Getting ready for Japan, pt. 2...

Time has definitely begun to break the laws of physics. I looked & it's been a week since I last updated the blog, but it really doesn't seem like a week's gone by...

To pick up the camping trip story, Brendan had a really good first day of camping. He didn't enjoy most of the ropes-course activities, except for one that required a lot of problem-solving, which is right up his alley, but the course leaders were clued-in ahead of time by the teachers that some of the kids would find the activities very difficult, so they were allowed to sit out if they wanted to. Brendan decided to forego the craft activities afterward, in the late afternoon, & rested in the cabin instead (& I'd been worried that he wouldn't get sufficient down-time :). When Charlie arrived at around 6:45 pm, Brendan was happily playing a post-dinner game of soccer. There was a campfire & s'mores before bedtime & Charlie said that the boys were all asleep by midnight (the girls were up until 2:00 am!). The coolest thing about the day was that it was completely tic-free! On Friday morning Brendan tried fishing for the second time in his life. The first time, at age 7-ish, resulted in hysterics when he actually caught the fish. He was afraid of killing it... This time, once he discovered that they were tossing them back after catching them, he was very excited to do it. He wasn't as excited about putting worms or maggots (!) in the hook, but other kids & parents helped him out. He had a great time for a while, but Charlie noticed that it was taking on an obsessive quality after about an hour or so. By the time they broke for lunch it was nearly impossible for him to stop, & by the time he got to the dining hall he was in full, screaming tic mode :( Charlie managed to get him to the car & gave him Rufus, then he explained to the teachers that he would take Brendan home early (the rest of the group left around 2:00). They stopped for fries on the way home, & Brendan was calmer in the car, but the miniute he got home he was very unsettled. We talked about how tough transitions can be, tried to get him to eat some more, but finally he went into a major meltdown & we just had to ride it out... After he recovered, we watched Miyazaki's "Nausicaa" in japanese & had a belated lunch. The rest of the day- in fact, the rest of the weekend, happily, went very well.

One of the things Charlie & I realised last week was that Brendan has been having a lot more difficulty with OCD & tics over the last weeks, both at school & at home. When he saw the pediatrician for his check-up last week we also noticed that he'd gained enough weight that he'd probably outgrown the previous dose. So a week ago Wednesday we decided to up his seroquel dosage slightly. Now, a week & a half later, we & his teachers are noticing an amazing change in his ability to cope with the OCD. Perhaps not co-incidentally, I have also been reading to Brendan at bedtime from one of my favourite books, Matthew Bortolin's "The Dharma of Star Wars", & his budding understanding of buddhist philosophy seems to be giving him a positive framework for looking at the OCD & resulting emotional turmoil. Bortolin was trained as a buddhist monk by Thich Nhat Hahn, who is one of my favourite resources for buddhist spirituality, & explaining buddhism from the Jedi perspective is not only charming to us Star Wars fans, but keeps our interest :) I had been waiting on sharing this book with him until I thought Brendan had matured enough to really think about what we're reading, & now seems to be the right time. We've been able to talk about the suffering the OCD thoughts cause him & brainstorm ways to deal with them in a mindful way (described in the book as Qui Gon's "Living Force Mindfulness" :). Brendan has been actively engaging me during the day in discussion of ways to manage the tics with mindfulness practise (concentrating on breathing & what he's doing in the here & now & letting the thoughts pass naturally out of his mind without being critical of them). I particularly like the non-critical message, since Brendan often has a lot of after-meltdown distress from feeling bad about having the meltdown thoughts in the first place. The calm acceptance message is a very healing one. So between getting some relief by increasing the seroquel & finding new ways to imagine & deal with the OCD, Brendan has had one of his calmest & most enjoyable weeks at school this year. His teachers are so happy to have so much positive interaction from him :) Brendan most definitely has a positive effect on the group dynamics at school- we've gotten this feedback many times- when he's in a good place & not using his energy to just keep himself together. The unexpected side-effect of the buddhist discussion has been that I have gotten back in the habit of my own on-again, off-again mindfulness practise, & it's helping me a lot!

