Oki playground

This morning was lovely again (thank goodness...trapped by rain all day is NOT fun). So we hit up a super cool park and made some Japanese friends. Billie has learned a little Japanese at school- just enough to make friends and play together. Here's how crazy Okinawa is. There were two kids at the park that looked a little raggedy and the boy (5 years old) was wearing some beat up hello kitty shoes on the wrong feet. (Billie and Jackson wear their shoes on the wrong feet about 95% of the time because if it bothered them, they'd change it...i'm not going to argue with them over THAT). But i NEVER see other kids doing that (apparently, most moms will argue this point). But then I noticed that he was in charge of his 2 year old little sister as he was helping her wash her hands and that their mom wasn't even AT the park!! There's apartment buildings all around the block so i guess she could just peek out and see them but they had a bag, like a grocery type bag, with some snacks in it so i guess she wasn't planning on joining them anytime soon. isn't that awful? you think at first...but the kids were so nice to eachother and i talked to the boy a little bit, his sister was fascinated by Sloane and they were just fine really. and it's just so darn safe here- there's not really anything to worry about. isn't that what life was like when my granny had her kids? i bet she just let them run around the farm and i guess someone could have gotten hurt or fallen but they would just have to send a sibling to get Mom in the house or something. sometimes i question being protective now...like, it's a little paranoid. i'm TOTALLY freaked to have the kids in the States because (maybe this is how a canadian sees it) it seems like some shooting range and kid napping also seems really frightening. feel free to email me any uplifting stories of random acts of kindness if you see them!