On this day seven years ago

One of the things I like to check in the morning is the "On this day" on Facebook. It brings up a lot of interesting things that I've posted in past years: events, photos, etc. Because I've posted links to my blog on Facebook pretty much since the beginning, it also shows me those and they can be fun to read also. 

Today I came up with this, a glimpse of what my life in was like when I had 11, 8, and 5 year olds. Sometimes I'm asked about when my kids were younger and even now I can't remember a lot of it. Having written about one particular day on my blog, we can go back and have a peek into life in 2010. Indeed quite different to my life now.

Here are some extracts (for context, we were at a fun sports day for home schoolers, held at CAJ):

Parks were a big part of our family's recreation when
the boys were younger. So much energy!

At lunch-time my kids ate and ran - typical. They really don't eat much at school usually, because there is too much play to be done. However I lingered longer in the bright autumn sun. Eventually I realised that the girls on the next table over were dressed the same, had the same drink bottles, their hair was done in the same fashion etc. Yes, they were twins. 5 y.o. twins. The more amazing thing was that they sat for the entire lunch-hour. Just sat, and ate, slowly. My boys never sit and eat. They squirm, they shove it in and they leave. Getting them to linger over a meal is like extracting a tooth without anaesthetic. Very painful. I can only imagine what it must be like to have children who just sit quietly. . . 

Very soon my eldest was trying to entertain the others by putting the road cone on his head, by playing with water and blindfolding himself and others with the bandanna that awaited us at our relay-station.
My middle son was intense at the games. Competitive to the last. Determined that we obey the rules, even if it wasn't clear what they were!
My youngest was the victim of the other two as well as his youth. He quickly tired of the competitiveness, of the intensity and the pressure. He folded and assumed that it was all too hard. . .

I cannot say that I was having a fun time. Trying to wrestle a balloon off two intense brothers rolling in the dirt. Trying to placate the youngest and stop him being victimised by his brothers. Trying to explain to the middle son that it was okay that the neighbouring team didn't exactly follow the rules. Trying to make sure everyone had a chance to participate. It wasn't fun. . . 

Some people consoled me with the presumption that my boys would go home and collapse. They don't know my boys. My kids are like energiser bunnies and go and go and go. After sports day the younger two went across the road to their usual 1 hour swimming lesson. When they got home from that they wanted to play soccer outside or balloon volleyball in the lounge. It was only when I said that I needed help putting sheets back on beds that they feigned tiredness!
However I was tired, mentally if not physically. We parked them in front of a video for an hour before tea (dinner), just to give us a break and help their active bodies to slow down. Soon they'd rush through another meal and we'd push them to bed (energiser bunnies don't appreciate being made to slow down, they click). Then we could have some peace.

People now say to me, "You're lucky to have such active boys." But I don't know. I definitely feel like it's been a long, challenging 18½ years of parenting so far. I love to see them compete in sports now: I love that all that energy now has a positive outlet (and I don't need to organise or facilitate it). Also, then when they come home now, they are generally tired and don't bounce around like they used to!

Sometimes I'm asked if I miss the times when they were younger and the truth is that I don't. As you've just read, it was an exhausting period of my life. I had pre-schoolers for 10 years and that was long enough for me.

It's also good to remind myself that life is a little physically easier now than it was then, it is easy to forget. What I've forgotten a little, is that it wasn't mentally or emotionally easy back then either. The battles have changed, the boys have gotten bigger and stronger (but not more strong-willed, that's been steadily difficult, I think). It is harder now, though, to make them do things they don't want to do. They are definitely more opinionated and don't hesitate to let us know those opinions.

Enough reminiscing. Back to now. Tonight we have the first wrestling meet of the season (actually just a dual, should be less than an hour). The team is much smaller than last year and it's discouraging to see that. We don't have any of our family wrestling tonight, but I do have friends whose kids are, and I'm keen to sit with them and cheer for their kids. No disguising it—I'm excited to see live wrestling again, though I know it won't be as special as last year, but it won't be as stressful either!

