Relaxed day together...

Today was another day off from school, in observance of Veteran's Day. There are times when it seems the numbers of days off at B's school in November are greater that the days he is in school (not true, but if feels that way :), but we had a nice day together. For one thing, we got to sleep in until 8:00 (we're usually up at 7:00). I was really surprised that B was stil asleep when I got up- we'd recently reduced his evening dose of seroquel because he was sleeping right up to the alarm, so I had expected him to be back to his usual waking-up at 6:00-ish. I can't remember the last time he slept in till 8:00... He was in a pretty good mood, though, since it was a school holiday. B decided that he wanted miso soup for breakfast, having seen Kagome & her family having soup for breakfast on InuYahsa. I have some nice instant-type miso soup, & B put it together himself. There are 2 packets, one with the miso & one with flavouring. I showed him where on the packet to look to read what the flavourings are, in japanese of course, & he read them off to me without needing much help, then chose one & put it all together. I have a japanese-style water boiler that keeps the temperature of the water steady (I keep it set at 175 for green tea), so B just used that hot water for his soup. He asked for green tea, too, but we've been having B drink milk for at least 2 meals a day, to make sure veggie-boy gets enough protein. He pronounced his breakfast "oishii" (delicious). At some point in the proceedings B had put the InuYasha hat on, & we fell into making up InuYasha-inspired verses for the Weird Al (via Devo) song "Dare to be Stupid". We were challenging each other to make up verses for each character & had a great time :)

I had an appointment with the chiropracter right after breakfast, so we hopped in the car (B still in the InuYasha hat). He took it off when we got there & we conversed in japanese & made up more take-offs on InuYasha while we waited. I had swung by the anime store yesterday & picked up the recently-released (in english) Hikaru no Go volume 8, so B had that to read while he was waiting for the chiropacter to put my back to rights. C & I had brainstormed a list of things for B & I to do today, since I didn't want him to end up on the computer all day. With all of the japanese fun in the morning I'd had an idea for yet another activity, which is how we spent the next part of the morning- making our own scrabble-type tiles out of the katakana alphabet (using the computer & card stock) so we could play games with them. Both B & C are trying to learn katakana these days, so I thought it would be fun for all of us to be able to play word games in japanese. After I composed it all on the computer (colour-coding each "line" so that it'll be easier to learn) & printed out multiple pages, B helped me cut them out using the mini paper-cutter. This took us up right up to lunch. I had been thinking of going out for japanese, but we were on a roll, so I put some rice in the cooker & B had some more miso soup with his rice. I made onigiri with tobiko (little orange fish roe- yum!) on top for myself. We both had green tea with lunch & Halloween candy for dessert :)

After lunch B opted to lego for a bit, saying he was too tired to play any word games in japanese. He worked very hard on making some more models for his "Professor Chris" set (a very complicated story involving good guys & bad guys & robots & mole rats & lots of vehicles) & after a couple hours he came down for snack & to show me what he'd made- a library, for one, that opens & closes in a tricky way (way cool). We each had an apple for snack & then settled-in to playing with our japanese letters. On one hand, in japanese you rarely run out of vowels (as can happen in english scrabble) because all letters but one are tied to vowel sounds. The tricky thing, we discovered, is that the vowels are mostly tied to consonants, so it's harder to think of words using the letters of just one word (at the start of the game at least). B found the letters for InuYasha, & then I added InuTaisho (that's his father's name) to the "I" of InuYasha. B used my "shi" to spell "Shippo" & I used his "o" to spell "origami". We ended this game with B using the "mi" to spell "Miroku"- another character in InuYasha.

B finally got a spot at the Adventure Quest site (it's been really jammed-up lately) & played until dinner time. Grammie came over to join us for dinner & watched B play, while he explained what he was doing. She laughed when she saw the InuYasha hat (he had worn it most of the day) & said she really liked it. I was having a dinner disaster, myself... I had thawed pizza dough from the freezer by floating it in warm water, but the bag it was in leaked. When I retrieved the dough it was soggy. It was nearly impossible to get flattened on the pizza pan & had an unhealthy look to it. Time for plan B... Lucky C made that lovely cheesy potato casserole earlier this week. He & grammie had leftover casserole & B & I had fried tofu & rice. Grammie brought salad, thankfully. To try to recoup the disaster I made baked apples for dessert & they, at least, turned out really well :) Then we had a spirited game of "Fairy Queen" (a newer version of "Old Maid" where you want to end up with the Fairy Queen at the end because you get extra points...). B went back to his computer game & we chatted with grammie until it was time for B to get ready for bed. I read to him (we're now on the 4th book of the "Dark is Rising Sequence", called "The Grey King") but it didn't seem to help him relax like it usually does. After a "quick minute" (curled up in a lower quadrant of B's bed, since his plushies are all still tucked under the covers so that they look very like another person in bed with him...) he asked for dad to come up for a "quick minute" also (said he likes variety). Dad finally left him with a flashlight, but I can hear him ticcing right now so it doesn't appear that he's going to fall asleep any time soon. Sigh. Better get upstairs & see if I can help (C's on call tonight & working tomorrow morning, so is trying to get to sleep himself). All in all, though, & nice day together with B.