Off we go...!

On your mark... get set...

I have packed for 2 days straight, now. Tomorrow morning we fly to Japan! I have become so disconnected from "regular" life & "blog" life that I'm no longer sure what I've posted or when, but it's all been a necessary part of getting this family off on the trip of our lives :)

Last Friday was the last day of school for Brendan, although he chose not to go on the class trip to an amusement park the day before, so it was an interrupted end of the week & year. The week started off on a really rocky note- Brendan's anxiety went right through the roof & he's needed a lot of assistance getting through his days, but things eased-up as the week went by, thankfully. We did go to school on Thursday for his last OT session, first thing in the morning, & so he could give his OT, Ann, her end-of year gift (this year I tie-&-indigo-dyed scarves for everyone). It helped to keep a sort of schedule on this day off school. After OT we went grocery shopping together & had a very mellow day. I think it set him up nicely for a good last day, which can be a bit hairy with it's very different schedule. Cherie, Brendan's consultant teacher, & I planned things carefully in advance so I'd know when to get him each day last week, & I was "on call" for an early pick-up if necessary. He made it right through to 1:45 on Friday which was stellar :) Cherie gave Brendan the bubble-blower in the picture above & he finds it delightful :) All of his teachers liked their scarves & the place had a decided 60's-era look with them all wearing their tie-dyes in various ways. There's a new bubble-tea place that's opened right on the way home, so we stopped for tea as a treat after school. (We tried it out earlier in the week, for a bubble-tea & sushi snack after school, so we were ready to go back :) Brendan has developed a taste for the gooey, tapioca-based bubbles (I have loved them for quite some time) so it's another fun thing we can share.

Over the weekend I started-in with pre-packing activities: gathering things & making lists. One major thing that has happened in our lives over the past couple of weeks is that there was a small fire in Charlie's office early on the morning of June 1st. He happened to be the doctor on call & so got the message at 2:15 am that the building was on fire (!) & a request to come & help the firefighters navigate any hazardous wastes in the aftermath. That was quite a day... Although the fire was nicely contained to the room it was in by the sprinkler system, & no medical records were lost (& very little actual damage done to anything, really) the fire smouldered for a few hours before igniting, so the smoke damage was pretty extensive, & of course, there was water damage from the sprinklers. So 10 doctors have been office-less ever since, practicing out of various offices in the community where someone's on their day off or sick. They've been meeting every morning to get assignments, & only seeing the patients with the most need, while the university found them a temporary site. Saturday morning Charlie spent a few hours shifting things from his smoly office to the temporary space. Yesterday was the first day at the temporary offices & things were predictably chaotic. On one hand, it's made things much busier for Charlie right now (as he's trying to pack & get ready for Japan) but on the other, he's soooo ready to get the heck out of the country :)

On Sunday we had our annual Religious Education Sunday, where the kids & teachers do the service. My Sr. High kids usually do the sermon, since they're the oldest of the bunch, & this year we also had a "bridging" ceremony, where we acknowledge a graduating senior & wish them well on their way to college. It was a fair amount to put together, especially with Japan on my mind, but it was absolutely wonderful. I had warned my graduate, Chaz, that I would get emotional during the ceremony, but wasn't prepared to be moved to tears by what he said in his part of the sermon, where he talked about the important place the church & congregation has had in his life & how much he'll miss us. It's such a joy & honour to be part of the lives of our children & youth... My goddaughter was the other Sr. High participant, & we'll be doing her bridging next year. It's pretty amazing...

Yesterday I really revved-up into packing mode. There is so much to bring/document when you leave the country & do it for 3 weeks! I realised that I've never been away for so long on vacation... We had to have all of Brendan's & my prescription meds in labelled bottles with back-up copies of the scripts just in case. I had to clean out my purse so I could pack it, & take unnecessary stuff out of my wallet. I put together diverting activities (books, small legos, some sweets) in Brendan's carry-bag, which will be a surprise for him tomorrow. Then there's gathering computer games & movies to take. We decided to download a few more InuYasha episodes to my hard drive, too. InuYasha has been what's mainly holding Brendan together these days. Yesterday he was absolutely bedeviled by the intrusive OCD thoughts & things got very freaky at times. He watched one of the InuYasha movies & lots of episodes, too, for distraction. Good friends invited us over for dinner, which I was really looking forward to, but it was touch & go getting Brendan de-ticced enough to get in the car. We persevered, though, & he had a great time with his best buddy, & Charlie & I had a very relaxing meal & conversation. An much-needed bit of sanity...