Another messy evening: as I'll make dinner early and people will eat it when they're free (wrestling starts at 6, but two of our family won't be home from school till after it's over and another family member will be home before 6, but out until late as he goes straight to youth group from there, we're not sure if the fifth family member will even leave the house...).

Saturday's Finals

Time is racing fast these days and I've just realised that I haven't written about the Track and Field finals on Saturday. 

Final straight of the 400m for our middle son.

Discus is hard to photograph without a telescopic lens. We were behind
two fences.

It was a gorgeous day, sunny and very warm (upper 20Cs) at least for these Tokyoites who've been freezing for what seems like ever-so-long. So warm we had to be careful not to get sunburnt and many were retreating to the trees scattered around the track. We sat under umbrellas a lot of the day as there was no roof on the stands. 

It was a 12-hour day for me, a bit longer for the team who left earlier than I did. I left, with a car-full of people at 7.30am and got home at 7.30pm. Of course we stopped for dinner on-base at the American fast food court. I enjoyed Subway (the chain is in Japan, but none close to our house).

I get really nervous about wrestling, but generally haven't with track and field. Maybe because my boys haven't had super lofty goals. However this time one of them did. 

Before the 400m and 100m of our middle son, I was just as nervous as I am at wrestling. But he did really well. He ran or threw personal best scores for all his events, even the relay team he was in ran a team-best. And he got three top-eight finishes too, which meant ribbon awards at the end of the day in 400m (5th), 4x400m (3rd), and discus (4th). He wasn't completely happy, his goals were higher than that, especially for the 100m (in which he came 10th out of about 100 runners from eight schools). But I was happy.

Finishing the 1,600m in first place surprised us all.

Our youngest son's overall placings weren't spectacular, which we expected, because he's competing against boys up to about 16 years of age—if they're in middle school, grades 6 to 8, they can compete. This seems grossly unfair from the perspective of an Aussie where athletics is conducted in one-year age groups. However he did produce an exciting finish in his 1,600m heat. He's pretty new at this event and didn't pace himself quite right, however he pulled out an amazing finish in which he closed a gap of about 60m in the last lap to win the race by about three metres. That went some way toward making up for the disappointment in not getting PRs or great placings.

Not too many years ago I was a "never wear pink"
gal. I'm reformed!

I'm really happy that our middle son placed in his events. This is something his brother hasn't managed to do in track and field, so this is "his" thing. I want each of my boys to find what they're passionate about. Seeing them achieve in those areas is very satisfying.

So now we have about four months of no sport on Saturday. I'm looking forward to some nice sleep-ins. But not looking forward to having to motivate my sporty boys to get out and get some exercise of their own volition. Strangely, they usually don't naturally take the initiate yet in that area. But if they don't, they get unhappy and restless. Hopefully they'll start to recognise that about themselves and take initiative more often these summer holidays.

I loved seeing these two younger siblings in the wider CAJ family
 have a wonderful time playing under the trees behind the stands.
You can't see it clearly, but there are soft "friends" placed in the tree.

Life gets messy

February felt like we were operating from a base of jelly. We struggled to get our balance and figure out a schedule that would work for everyone. I think it took us all by surprise a little. The weekly schedule isn't the same as last year, for a few reasons.

David's part-time job
Last week David started lecturing at a tertiary education level. He's working with 2nd year primary education students teaching them about teaching maths. He's does this from Tuesday to Thursday, during the mornings and early afternoons.

He takes our only car and leaves before we're allowed to take our youngest to school. So that's put some pressure on us to do the best we can to make sure we don't need the car.

Music lessons
Two of our boys have musical instruments that need to go to school, on different days. One doesn't work well on a bike and the other we've spent the whole month trying to find a way for it to work (it's not easy to get racks to fit bikes here in Australia). Thankfully the third instrument doesn't need to go to and from school (percussion).

Sport
A variety of sporting opportunities have opened up for the boys (starting school at the beginning of the school year is to be recommended). Our middle son has enjoyed trying out futsal and touch footie. Both of which are after school. Our youngest son is doing AFL after school one day a week too. And they're all still doing wrestling training on Monday or Wednesday nights plus Saturday mornings. Our oldest has been attending cross country training before school one or two mornings a week and this morning they all went.

