Mia's Tomodachi

Here's Mia with her "tomodachi"---Japanese for friends. These monkey bars are their favorite hang out. You've already met Aru-chan in blue. The little girl in the middle is Maia-chan. Chan is used after girl's names as a form of respect. Kuhn is used after boy's names. Our kids are respectively Mia-chan and Rhetto-kuhn. Rhett in itself if very difficult for the Japanese to say, so we've added an "o" to the end to make it more palatable to the native tongue. Back to Mia's friends. Maia is basically Mia's Japanese twin. Maia loves to climb, dig in the dirt and she is very friendly. She was the first person at school to take Mia under her wing. She is a total spitfire, full of energy and confidence. She likes to correct Mia's and my Japanese pronunciation on a regular basis. Her mom is fluent in English which helps a lot.

Maia and Aru are totally in love with Baby Rhett. They pick him up, give him his bottle of water, pacifier and fawn all over him. Maia was the first to teach me the word for baby in Japanese---Aka-chan. Maia doesn't know my name, but she refers to me as Aka-chan's mother. Very cute.

Maia can quickly shimmy up the fireman's pole in the blinking of an eye. Mia saw this and had to try it too.

Luckily Aru was there to give her a helping hand.

School is from 9am-2pm, with a half day on Wed which is 9-11:30. After school the kids and mom's stay in the playground together for at least 2 hours or so. The playground time functions in lieu of play dates at each other's homes. On Mia's half day, I bring us both a lunch and we stay at school to eat and play. All the mom's and kids do this. Needless to say, school is our social outlet and we love it.