Mason Shoma

I usually eat my banana in yogurt, but recently I have been requesting “monkey banana”.

My friend came over today and we had a great time! First we ate a yummy lunch! My friend’s mom loves the spam musubi that Daddy makes, so we always make sure to have it on the menu. I helped make fruit salad which everyone loved. Daddy also made a Hawaiian dish called chicken long rice. It was a big hit. My friend does not eat much. In fact it is a concern of her parents who sometimes struggle to get her to eat food. Her mom was very surprised and happy to see my friend have several servings of the chicken long rice. I counted at least five servings.

After lunch we played a bunch. We were having a lot of fun playing with the balloons from Mommy’s birthday…until my balloon popped.

I was heart-broken. I asked Daddy to fix it, but he said he couldn’t. He gave me another balloon but I said “I don’t want ‘this’ balloon, I want ‘my’ balloon.” Even though I had only been playing with my balloon for a short time, I had grown quite attached to it.

But I eventually got over it.

We had a lot of fun playing together, but there were also moments where I was not a good host and was not sharing. I’m sad to admit that sharing is still an issue with me at home, with friends, and at school. We are working on it.

When it was time to say goodbye, I was sad to see my friend go. Despite hiccups along the way, we always have a great time together!

Mommy and Daddy have been going out for their Monthiversary every month since they got married (with some take-out Monthiversaries during the pandemic). Today we went to a cool restaurant with an all-you-can-eat menu and it had a lot of great food!

And with great food comes great fun!

We ate so much food, it was nice to walk it off on the way home.

We celebrated Halloween today! It is not a standard event in Japan, but you do see Halloween decorations and goods up around the end of October. The thing is, there is no Trick-or-Treating custom. So we improvise.

First, I get to go to the snack store and pick out some Halloween treats for myself and my friend.

Then I dress up in the awesome costume that Nana makes for me and pretend to go Trick-or-Treating, (walking around in costume and eventually sitting down to eat my treats).

Nana made me a police officer costume this year which I just love! I was very happy to wear it and quite comfortable. While walking around I heard a lot of passersby’s comments saying, “Oh, how cute!”

As with any kid, my favorite part of Halloween was eating my treats. I don’t often get candy and was very happy to find cute ones that interested me. My favorite one was the poop-shaped lollipop.

After Trick-or-Treating, we went toy shopping with the money that Nana and Papa sent with their Halloween card.

There were so many toys to look at, but I chose my Tomica fire truck quite quickly without any wavering. But while looking at other toys and making my Christmas wish list I looked like a mall security guard doing my rounds.

Even though it is an unconventional Halloween celebration, I really enjoyed it and was very happy!

Happy Halloween everyone!

There is some demolishing going on near our house, so we had to check it out. There were two big modified excavators tearing down a building. They had claws instead of scoops. It was pretty cool!

Mommy and I had fun marching around when we got home.

• Ambulance spotting
• Toyota Sienta spotting

Note: I’m really good at recognizing different kinds of cars and the Sienta is one of them

• Taxi
• School is closed?
• “Daddy, I love you!”
• Pizza

At the park, my friend and I opened a shop. “Irasshaimase!”

The weather is getting slightly cooler so I have been wearing long pants to school more often. Since I grew out of a lot of last year’s pants I had to get new ones. When asked what kind of pants I wanted, I answered, “Pink”. Mommy and Daddy expected me to say ambulance or fire truck pants. Luckily we found some nice pink pants that look great on me.

Today we headed to one of our sister schools to pick sweet potatoes. It was quite far away so we took a train. Actually, we rode the subway and then switched to a train. It made it twice as fun!

It wasn’t easy to pull the sweet potatoes out of the ground. They were really stuck in there. But we didn’t give up and we got some big sweet potatoes. Some were bigger than others.

Even though it was a long trip, we all enjoyed it a lot. The trip back was just as fun! There were so many cars and other vehicles to see along the way.

We visited the prefectural office again today and went to see the sumo exhibit again. We were very excited to see the huge displays. I wonder how much I have to eat to get that big.

It was a rainy day today, so we stayed indoors to play. One of the activities that we had was folding origami. Our teacher showed us how to fold nice hats.

We also had gymnastics class today. Along with using the bar and jumping box, we practiced balancing on one leg. It was challenging, but I did pretty good and had fun doing it.

We had a lot of fun at the park today. We played with balls and ran around a lot.

We also chased some dragonflies around. No matter how fast we ran, they flew faster and we couldn’t catch any. Maybe next time.

We also played train. Our teacher drew train tracks on the ground and we ran around on the tracks.

We had a quiet and relaxing morning at home. As usual, I ate a hearty breakfast and watch a bunch of my favorite TV shows. Then I played with my toys and had some iPad time.

After lunch I wanted to go to the park. It has been getting colder, so I got to wear my new jacket. Pretty cool, yeah?

At the park we did a lot of running around.

I like this parks pathway because Daddy and I can pretend it is train tracks or roads as we run around and around.

I also did some rocking…

…and some posing.

Then back to rocking with Daddy.

On our way home I said that I wanted to go to the other park near our place, so we stopped by home to pick up some toys and headed to another park.

My excavator and dump truck did some work in the sandbox, and then I watered a lot of plants with my fire hose.

After that we relaxed at home.

After dinner I got to eat a milky fruit bar for dessert.

And then we had our usual bedtime routine. During book time I was feeling in need of some contact so I made Daddy comfort me by stroking my leg.

It was a very fun-filled day.

We visited a new nursery school today. My school only goes up until 3-years-old, so for next year I have to find a new school. We have been visiting several different schools in the area and they all look promising. One of the first questions we ask each school is are seconds provided at lunch.

Speaking of lunch, we stopped by a restaurant for lunch on our way home from the school visit. It was very yummy and I ate a regular-sized meal since they didn’t have a kids’ meal. I’m usually okay with that. I found out that while I like the freebie toys I get with meals, I’d rather have more food.

After dinner, I had a special dessert that I thought was great. It was transcending. But I had eaten such a good dinner that I didn’t have much room left in my tummy, so I had to stop and planned to finish it tomorrow.

Every so often, I ask Mommy if we can go to the aji-fry (fried horse mackerel) restaurant. It is on our way home from school and the teishoku (set meal) is both delicious and reasonably priced. They don’t have a kids’ meal, but I have no problem eating a standard adult-sized teishoku, while picking some food from Mommy’s teishoku as well.

Just to be silly, Daddy put a swim cap on my head when he got home from work. Note: this is not my swim cap, but Daddy’s swim cap. We all noticed that the adult-sized swim cap fit a little too perfectly on my three-year-old head.

We had our English lesson at school today. We learned some Halloween words and had fun singing the ghost song. We loved it when we got to shout “Boo!”.

At the park we chased a lot of bubbles and really worked up a sweat. We made sure to stay hydrated.