He thinks my old college iPod is a phone.  He stopped on our walk to check his phone and take a call, then put his phone in his back pocket.  Clearly I work too much!

…and I think that pretty much catches the blog up for the last month.  We are in a season of busyness since I went back to work, Ben has long days at work, Max is in school full time, and we’re getting ready for baby girl (5-ish more weeks!!!).  March 31st is my last day of work, and the plan is to take Max out of school, spend some time with my parents, and hopefully have a chance to do any last minute preparations before Little P is here!  I’m looking forward to spending my days with this guy and his little sister!  

The view from our front porch.  Max’s collection of “pluggers” keeps growing.  He has now assumed ownership of an additional power strip.  Our neighbors and friends at the playground always look to see what “interesting” new thing Max has.  He carries these around in his backpack everywhere.  He plugs them in all over his room in a specific arrangement at night and nap time, and when he wakes up he carts them downstairs and plugs them in again.  When we leave the house, he packs them up in his backpack and unpacks them on the front porch where there is an outlet when we get home.  As we drive, he points out the power lines to me and asks where they connect.  When he sees something plugged in at a store, he needs to know if the cord has three prongs or two, and is it an American or Japanese outlet?  We used to watch Toy Story on Friday nights, but now we watch the same electricity episode of Popular Mechanics for Kids.  It’s sometimes very frustrating to leave the house and make sure his inventory is complete if we’re running late, but it really is such a gift to watch his interests develop.  I can’t wait to see what the next obsession – ahem, interest, – will be!

Oh, and quick disclaimer – Yes, I know he’s only three, but he does understand that metal is a conductor and will shock him if he is touching the metal while plugging something into an outlet.  Some coworkers of mine were horrified when they realized I let him “play” with outlets.  He takes electricity very seriously and has a healthy respect for its capabilities as explained by his daddy.

And we found the roller slide!  The blue and yellow paddles are actually seats they sell around here just for roller slides.  Max loves them, but decided this one was just a little too fast.  Later, he asked if we could find a slow roller slide, haha!  He spent the rest of the afternoon climbing and watching the big kids slide.  We also did some pinecone hunting before the rain sent us home.  I took the bottom picture from another lookout point.  Our house is between the Ferris wheel and the long white hotel.

Cherry blossoms and a battle site.  We were looking for a roller slide, but no luck here.  Max was disappointed, so we continued our search after a few pictures.  The top photo is the view from a lookout point.  The large white hotel in the distance right next to the coast is about a mile from our house.  In the second photo you can see MCAS Futenma. Also, you can tell just how populated most of this island is!  All the big stretches of wide open space are American bases.  The Okinawans build pretty densely on this part of the island.