It's thoroughly confusing. Especially when you realise that sometimes we don't have a car available to do this, so bikes and good weather are necessary. Thankfully the two older boys are able to ride to and from school without us accompanying them.

School Meetings
Yep, each of our boys' classes had an information meeting, either on Monday or Wednesday nights, messing up our wrestling schedule.

Church meetings
The meetings that have remained the same are the church meetings. Bible study that David goes to on Tuesday nights, Youth bible study on Thursday nights, Ladies bible study on Friday mornings, and Youth Group/Kids Club on Friday nights. Not to mention Sunday morning worship, which we've actually been able to attend at our home church on most Sundays in the last couple of months.

Add all that together and you've got a bit of confusion. I don't think we've missed anything yet, although I did nearly miss one of the class meetings.

What we do have are boys (and a mum) who crave a more routine schedule than this and aren't getting it. 

Weekends are all different too. This weekend we're going to Canberra to visit a supporting church and missing: youth bible study, youth group/kids club, free dress day at school, cross country training, symphonic band practise, guitar and percussion lessons, wrestling, and going to church at our home church.

These are all things our boys enjoy and aren't that happy about missing.

There is definitely a part of me that wants to curl up in a ball. I know that being part of a family is about sacrifice. It's about everyone compromising so that we can function as a group. It just sometimes feels like there's too much to manage and that the young men in our family aren't flexible enough.

So today I'm thankful that I've been able to have a quiet day at home all by myself. They all left the house at 7.15. David drove them to school for the cross-country practise on his way to lecturing and will pick most of them up on his way home. It's dove-tailed fairly nicely today, even if one of them wasn't so keen to leave.

Tomorrow we're back to bikes and praying that it doesn't rain before or after school for the next two months on Wednesdays and Thursdays! And that my people management or calendar coordinating skills don't collapse either.

No more karate

Just over a year ago we had a surprise entry into the karate world. Our two younger boys joined a karate club in a nearby city. My husband's faithfully ridden with them every Wednesday afternoon and I've faithfully put dinner on the table a full hour early to get them there.

When they started we had the start-up costs of their uniform. So we said they must stick at it for a year then they could decide if they wanted to give it up.

Our youngest son has been a bit challenged by the discipline required, in contrast his older brother's self-control has been rewarded by moving up several belts in just a year. 

However they've both decided to stop. I was able to watch this performance at their last training night. The four boys (all from CAJ) choose a "kata" (set series of moves) to perform for everyone and did very well.

So, for the first time in nearly five years we have no after-school extra curricular activities that we have to get them to. (Our youngest still has piano and choir, but they are at school, and don't affect me much at all, except for practises at home.) They did swimming for nearly four years, then karate. Now nothing. It feels nice, actually. A break before we go back to Australia and try out having them all involved in a wrestling club in Brisbane!

They Grow Up

I had a conversation with a friend after church today. He's in the deep throes of little-boy parenting. He wondered if I wanted two more boys for a while . . . I tried to reassure him that these boys do grow up and fairly fast too! He said, "So people keep trying to tell me."

During the service, I was sitting next to my biggest boy (who turns 15 in May). It isn't too long ago that I had to take a swag of things to keep him busy and sitting quietly (or, as he grew, encourage him to bring his own stuff). 

My "fiddle toy" (pen for size comparison).

This boy has so much energy! From the time when he could get around he's always moved. It was crazy for us until he learned to read, then we would get some rest time. It is one reason we love to see him doing sports and using his energy in a positive fashion (it also helps him sleep at night). 

Usually these days, though, he sits very quietly through a whole service (an hour). 

Today he was a tiny bit restless, which led him to fiddle with things like a plastic bag, and the clip on some headphones. I don't mind him fiddling, but those things were making noises in the ultra-quiet environment of a church devoid of younger children (they were all in Sunday School or in the "cry" room out the back). So I fished out a small item that I carry with me. I carry it because I'm also a fidgeter, I need something in my hands in a situation where I'm just listening, or a little bit bored but have to sit still and look attentive. This little coil fits easily onto one of my fingers and so is a perfect, less than obvious "toy" to fiddle with.

