I'm a Big Kid Now! Henry Goes to Kindergarten and Clair Stands Up

I've been thinking about journaling online (before I knew it was called 'blogging') about our family life ever since we launched skarecky.com when Henry was born. So here we are 5 years later, in a different country, with another baby, and I'm finally starting my blog. I plan to write mostly about what the kids are up to as well as the occasional odd or interesting thing we discover in Tokyo.

And what a week of milestones we've had! Henry's first day of kindergarten at Nishimachi International School - www.nishimachi.ac.jp - was on Monday. He's in the red class and his teacher is a lovely Australian woman named Miss Amies. He came home the first day and pointed to our timer and said "Miss Amies calls this a 'buzza," so he's already picking up the Aussie accent. I've been told by other parents that Miss Amies is the 'most nurturing' of the 3 kindergarten teachers. The school makes an effort to place kids with the right teacher for them so I think Ms Amies is probably a good choice for Henry since he can be pretty apprehensive about new things. That being said I've been astonished at how happy he's been to start kindergarten - no tears, no "I want to stay home, " nothing but enthusiasm about waking up in the morning and going to school - long may it last!


Clair's big news is that she is now standing up. Yesterday she pulled herself up in her playpen for the first time and then 'practiced' all day, pulling herself up on the coffee table, the sofa and even in her bed in the middle of the night!