August is about Japan and back to school. We have written about Japan in our Vacation, Urban Hiking, Food Crawl section, and in Elia’s blog, but as we said in Elia’s blog we will try to write from each girl’s perspective as well. Curie looks like a kid now, with her missing teeth and gangly limbs, but she is still so much our little girl wanting to help and take care of everyone. She grew an inch this summer, making her taller but still shorter than most of her friends. She rediscovered cheese and eats a lot of pizza, so hopefully she is getting some calcium.
August meant the end of Camp, and we ended the summer with Chess camp. After pony camp, and instant pot camp and everything else we worried that Chess camp would be anti-climactic, but she really enjoyed it, and was so proud to bring home her trophy at the end of camp even putting it into the trophy case without asking if she could.
Before Japan, Curie was most interested in the toys and Disney, but I think she appreciated the trip more than she might have because she was older. She and Elia hated the airplane food, but Curie was able to eat the cup of noodles and get more food on the flight. When we landed, the girls were great getting through customs and being patient as we got our luggage, our money, our hotspot and then food. We had amazing ramen in the airport in Narita and after our mediocre ramen in Detroit it was a good sign.
Curie’s favorite part of the trip we daresay was learning about bidets. Japan has bidets in most public restrooms and we had one in the hotel. This was the technological marvel that impressed Curie the most, the butt washer and she used it at every turn (though she did have an itchy butt after coming back to the states). Elia liked it the first day when Curie liked it but reverted back to toilet paper after that. The kids loved the giant cotton candy. Curie got really into Gundam and the models and wanted one to bring home. The girls bought most of their stuff in Daiso, the dollar store, but did get their kimonos. Curie was so proud that hers was a full length one and she looked so elegant in it. We did get Elia a second full length one.
Curie discovered that she likes shoyu ramen the best, in fact the most plain shoyu ramen and we ended up going to a very inexpensive place twice for her, though the first time, Elia was freaked out by a man staring at us. The girls got fans, and dolls as might be expected, but then Curie and Elia really wanted to buy an Ultraman after Albert bought one, which was very interesting and they have been interested even after coming home. Curie was very interested in the Aibo we saw in the street and really wanted a stuffed animal. Fortunately we found the Dell pop-up store and were able to get some for free. Curie’s other favorite food was the broiled tuna we had at the fish market.
For Disney, Curie discovered she likes Japanese/Asian bread which is sweeter than American bread. We had to go back and get more for her at Disney. Curie’s drink of choice was Pokari Sweat and she discovered that she liked the whole salmon rice ball from the convenience store. In fact, she could have probably sustained hereslf on those while we were there.
So Gundam was important for another reason. She did make the model with Elia and Popup, but it as for school that Gundam came about again. We found the girls’ teachers at orientation day and Curie’s teacher is a young man who has taught for three years so far and was a fourth grade teacher before. When we visited, he was full of energy and we got to talking about our trip and he said it was the one place he really wanted to go. He was a Japan-o-phile, and when Curie said she liked Gundam, he said he might bring his in even though they weren’t supposed to bring in toys. Well, this was the beginning of a good relationship and Albert even decorated her sign with Gundam and Ultraman for the first day of school AND made Curie her own Gundam t-shirt to wear on the third day so Curie could impress him. It was a pink Gundam shirt too.
Curie really likes her new teacher and we have high hopes for the school year. During the summer we had a hard time getting Curie to read and write. Her writing needs a lot of work, but her reading had improved quite a bit in second grade. Erin dutifully read to the girls, and Albert started teaching Curie to write more neatly and to spell “summer” and “Tokyo” for the inevitable what-did-I-do-last-summer essay. We didn’t do the online summer reading class we put her in because it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that Curie would do well in and we did start late and then the trip to Japan came up eating away at the weekends. Curie is getting older and more mature and one day, Curie woke and said, “Mama, don’t hold me. But I still want to snuggle.” It is going so fast, but we are so proud of our daughters at the same time.