Perhaps a slightly better photo?

It was all my son needed to sit quietly for the rest of the service. Ten years ago I wouldn't have believed you, if you'd have said that would be all it would take. Actually, even five years ago!

So, take heart, all you parents who ever despair of your kids sitting quietly in an environment such as that, it can and will happen! Indeed, these kids do grow up and shed those childish things that we tear our hair out about!

Words, racism, trivia, and a difficult choice

There was an interesting discussion on my Facebook page the other day when I posted this:

Here's another US word I've never heard before:
pratfall
n.
1. a fall on the buttocks, often regarded as comical or humiliating.
2. a humiliating blunder or defeat.

Turns out it isn't an American word after all. Some Americans had heard of it, others not. Some British had heard of it too! I shouldn't have been surprised when I accidentally came across the word (or a form of it) again today in this post.


Then there are other unusual words I've come across recently. Do you know these (all from From Billabong to London, by Mary Grant Bruce, 1915)?

assegais
kraal
aigrette
Kaffirs

This last term used to be a neutral term for black people in South Africa, but is now a racial slur. Indeed this chapter has been a challenge for me to read to the boys. The attitudes of these Australians to encountering black South Africans in Durban has been shocking. I guess it is true to the times, but still. I've had trouble reading without editing and editorialising. But the truth is that we really shouldn't avoid this kind of literature. It should be read and explained. If I try to bury my head and my kids' heads in the sand about racism in literature, I'm not helping us learn and grow.

Disclaimer: this is a random photo
of a runner, not our son. I don't post
photos of our children on this blog.

I was very surprised to find that my 14 y.o. knew what an assegais was (a special type of African weapon). He also knew something of the historical context of it, including the warrior-leader called Chaka who is also mentioned in the book.

This kid of mine is a trivia king! He's had a decision to make in the last week. It looks like he might make the CAJ cross country team that's going to an invitation meet in Guam next month, but it clashes with the high school Brain Bowl competition here in Tokyo (see an explanation of what that is here). Which to chose? For most people that would be a no-brainer, but for our sporty, yet smart son it wasn't that simple!

His cross country coach was mildly amused at the dilemma. Oh, did I mention that his Brain Bowl coach is David? So David had to decide too: whether to give permission for this expensive sporting excursion that would take away one of his pretty reasonable Brain Bowl competitors. Ah, the fun! No chance of our son becoming a stereotypical jock.

Ah, but I must get back to my wordy job. More editing and writing. That's what's on my agenda this afternoon.

The Spoon Theory

I ran across The Spoon Theory recently, it is a way one lady used to describe what it was like to live with chronic illness, especially invisible illness. It is a wonderful way to look at it. In fact I heard someone recently use "Back points" as a similar analogy to how much she could "budget" in a day for her chronic back injury.

Not wanting to diminish the terrible challenges of chronic illness, I think it is a useful metaphor for being a parent too, or even for life in general.

The truth of the matter is, everyone has different levels of energy, or, we start each day with a different "numbers of spoons". I just read a magazine article about Bec Hewlitt who admits that she has a lot of energy and often doesn't sleep much. She obviously has been gifted with "a lot of spoons". I have friends like that.

When we're young we tend to believe that we have unlimited numbers of spoons. As you get older you realise that isn't the case. For example, if you overdo it one day, you often pay for it the next day, as if you've "borrowed on the next day's spoons". So I guess you could say that as we age we "start the day with fewer spoons".

In my case, when I got married at 24, my husband perceived that I had a lot of energy, "ran rings around me", is the way he puts it. Once I had children that seriously diminished. You can visualise that with the spoon analogy.

Parenting kids "takes a lot of spoons" for me. In my experience, different children cost us different amounts of energy. I have one, for example, who has loads of perseverance. That was particularly difficult as a 2, 3, 4, and 5 year old, especially because he often chose "negative perseverance" i.e. "NOOOOO." He costs me fewer spoons now most of the time, because for example, he'll persevere at his homework or anything he sets his mind to (which is more often becoming positive, helpful things). As the boys grow and mature they're requiring less of my spoons, so I have more energy to devote to other things. I'm really happy about that!

