Child's Prayer

In cleaning out a box of junk, I found a napkin on which I recorded the following prayer:

イエス様、この食事をなおしてください。
この食べ物をたべてください。
アーメン

Yesu sama, kono shokuji wo naoshite kudasai.
Kono tabemono wo tabete kudasai.  Amen.

Jesus, Please fix this meal.
And please eat this food.
Amen.

It's funnier in Japanese.  And it would be an even better story if I noted here which one of the kids said this and when.  But alas, I left those details unrecorded.  Ah well, it's a relief to know that if we can't be bothered to eat our own food, we can always ask Jesus to do it for us.

Climbers

Over the last three weeks or so, the once reluctant Koji has mysteriously transformed into an avid practitioner of karate.  For the most part, I am in favor of the transformation.  Finding ways to get him to the dojo daily Monday through Thursday feels strangely easier than dealing with his previous reluctance to go once a week.
A large part of my adventure, finding myself a sudden and thorough "karate mom," is figuring out what on earth the girls and I are supposed to do from 5:30 to 6:30 every day.  Let me note that I would love for us to linger and watch him at practice.  Alas, my only quibble with his dojo: the waiting area is too small to accommodate two active little girls and their increasingly frazzled mama.  We have to drop him off and then entertain ourselves as the distance back home is just a little too great to warrant a trip there and back.

Thank God, it's summer, for now.  Killing time isn't so complicated.  And I'm finding the more we do it, somehow, I don't mind the waiting as much.  We're moving from killing time to investing time in making memories together.  And that feels like a sort of climbing.