by occasional interjections such as, "Honto?"  ("Really?")  or, "Sodane?"  ("Is that so?").  And the wonderful thing is, it worked! 

 So here I am, working in Japan . . . and life is normal . . . because there are children.