We've run out of sporting events

On Monday and Tuesday this week we attended our last interschool school sports event as parents. Yep, another one of the "lasts". The first one we ever went to was in September/October 2010. I've just gone trawling on my blog to see what I wrote back then. I can only find one post from that season, and it was the cross-country finals that year in October, but it's not a very interesting post and certainly doesn't hint that we'd most likely be doing this "sporting parent gig" for the next 13 and a half years!

This blog post from the following year is a little more descriptive. I'm glad to see that my younger self was also tired out from attending Saturday sport. Here's a portion:

Saturday was the last day of the season for middle school cross-country runners. I have to say I'm a little bit relieved. Missing out on my only sleep-in day, and spending most of our Saturdays at cross-country meets has taken its toll and we're feeling a little taxed in our household. It will be nice to have a few quiet Saturdays to ourselves.

A classic example of how a sports meet
can be a great opportunity to build relationships.
These chairs were brought by parents
supporting our team. No one seemed to care
whose chair they sat in. The one on the left is
ours. They became "team chairs" and there
was some lovely interaction going on
between team members and also between
supporters and coaches. I even heard one coach
coaxed to talk about how he and his wife
 (a teacher at the school) got to know one another.

David and I went walking on Tuesday night and while we walked pondered the ending of this parenting season. We decided it was a good thing, and that the future held "other things" that we could do on Saturdays. In fact, the Saturdays in the coming month holds some social outings with friends, as well as a night attending a symphony orchestra concert (birthday treat).

It's been a privilege to be able to walk alongside our boys and their sporting passions these last 13 years. I've written before that we're passionate about supporting our boys in their sporting choices. It's not easy as parents to forge relationships with teenage boys and showing interest in their sporting endeavours has been one way to show ours we love them. It also provides conversational topics, which as you may know, have not been easy to find at times in our house.

Getting involved in school sport hasn't just improved our family relationships, it's provided many friends and conversations with other adults and teenagers that we've treasured over the years. This was something I particularly missed during the pandemic: the opportunity to sit side-by-side with other parents for hours and hours at sporting meets. The family we go camping with is the extension of a friendship forged through travelling to and from sports meets! And that's just one example.

Putting the shot (he won gold for the
smaller school division and silver overall)

Before I ponder this any longer, I need to tell you that our son did really well at his last meet, the Far East Track and Field finals (with teams from military bases in Japan and Korea, plus some non-military schools from the Tokyo area like CAJ). He won two silver medals. One in shot put and one in discus. The discus event was an especially thrilling finish: he threw two personal best distances and beat a guy who was chasing him hard. He and his good mate topped the field at first and second place. It was really fun to be there and celebrate with them.

As I wrote back in February after the Far East wrestling tournament, "These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them." 

Well, we've run out of sporting events. There are just five weeks of school left. The remaining "attend-able" events are all in the last week of school—three events where we get to celebrate our son. You'll have to wait to hear what those are! It's going to be a big week of lasts. But also one of celebration: yes, we've made it, we got our boys through "grade school" as Americans like to call it.

 Correction: apparently “grade school” only applies up to grade 8. But “school” applies through to tertiary years. So I’m not sure what to write that everyone would understand. “We got our boys through high school.”?

Re-entry thoughts

These last weeks have been so busy! Our youngest son started at his old Australian school last Thursday. A lot of the busyness since we landed in Australia was focused on getting key things done before he started school. 

This is an old photo from just before we left to return to Japan last
time, when our youngest son (middle) was representing the school in a
cross-country meet. Consistency, like the same school, has
helped us all in these big adjustments. 

Now we're left doing the less urgent, but still important things. For example, me getting to an optometrist, which I did this morning and ended up spending two hours there. 

It was a good experience, actually. Like the school our son is attending, the optometrist is the same one we've been using for years now. She remembered my face, which is a huge help, and has our records. The other big help is that she was born in Asia and came to Australia as a kid, so the idea that we're living in Asia most of the time isn't a big deal for her. The other lady in the shop who I dealt with had an accent too, and I asked her about it (we spent quite a long time together sorting out new frames etc.). She was grew up in Scotland, born to Canadian and English parents. She met her German-Australian husband on a Kontiki tour and now lives here with her two boys. So I wasn't weird to her either.

One things I've really struggled with in these last weeks is explaining. How much backstory is appropriate? At the optometrist it was very appropriate, because they were dealing with lenses that had been made in Japan and that I was less than satisfied with (another story here, about Asian optometrists and how my fears have been confirmed: they do tend to under-prescribe and it's bad for your eyes).