This morning I got hard-core about the packling & preparing the house for our absence. I also called Tomoko, our japanese teacher, in Tokyo, in the morning (she left for Japan last Thursday). She had emailed me to see if we would like to go to the Studio Ghibli museum with her on Friday morning, worried that it would be too soon after arriving the day before. Our understanding is that you wake up really early for a few days until adjusting to a 13-hour time difference (I called her at 9:30 am & it was 10:30 pm Tokyo time) so Charlie & I thought we should go for it. It's not easy to get tickets to this museum & it's supposed to be wonderful. For us it will be a sort of pilgrimage, since it was the Studio Ghibli film "My Neighbour Totoro" that sparked Brendan's interest in Japan in the first place, 7 years ago, & here we are- going to Japan! About mid-morning, after working on my duffel bag & carry-on bag simultaneously, I realised that I would not be getting away with just one carry-on bag. Not with a laptop, a change of clothes, diverting activities & snacks, all of the prescription meds, wipes, & my japanese "cheat" book (useful words, phrases, & kanji that I've collected & pasted into a small binder). Plus, although literally half of my duffel is loaded with presents for Tomoko's family, I really do need room for my own clothes & stuff. Sigh. And then there's the overflow of presents still looking for a place to go...

Brendan & I took a break after lunch & watched a couple of InuYasha episodes. He watched another movie while I continued preparations... but after the movie the tics returned big time, so he's back with another movie & a snack. I can't help but think that the increased anxiety is directly related to our travelling tomorrow. He's been doing a great job of working on the mindfulness practise when the anxiety isn't too intense, but so far it isn't helping at all when he's in real difficulty. I really think that getting on the plane tomorrow will relieve everyone's anxiety quite a bit.

So- that's all from here! Next time I post it will be from Tokyo!!

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!!

Home alone... for real!

First of all, I will apologise in advance for any fuzziness in this post. It is virally-induced fuzziness & is temporary :)

Also, I finally have a reason to thank the autofill function on this site, since it made me realise that I'd already made a "Home alone..." post :) That one was after the first day of school last September, so I guess it sort of counts, but little did I know then what it really means to be home alone...

Or maybe, "little did I remember...", since, approximately a year ago yesterday, I had a premonition of what it would be like. The 5-6 grade classes at Brendan's school have a tradition of going to a nearby retreat centre/summer camp for an overnight before the end of the school year. Last year, as they & their gear all assembled in the parking lot to be distributed into cars, I realised that Brendan would be in this group in the coming year. I remember wondering what it would be like, or if he'd even go... He's not the overnight sort of guy. He's been to 2 sleepovers in his life- last year at the neighbour's birthday party & a couple years before at his best friend's house. OK, actually 3 of you count the night he spent at Grammie's when Charlie & I went to a B&B for our 10th anniversary, but he was only 2 1/2 & doesn't remember (Grammie does, though :).

As the campout plans filled the air, over the past few weeks, Brendan was definitely tentative about the whole thing. We wanted him to participate, of course, so Charlie tipped the scales by rearranging his scedule so that he could be one of the desperately-needed dad chaperones. The original plan had me going out for the day & leading some craft projects in the afternoon, & then Charlie & I switching after he got out of work. As time got closer Brendan really started looking forward to it, & even got into the buzz about who was doing what while there were there... As I mentioned in my previous post, he got sick over the weekend, so we kept him home from school on Monday & I picked him up at noon on Tuesday, all so that he would be healthy enough to go camping on Thursday. And he was :) What we did not foresee was my catching his virus & waking up Wednesday morning with a roaring sore throat... the cough soon followed. Brendan was slightly taken aback by the news that I wouldn't be driving him to camp, nor would I be there during the day, but being the sweetie that he is, he was more concerned about my health. When we assured him that dad would be there for the night, he was pretty close to ok with things. I let his teachers know on Wednesday that I was sick & received kind sympathy :) There were plenty of drivers & I managed to get the warp for a scarf on the school loom so that the kids could weave as a craft project (I taught Cherie how to weave a couple summers ago, so she could supervise). By the time Brendan got to school yesterday he was so caught up in the excitement that he lost all of his lingering worries & was good to go. Whew!