This past week has been unimaginably busy... Last Saturday we met Tomoko's mom, Nobuko-san, for the first time. They came to tea on Saturday afternoon, so I made scones & english tea ("ko-cha", as I learned from them). I'm trying to keep it in mind to do "american" things for Nobuko-san, to make it more fun for her. (Hey, when I'm in Japan, I want to do "japanese" things!) Nobuko-san speaks no english, so it was our first real challenge of speaking functional japanese :) Brendan was nervous, too, & mine was compounded by being sick with that virus. I felt as though all my 2 years of lessons ran right out my ears as soon as they came through the door, but Tomoko was there to translate, & I was able to say in japanese that I'd been a bit sick lately, which helped. Charlie was home from working Saturday morning, so we were all able to sit down to a nice tea after Nobuko-san gave us "omiyage" gifts from Japan. Brendan was very excited- she had brought him a "Kamen Rider Den-O" (our very favourite japanese tv series right now) action figure & a Jyuken Geki Ranger (the latest in the Super Sentai- aka Power Rangers- series, which we've also been watching online) mecha to put together. She said that Brendan's just like her older grandson, Shin-kun, the way he loves to put things together, which was lovely news because we're bring lots of legos for him as omiyage when we go to Japan :) My thinking is that Brendan will lose his shyness about speaking japanese while helping Shin-kun (who is 8) put the legos together. The good news about our first meeting with the very kind lady who we'll be spending a week of our trip to Japan with, is that I understood at least half of what she said, even if I did struggle to respond. I've seen her twice since then & my understanding has increased each time, so I think it bodes well... :)

Monday, Brendan had 2 doctor's appointments, & then we had a last-minute visit to my doctor as well... Charlie told me before he left for work Monday morning that my breathing sounded worse overnight & that I might want to have my doctor listen to my lungs, & I was smart enough to listen to him so I called. My doctor very kindly got me in at the end of the day (she has picked up a few too many of my asthma-related train wrecks to ignore this sort of info...) &, indeed, I had bronchitis. But- we'd caught it before I needed steroids- hooray! Brendan was pretty darned good about being hauled all over the universe (after the doctor, we had to stop & get antibiotics & also pick up some dinner, since there was no time to cook- Charlie actually beat us home). I got a couple of sushi packs for dinner, with the idea of making ramen for Brendan, & it's a sign of just how serious Charlie is about getting ready for Japan that he turned down the offer of a bowl of tomato soup with the sushi- sushi's not his favourite- but ate just that instead. I got a veggie pack (neither of us does raw fish...) & Brendan decided he wanted to try some, & didn't he just like the avocado ones! Go fig... So I guess we all qualify as a sushi-eating family now :)

Tuesday was almost as crazy with doctor's appointments (getting it all in before we go), but I did get some down-time during the day, to try to get over the bronchitis. Wednesday felt nearly impossible when I first got up. The plan was to run an indigo vat, to finish dyeing omiyage gifts & also teacher end-of-year-gifts (plus a few new ones for Brendan, who has outgrown all of his indigo-dyed shirts), plus Tomoko & Nobuko-san were coming over to "experience" the indigo dyeing, too ("aizome" in japanese). I was planning to make a simple "american" lunch of tuna & egg salad sandwiches, pickles, & tea... Plus there were the usual Wednesday chores, like changing the beds, running the dishwasher, taking out the trash... dealing with bronchitis... luckily, also on the list was a visit to the chirpracter & somehow her working on my very achy back (from coughing & tie-dyeing, I think) & concentrating on my mindfulness practise whenever I felt overwhelmed, put me in the right frame of mind to do everything that needed to be done. I had a great time! I was much more relaxed & the japanese came to mind more easily. Tomoko & her mom had bought t-shits to dip in the indigo, so they tied them in pretty patterns & really seemed to enjoy the process of dyeing. Charlie took Brendan to & from school, which is one of the things that made everything possible, & they stopped at a local children's museum on the way home from school & picked up some more fun gifts for the kids in Japan.

Yesterday I grocery shopped & had a meeting at church for which I made an "onigiri" (rice balls) lunch, but again, staying present & not getting fussed about still feeling under the weather made it a really enjoyable day. Brendan played outside for about 2 hours, & instead of coming in all over-stimulated, he was in a pretty good place when he came in right before dinner. The only untoward incident was that he ate something from the garden that he'd thought was lemon balm, but wasn't, & his tongue started to tingle. He brought in a sprig of whatever it was (a weed- nothing I recognised) & hyper-ventilated a bit when he realised that he'd might have gotten into something poisonous... but I kept the admonitions on the light-side. He was obviously not getting sick & hadn't swallowed anything (he spit it right out when it tasted funny), so I made him drink something & then promise not to eat anything from the garden until we've had a refresher on what's edible & what generally isn't. Fortunately, I removed anything not safe for kids from the garden when Brendan was a baby...

Tonight is Tomoko's graduation dinner, which Charlie & I are also going to. She & her mom are wearing kimonos! I'm really psyched to see them & give chatting in japanese yet another try. Brendan's happily staying home with our goddaughter, so it's a win-win. We're looking at a busy-ish weekend, with one of our last japanese lessons with Tomoko on Saturday morning, a church meeting for me (which I'll leave early for japanese), & then a school event in the afternoon. Sunday will be choir & church, then maybe actually resting in the afternoon :) Next week there's less appointment-action, thank goodness! All of the shirts for Japan will be dyed & ready to pack, all of the teacher end-of-year gifts will be done. Only 3 more weeks of school & then... we're on our way!!