• 🚲 Leo and I have been riding bikes together more. He's getting stronger and rider further up the big hills. It's really good to see him rest midway up the hill and try again. This week we rode towards the big road to the station so he could get his hair cut. As a parent it's really scary having him ride there, even with me around, because there's so many things that could go wrong. But experience navigating is important and best learned at a young age.
• 📺 We've started watching The Simpsons together during the evenings. I love it because...it's the early Simpsons episodes, so classics, but it really really reminds me of growing up and watching the Simpsons with my dad.
• 🎶 Car-dependent societies have one advantage over places with good public transport like Japan: you can ample opportunity to force your kids to listen to your music (as you're stuck in the car together). I've been on a Aquabats kick lately and put them on the home pod mini while playing with Leo. Good news: He really digs their song Magic Chicken and sings bits of it to himself. :success-kid:
• 🏃‍♂️ I ran 3 times this week again. That's 3 weeks in a row of 3x / week. Go me!. I've noticed that my shoes are worn out and ordered a new pair of shoes (New Balance 860). I'm really looking forward for running around in a new pair of shoes – I haven't bought any running gear since I was in London a couple years back. Getting new gear / things related to your "hobby" (is this a hobby or just trying to maintain my health? A bit of both maybe?) is a good way to keep motivation when internal motivation has a lull. 

After moving abroad, I found my English slowly eroding. It turns out our first languages aren’t as embedded as we think.

1. Tagged with
2. language

• 🎳 Summer is quickly approaching so we've gone searching for entertainment indoors. I quite enjoy bowling (2 semesters in college, still not great) and Leo enjoyed playing last summer when we stayed in Odawara.
  
  We went bowling at Shonan Tokyu Bowl and it was a lot of fun! I'd been there once before probably 6 years ago and nothing had changed. My favorite parts of the bowling that day was seeing Leo get hyped up and that we could choose a mario theme (SNES era) for our score board. The background change each frame and it was great fun.
  

  

• 🍝 Eating out for dinner has been a challenge these past...since Leo was born. It's mostly been Denny's and other family restaurants and I'm so burned out on them. The menus are practically the same and there's always some shit by the registers that kids want to buy that makes entering and leaving a total pain (I'm looking at you, personal gumball machines) .
  
  But with Leo trying more foods each day (finally!) at primary school, he's feeling a bit more adventurous. Leo and I went and got Indian curry together because he wanted to eat nan. And we were able to go to a place that my wife and I really enjoy for the first time with Leo. Slowly the range of restaurants we can go is expanding.
• 🌹 For Mother's Day we didn't buy flowers  (Japanese mom's don't want them). Instead Leo and I went in to Yokohama to Tonoji and bought some really nice, handmade bento. Maybe it's the fact that Leo has his own passmo now (i.e. it costs money for him to ride public transit), but going is getting so much easier. He walks, doesn't moan (too much), and doesn't goof off in the train.
• 🏃‍♂️ I ran 3 times a week for the second week in a row. Go me!