Sometimes you've gotta do what you're afraid to, and it's good to go for it barefoot!

I didn't sleep last night.

I am finally on summer vacation from my work as an English teacher, and it seems my body just felt like staying up all night last night after work and doing all the things I have been wanting to do but have not been able to, due to time constraints.

This includes organizing debates, researching, posting anarchist content across my social media presence, Steeming, and just generally doing whatever the hell I want. After my wife and son picked me up from work last night we went out and I ordered two pizzas and drank two large beers. It seems my body and mind have been aching for a break.

The jungle gym at the top of the hill in Higashi-ku.

This is all fine and good, unless you have kids.

Then, you have to get up the next day. Rolling around in bed lazily while you debate people online and think up ideas for Steem articles is not so easy when a 17 kg ball of super-condensed-mega-energy-genius-fire wants to play with you and you need to be a good daddy.

After not sleeping really at all last night, and not being able to continue doing exactly what I wanted to do today--unable to sleep, and unable to function at full power or play LEGOs with any real degree of enthusiasm--I became frustrated. There is only so much Nintendo 3DS a kid can play, and Isaiah was getting bored. I snapped at him verbally when he kept walking in front of me as I moved around the house. In this moment I realized this was not a path I wanted to be on and so I apologized and we headed out for lunch.

Walking and talking.

As we held hands walking down the street, I apologized for being a grumpy daddy, and we talked about how with no brothers or sisters it is easy for Isaiah to get bored, especially when the three of us, mommy, daddy, and son, are all very driven people with our own goals and things we want to do for the day.

I explained to Isaiah for the first time in a very adult way why having a brother or sister is not really a feasible option at this point for medical reasons (Isaiah's birth was high-risk and the doctors warned that trying for another might be dangerous to both mother and child). Speaking to my little guy openly and honestly like this, and not really dumbing things down for him, I felt relief. We had a nice conversation and he seemed to really appreciate the openness and respect. We talked about time, money, and the benefits and tough spots about being an only child versus having some siblings.

After a small lunch at the sushi place, we ended up wandering to a local park.

The park on a lazy, dog day of August.

The cicadas were humming as we wound our way up the hill to one of our favorite little jungle gyms in the neighborhood. Isaiah climbed to the top all on his own for the very first time. He had been too scared before. We discovered how nice it feels to climb around on the bars barefoot.

The view from the top.

Demonstrating the toad man belly-shake-rain-dance from Mega Man IV.

2.

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The wonder of adaptation: video of a very cool caterpillar we discovered at the park!

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The takeaway.

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As we made our way back home, I said "hi" to an old man on the street who, to my surprise, ended up engaging us in English. It was nice. I realized that if we hadn't just gone out for a walk today, none of these discoveries would have been made, the beautiful moments spent bonding likely wouldn't have happened, and our very adult conversations about this and that may have instead been inadequately expressed frustrations, benefitting neither of us. At the sushi place Isaiah gave me a big hug and said "I love you."

Tired as I may be, I will never get tired of hearing that.

As long as we can keep accepting reality as it is (our feelings, frustrations, and struggles) and adapting to them openly to make our way like that little caterpillar, I think we are going to be just fine.

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(Thanks so much for stopping by. If you missed the last Unschooling Blog post, "Kids Don't Need School to Learn to Read (Learning to read is as natural as learning to walk)," you can find it HERE.)

~KafkA

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Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)