It was very, very weird to leave him, though. After leaving school I did my usual weekly shopping, & when I got home I realised that I didn't need to leave the house again for... days! I closed both garage doors after unloading the groceries. Weird. I kept remembering what Brendan's psychologist has been telling us about the necessary process of disconnecting, & really understood how difficult it's going to be for me. I guess it's really a good thing that I'm sick :) I was so tired by the morning actgivities that I went right to bed & slept for nearly 3 hours. I'd picked up some sushi for lunch & ate it at 2:30... normally Brendan & I would have just gotten home from school about then. I found the energy to do some more tie-dyeing (it's been pretty much an endless process lately, with boxes of dyes & clothing blanks arriving & being sucked into the 3-day process of applying the colours) & then rested for a bit by watching anime on veoh. Charlie called me right before he left work to go to camp. We both agreed that I'd have heard something if Brendan wasn't doing well- every adult there was packing a cell phone :) I imagined Charlie & his car-load arriving at camp & Brendan greeting him happily. (We found out on Tuesday that Brendan had volunteered Charlie to cook breakfast, tee hee, claiming that dad could make the best pancakes... Charlie was rather taken aback, not having made a pancake in some years, but decided to rise to the challenge. So after consulting with those who had gone last year, he loaded our griddle, potholders, & extra cooking oil into a big box & added it to his gear. What a guy! :)

I probably don't need to say how quiet the house seemed last night, how I got spooked by noises while I was in the shower, how I thought of my guys & wondered if Brendan had gotten the necessary down time in the afternoon so that he could make it through till campfire time... I had a nice, if quiet, evening. My favourite online puzzles, at the Conceptis site, always go up sometime Thursday evening so I did some puzzles. I watched some clips at TV in Japan, tidied up a bit... It turned out to be a good night to be alone, actually. Nobody woke up when I had coughing fits & Charlie wasn't disturbed when I got up a few times in the night. Since I wasn't worrying about bothering anyone, I probably slept better than I would have. I didn't get up until after 8:00 am... when I'd usually be at the door at school greeting everyone. Totally weird.

Charlie & Brendan will get home sometime bewteen 2:30 & 3:00... I can't wait to hear the stories :) I have more tie-dyeing to do, & more tidying up (Tomoko's mom is coming to visit tomorrow!!!). Oh, yeah, & I have to get well, too! I'll let you know how the camping went :)

Incentives- the continuing saga...

