• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

daddy's little helper

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This morning my mobile phone chirped to tell me that I'd received an email. Naturally, I'd just sat down on the toilet.

Then the door opened, and The Boy was there with my mobile phone. Thanks, boy!

But at the day care he immediately forgot all about me. As usual.

When I went to put his jacket and spare clothing in the small shelf space he's got, I found a set of covers waiting for me. I was meant to enter the kids' class room and change the covers on his futon.

What followed was five minutes of me entertaining every one of the small children in the room. Everyone had something to show me, or wanted to tell me something, or wanted to help me. All while I wrestled with the curiously small cover for the oversized futon*. The Boy stayed on the other side of the room throughout, playing with the toy shinkansen set.

*A word to any non-Japanese readers who happen upon this journal. What we think of as a futon doesn't exist in Japan. A futon (typically pronounced f'ton) is a simple mattress, a thin thing that is folded during the day and put away in a wide closet. There's none of the North American slat-board furniture nonsense or those special foam core things or any of that. At the day care, the futons measure about 75cm by 125cm.