Conversational struggles
So here are some examples of other conversations where I've struggled to know how much backstory to tell:

Last week we visited the Ipswich Athletics club with our boys. Our middle son is doing online schooling and the deal was that he'd join a sports club as well. It's been a tricky experience: joining a club that you know very little about and that is outside on a field with no obvious "office" for enquiries or application. This was all made more complicated by what seems to be wrong start time on the website! 

I ended up talking to several coaches. The president gave me the spiel about the club and showed me where to sign up, but I struggled to explain our circumstances. Did I need to tell him that we'd been in Japan and that our boys had been in an American school there? (School sport is very different and has an impact on what we're doing now, rather than just rolling with the Australia school sports seasons.) Probably not, but it came out of my mouth, to my son's dismay (I could feel the eye rolling). I should have said just that we'd recently moved to the area and our boys were interested in joining the club...then waited to see if he wanted more information. But once you start down the road of giving too much information, it can be hard to stop.

Later in the week I took one of the boys back to the library to see if we could get them to get in a book that was missing from their collection and that he really wanted to read. I also wanted to change to passcodes on our library cards so that we could use the online catalogue, because we could no longer remember what they'd been from three years ago. The librarian had trouble understanding why I couldn't remember the passcode, because they routinely use the last four digits of the member's phone number. I guess we could have looked up our old phone numbers . . . but we just wanted to change the numbers to something more easily remembered for the future. So of course, to my son's mortification, I had to explain that we'd been away overseas for three years and couldn't remember the last four digits of our previous phones. I thought I did a better job of containing the oversharing, though.

But it's hard work every time: how much information do they need?

This afternoon I had to take a boy to the doctor due to an infection. We, of course, needed to update our details with them and it was almost like she was testing me. What was my former address . . . mind blank. I came up with the suburb, and then she prompted me on the street and I came up with the first of two digits for the street number. I lamely said, "We've been away for three years..." But didn't overshare and she was too busy to enquire about where we'd been. I probably redeemed myself by being able to tell her my new mobile number from heart (I've had to do this so many times in the last three weeks, it's almost tattooed on my head).

Benefitting from consistency
Earlier, our son had been shocked to hear that it would be a 20 min drive to the doctor. Why so far? Same principle as the school and optometrist—this is the clinic we've attended ever since our first home assignment in 2004. This was the place that told me I was expecting our youngest. They've got our records and our trust (though not all the doctors are fabulous, generally we've been satisfied, and the huge thing is that we're not new patients, which can be a barrier for getting an appointment). It's given us consistency, in a strange way, to use these same services over the years, even with the big gaps in the middle. The other one is the dentist, who also was born in Asia and loves that we live there, which makes the matter of getting dental work done much sweeter!

This has become quite a long post, but I hope it gives you a glimpse into the daily, probably invisible challenges that we're facing at the moment and tend to sap my strength.

My Saturday was edgy

Saturday was a track and field meet, yep, it's started up again and doesn't stop until it's all over now (mid May). It was really good that middle and high school comps were at the same venue, so we were both able to see both our boys! 

The venue is out near Tokyo Bay (40-50km away, depending on whether you take tollroads or not), and the fastest way to get there on a Saturday is by train (not to mention parking...). But it still took 1 ½ hours and four trains. The day promised to be warm-ish (around 17/18C), so we didn't rug up very much. However a nasty cold wind arrived not too long after we did and that made the day a challenge to get through.

Our family was represented in several events: 100m, 200m, 400m, 4x400m, and the 1,500m. We also had an entrant in the middle school discus, but the wind started to move the giant cage surrounding the discus circle and so they cancelled that event. The venue has a lovely tall grandstand, but that wasn't so lovely on Saturday as it caught all the wind. I ended up hiding in one of the rooms at track-level to stay out of the wind, popping out only when my boys were running.

Despite all the discomfort, it was good to be there to watch our boys. They rarely say so, but I choose to believe that they appreciate us being there. Several of their classmates tell their parents not to come and so their parents don't come, and I think that is just sad. As I've written many times before, sports provide us a valuable way to remain connected through these challenging teenage years, so I'm very thankful that they are sporty and that we have the capacity to go and watch them.

I did enjoy pulling out my camera and working to get the setting right, it's added an extra element of fun and challenge to spectating. Got some good action shots too!

By the end of the day, though, I was tired. I really don't like wind, it makes me feel edgy. My eyes were irritated by the wind and all the stuff flying around too (dust and pollen).