This morning, as he took his boxer shorts out of the dresser, Brendan surprised me with a hug & a kiss :) The reason was that I had finally tie-dyed 3 pair of his new white boxers & he was quietly, but obviously, pleased. I have been making Brendan's boxers since he was in kindergarten, partly because he preferred to wear boxers & I couldn't find them in his size, partly because I made most of his clothes back then, anyway, & partly because he was so skinny that he regularly crawled out of his trousers & didn't notice. If he was wearing boxers made from fun fabrics the kids were more likely to say, "Wow, neon cats!" than laugh at him... About a year ago I made the final batch (size XL) from the KwikSew pattern for boys' boxers & went looking for a men's-sized pattern that was as easy to make. I finally found one, but what I had trouble finding, when it became obvious a few weeks ago that Brendan was outgrowing the last batch, was the time to make new ones. Charlie encouraged me to find some store-bought ones, since Brendan's no longer too teeny to find them easily, so I checked out the Dharma Trading Company site, where you can get plain white clothing (for dyeing, etc) inexpensively, & found some boxers that would fit Brendan. But, of course, fit isn't the only issue... When the boxers arrived Brendan unfortunately got a look at the packaging, which featured a guy wearing only boxers of course, & it triggered an OCD thought & tic. So for the first few weeks every time he put them on he had to go through an elabourate de-ticcing ritual. I asked if dyeing them would help & he said it would... then he waffled & wasn't sure. It was getting easier for him to put them on, but he's always loved jazzy boxers, so I decided to tie-dye a few anyway. When I asked him which colours would be ok to use (becase there are OCD thoughts attached to certain colours) he said blue would be ok. So, I tied 3 pair & got them soaking in the soad-ash solution that makes the dyes stick (I use Procion dyes because they're really bright & long-lasting). Then I discovered that I had about half an inch of turquoise dye left in the bottle & no other blues at all. So Friday after school we went out to the art store & I had Brendan pick out 3 more blues. Saturday morning I made the dye solutions & did the dyeing, & by Sunday afternoon they were rinsed & washed. He liked them when I showed them to him, but wasn't effusive, hence my surprise when he kissed me this morning upon opening his undies drawer :) Sooo... I am finding that dyeing just 3 pairs wasn't enough & am looking around for more stuff to dye (oooh- I just got Charlie some new boxers, too.... evil laugh).

Charlie didn't have to work Saturday morning so it was one of those unplanned-but-busy-anyway mornings. While I was dyeing boxers Charlie & Brendan made brownies from scratch (we have a great recipe that uses whole wheat flour as the base)- a double batch with some for us & some for church. Our congregation belongs to an interfaith hospitality network that hosts homeless families for a week, 4 times a year. During that week volunteers make the meals & stay overnight with the guests. The families move from church to church & during the weekdays they attend programmes designed to help them get jobs & housing of their own. It's the only local programme that allows families to stay together (usually men go to a men's shelter & women & children go to a women's shelter) & it has a high success rate. So, half the brownies were going for dinner at church for our guests. Charlie dropped them off after our japanese lesson.

We hadn't had a lesson for a couple of weeks because Tomoko was interviewing in 3 different states for doctoral programmes, since she's graduating with her masters in family therapy & counselling in May. We'd really missed her & spent some time catching up (she had some stories about her travels, since this is not the time of year to be flying in or our of the northeastern US...). She also told us that her sister has made reservations, for the weekend we'll be staying with her family in Japan, at not only an Onsen (hot springs resort) but at a traditional Ryokan as well. It's a very traditional place with a fireplace in the middle of the room & sounds way cool. I've seen pictures, & the thought of actually staying at one is mind-boggling. We also talked about the daily rhythms we've found are best for Brendan when we travel. We usually do anything exciting in the morning, when energy is high, & eat out, then have a quiet afternoon at our hotel (or where-ever). Tomoko said she'd let her family know about this. It looks like the afternoons will be spent in the car, over the weekend, which should be just fine since Brendan travels well & sitting in the car would qualify as down-time. We always travel with the laptop (& plug-in power converter) so he can play games or watch a movie. Brendan was getting kind of antsy as we chatted about all these things, so I was giving him some deep pressure on his arms while we talked. He got right to the lesson, though, when we began. It turns out that March 3rd (3-3) was Hinamatsuri, which is the girls' doll festival. So our lesson was a conversation between InuYasha & friends, with the women explaining the festival to him, then everybody going out to a restaurant for special food. I learned the very useful term "okosamaranchi" which mean's "kid's lunch" (the "ranchi" part is how the word "lunch" sounds in japanese) & Tomoko included the kanji for this term so that I'll recognise it when we see it on menus in Japan. We also talked about how to ask them to "hold the meat" when we order one... a must for our veggie kid (he has memorised the phrase which means "I am vegetarian" :).

In the afternoon we watched (& giggled through) the rest of the Kim Possibles I'd downloaded on Friday. Paula came to dinner - we'd been hoping her son Ck would be home from college on break, too, but his flight was cancelled due to bad weather, so we enjoyed Paula's company & are hoping to see him some time this week.

