Jonas has a cold

Jonas has a cold, his first in Japan. He was congested this morning, but happy and energetic, so I thought he would be fine at daycare. They called around noon for me to pick him up. I am not sure if they thought I should pick him up or if they just wanted to let me know he had a runny nose. I also wasn't sure of the cultural norms about sending toddlers to daycare with colds. I think in the US that as long as a toddler seems to be feeling well and does not have a fever, it is okay to send him, because the germs get passed around before symptoms show up.

Anyway, he still seemed to be in a good mood when I picked him at noon and they said he ate all of his lunch, so I think he is okay. I took his temp and he does not have a fever. He is napping right now, so now I have a couple of hours to myself. I did the responsible thing and washed dishes first thing. Which caused me to reflect on the fact that having a smaller living space and fewer things does simplify life. We only have two regular size plates, so it is not possible to let the dirty dishes pile up. It is a nice change, although, I am not sure I could live like this forever.

This is so unlike a blog entry Jason would write, and that just made me laugh.

Jonas' cold has brought up one of my fears of living in a foreign country - which is maneuvering the health care system in a language I don't know. I think the health care here is good and I do have a handy English/Japanese book with all the phrases and vocabulary I need when we do go to a doctor, but still I will not be able to ask the many questions I usually ask...
There is also a nice childcare clinic less than a block from our apartment and one of my co-workers marked the emergency hospitals on a map for me in case we ever need to take Jonas to the hospital. And, if we needed it, we know people that would translate for us. My supervisor said the docs here write scripts in English, so they should know some English. I don't quite understand why they would write scripts in English...
But anyway, I am sure we would be fine, but I just have to admit that this is something that I have thought about...

My other fear was getting daycare set up for Jonas which has gone well. Today as I was trying to talk with the daycare provider about how Jonas was feeling, I noticed that they have a book called English for Childcare Providers. Jonas is the only non-Japanese at daycare, so I know they got this to work with us. They are so sweet and write daily in a notebook for Jonas, letting us know what special activity he did and the other usual stuff (lunch and nap info). They write some things in Japanese and some things in English. I know they get out the English - Japanese dictionary to write us notes, which I appreciate. The notes are cute, one day they wrote "Jonas was dances with children." He does love to dance. I think Jonas is having fun at daycare. He does love to play with other kids. At the beginning, he would only eat part of his lunch, I think as he was adjusting, but now everyday, consistently, they write that he eats his entire lunch. I think he likes Japanese food!

I like the daycare and appreciate that they work so hard to accommodate us as non-Japanese speakers. One daycare would not even consider us, because we do not speak Japanese. Enough rambling.

The picture was taken at the Subura dealership where we bought our car two weeks ago. Jonas had a great time playing with that Subura bear (the tag said Subura). Speaking of the car, it is supposed to be delivered tomorrow!