At the end of the competition I had to make a decision: go home with David and the team (he drove them team home in the school bus) or take the trains again. I opted for the trains, and I'm glad. It took me half the time that the bus took to get back! I also got more exercise—I took more than 8,000 steps on Saturday, mostly just because I took trains! It also gave me time "alone". I was tired enough that I didn't feel like interacting with people all they way home, so I travelled on my own (in the usual crowds). Amazingly I got a seat on each of the three trains too! Then when I arrived home fully two hours before everyone else, I was able to have a shower and have some relaxing time all on my own. Quite refreshing, really.

Interesting to ponder this from an Australian perspective: it seems to me that is definitely a little on the edge of ordinary to choose to take a train instead of riding in a vehicle and certainly that the train was way faster than the vehicle. But that is life in Tokyo. We choose what mode of transport we will take in the context of where we're going (among other things).

Touching base

After  a very quiet week last week (i.e., I left the house once, in the car), we had a big day on Saturday at the first track meet for the season. Not to bore you with the details, suffice to say it was fun to watch our 15 y.o. run again. Sprinting is his thing and it's good to see him doing it. 

He ran well too, in his first high school meet, considering he's done little pre-season training, his times were good and we're looking forward to improvement as the weeks go on. So most Saturdays between now and mid May will be spent like this (although most will be warmer!)

I was wrecked at the end of the day. It was a cold day. Though it was sunny, there was a sneaky breeze and it didn't make it up to 10C, so it was hard work keeping warm, which is tiring. But the sun was strong enough to burn!

A tree near the track on Saturday, just getting its spring clothes on!

I had fun taking photos too, still working on what the best settings are for various situations and subjects. I suspect photography is a continuous learning process as you gradually refine your skills! And because I don't actually practise that much, it will be a slow process.

Sunday was a quiet day, in which I took a nap. Now today, I should be ready and raring to go, right? Well, it's been a busy day. Much more exercise than I've done for over a week (two grocery shopping trips on my bike = over six kilometres of riding).

I'm still coming to grips with the weather, it's jerking us around, and requires more thinking than mid-summer or mid-winter does. Last week we had some 18/21 degree days, and then 9C on Saturday! Today was supposed to be warm, but I was wearing a scarf at midday and thinking about gloves when on my bike, but an hour or so later the sun tried to peak out from the clouds and the temperature increased briefly (or so it seemed to me).

But thankfully the temperatures have been high enough to trigger spring blooming. The cherry blossoms are on their way out, along with various other blooming trees and flowers. I'm looking forward to all the joy that their colourful appearances brings to our weeks.

My cold seems to be better, but I'm still blowing my nose. I wonder if I'm developing some spring hayfever allergies? It's a common ailment in Tokyo. My asthma flared last week, but is gradually settling down with medication. I'm thankful none of us got the flu this season. Indeed our family has remained remarkably healthy, compared to many roundabout. I'm thankful!

We've got four days left of school until Spring Break. Next Monday we're flying to Hokkaido for our all-Japan OMF conference. I'm wondering what to pack—as it is still quite chilly up there and snow is still lying around, yet we'll be in a hotel the majority of the time, a very warmly heated hotel. Hmmm.

Not a very earth-shattering post! But just in case you wondered how things were in our house . . . 

Track meet #2

Taking the first leg of the 4x100m. He's decided to drop
this event for the next meet this Saturday and give the
1,500m race a go. He's quite a good all-round athlete,
so I'm betting he's not going to do badly at that distance.

On Saturday we went to the second track meet of the season (for the middle schoolers), the high schoolers have had a couple more). The weather was definitely better, though in lieu of rain we had wind. Hence it was a slow meet for the sprinters and our boys were disappointed with their times. However, this young man, our youngest, came first in the individual 100m and 200m (if you only count 6th graders).

Our middle son had bad starts in the 100m and 400m, so today he and the sprint coach are working on learning how to use blocks, so hopefully that will make a significant difference to him.

Our middle son finishing strongly in the 400m.

Definitely a bad-hair day. The wind was forecast to be about 30km/hr. I was glad for this stadium as it has shade for it was difficult to keep my hat on—I chased it several times. The rest of the season is at Yokota Airbase and there is no shade over the grandstand.

This little guy wandered into my space during the morning. I love ladybirds, but I've never seen a light-brown one before.

And as always, hanging out with other parents makes the day much more fun. Track and field can be a boring sporting event for spectators. In Tokyo you can travel over an hour to watch your child run for 12 seconds (if it is the 100m). The school's team is big this year and that means more parents too!

This Saturday I'm not going to the meet, I'm one of the key volunteer at the school's final day of Thrift Shop so I'm going to skip this one. But you can be sure that I'll be hanging out for the stories from the boys, and the results when they come online the next day!