Sunday Charlie & Brendan stayed home from church because the Sunday School classes can't meet in their classrooms on the weeks that we have guests sleeping in the church ('cause that's where they sleep!) & so they all do an activity together (except my Sr. High kids, whose room is only used if there are a lot of guests). Brendan doesn't cope well with this sort of change in schedule, so we've decided to give him the day off. I not only had Sunday School but a music committee meeting after church (I'm the committee chairperson) so I went to church. It was odd to be there without my guys, but it was fun & we got a lot of work done at the meeting. When I got home, around 2:00 pm. Brendan had a school friend over & Charlie was vetting them through their play time together. Friend is also on the spectrum & Charlie has determined that he & Brendan do much better together if they have a schedule. When he mentioned a schedule to the boys, friend piped-up "Yes, I do much better when I have a schedule." which made us grin when Charlie told me about it later. And they did :) They started out playing a 3-way game of war (the card game), which friend won, then the boys moved on to half an hour of Dragon Fable (Brendan's newest Adventure Quest-type game), then settled down to watch "The Incredibles". There was an intemission with brownies ala mode, & after the movie there was time to show friend the sock-puppet easter egg we'd found on disc 2 (it's the whole movie acted out by sock puppets- it's a hoot!). After friend left Brendan played more Dragon Fable & then helped Charlie make burritos for dinner. Charlie told me later in the evening that Brendan told him, when he realised that the weekend was nearly over, that "There will be another weekend soon.", which was the first time he's actually taken a positive philisophical approach to the impending school week.

During dinner Brendan asked me how he was doing with the swearing part of his behavioural charting. During the school break week we had decided to separate out the swearing component (because he wasn't earning anything ever, it was such a problem, so his appropriate behaviours weren't being rewarded) & make it into a separate category with a separate incentive. He had found some supplemental pokemon card packs at the grocery store, so we decided to use them as the first incentive for the swearing chart. When we set up the guidelines for this chart we established which words were considered swear words & I asked Brendan to choose how many days he has to refrain from swearing before he earns the first incentive, & he thought 5 days would be fair. (This means 5 days cumulatively, not in a row...) By yesterday he had earned 4 stickers, but it had taken him 11 days to get this far, partly, I think, because he'd forgotten all about the incentive & partly because when it started he was not as "het up" about pokemon cards as he's been in the past. I reminded him some time last week about the incentive for the swearing chart, & wouldn't you know, he got all excited about pokemon cards again... He earned the last 4 stickers all in a row, he was so motivated. He & dad started playing pokemon card games again over the weekend, to much excitement about customising the decks with cards he's acquired over the past few months. Last night, right before he went to sleep. Brendan asked if he'd earned the final sticker & I told him he had. He then asked if he could open them up before school (in the past he's had to wait until after school because there's no time before). I told him that if he got dressed & ate breakfast quickly, then he could open the cards.

This morning, he was dressed wayyyy before I was, so I suggested that he go downstairs & start getting his breakfast. When I came down he annouced that he was having "bread with butter, & milk". He had cut himself a slice of bread (& done a great job of it- Charlie's been working with him on using the bread knife) (ps: I make most of our bread in the bread machine, hence the need to slice it), buttered it & poured his milk. I put his medicine in the little bowl & then went to put laundry in. He was finishing up as I got my own breakfast, & he wasn't frantic or anything, just moving along at a nice pace. He brushed his teeth & finally got the cards out & opened the packs. I heard lots of ooohing & ahhing (there were 4 "rare" cards & other ones he's been wanting- a real haul :) as he opened them. Then he took them upstairs & played with his legos until it was time to go to school.

I feel as though we had the benefit of 2 different incentive systems going this morning- the timer system for getting dressed, which has given him the ability to make the most of his time in the morning, & then the pokemon cards in exchange for being mindful of his language, which will eventually become a habit that is it's own reward. We've got the next incentive lined-up, too. It's a cute little penguin pokemon plushie from the new "Diamond & Pearl" series & Brendan is just itching to take off the tags & make it his own... :)