Dealing with an emotional situation also uses up lots of spoons for me. For example, a serious disagreement with my kids, or worse, with another adult, costs me many spoons and zaps me of my energy.

Anything can be factored in here: illness, pain, stress, socialising, language barrier, cross-cultural living, conflict, change, relationships, hormones, roles, activities of daily living (Occupational Therapy talk for stuff that you need to do to take care of yourself and others in your life) etc.

Don't you think it is a useful way to think about things? I can wish I had as many spoons as others, or that what costs me spoons was different. And then there are others who would like my handful of spoons. But in the end I am who God made me to be, with all my weakness and strengths. Somehow I need to come to terms with how many spoons I have and what uses them up. Not forgetting that God indeed is our strength (read: "our source of spoons"). Sometimes it feels like I've run out of spoons altogether and how could I possibly do any more. But you never know when God's going to give you another spoon!

Hmmm, somehow I don't think that would pass as the best theology: The Spoon Theory, but it does helps me in thinking about daily life.

There are times when I can freely offer to do things, because I know that I have a lot of spoons in hand. There are other times when I know that a lot of my spoons are already accounted for and I need to be more careful in how I use them.

At this time of the year my spoons are used up faster than usual, because the boys are on holidays. I have to factor that into my life. So right now, it's just after lunch, I think I'll go and take a short time to chill out on my bed with a book.

Unusually quiet here

I am blogging from an unusually quiet Sunday-afternoon household. Generally by this time on a Sunday after a restful weekend, the boys are revving up, all refreshed and ready to head into a new week.

Today it's just David and I, and our eldest son. The younger two are at a camp till tomorrow afternoon. This is a first. We've never had our eldest at home overnight with the other two away. And it's just the beginning, the two younger boys will be at a five day camp in June.

The house definitely lacks a certain level of noise and activity. A pleasant peacefulness, actually. Our 13 y.o. Is finding it a little boring. It doesn't help that our bookworm neglected to check any books out of the library, when will he learn?

Only child

He was surprised to find that Mum and Dad spent 2 1/2 hrs lying down yesterday afternoon. I'm not surprised: David flew overnight from Thailand and I was feeling the stress of holding the household together in his absence. I explained that that is what adults do if they're tired and don't have demanding children or other responsibilities: they rest as long as they need to. A new concept, apparently. I guess from his perspective it looks like we don't need any more rest because we get up and attend to their needs, even though we're feeling tired. A bit like that myth he once believed about housework: that I did it because I enjoyed it!

Meanwhile we've enjoyed some things we can enjoy while the younger ones are away: Curried Pumpkin Soup for dinner, Harry Potter 4 (at least father and son did, I'm not a fan), and even a spot of clothes shopping that is much easier with one or two, rather than three. I've even bought a new bike: a green one with gears, yippee! But more on that another day.

I think this is a grand idea: send the energetic family members away at a sports camp at the start of a break so the older ones can rest in peace and have more energy for them when they return!

Culminating events

Today was a crowded day on the calendar. You know, one of those days that everything happens on the same day. But thankfully it all happened in the same place and nothing clashed.

Yes, we're in the middle of what CAJ calls "Culminating Events" on their calendar. I guess they mean "End of Year events", but they can't really say "end of year" because it isn't, it is just the end of the calendar year, not the school year.

Ordinarily today I would have attended a prayer meeting at school at 8.30 for an hour and a Bible study at an apartment next to the school at 1.00. As well as that I attended a Christmas party for 4th grade from 10.45 till 12 and one for 2nd grade from 2.30 till 3.30. Since I was at school and our lunchtimes coincided, I also ate lunch with my husband!

I've surprised myself by not being stressed out at the end of it all. In fact, I haven't got the headache that I've had on the evenings of less busy days this week.

4th Grade Party

The worst of it was the 4th grade party. They were so hyped. And the class seems to be full of "screamers". Who knew that 4th graders could be so loud for so long.

I ran a couple of games and they enjoyed them both. The first was Bingo, where they had to find others who could "sign off" on the various tasks or experiences on the sheet. We had a Bingo within two minutes of starting, but we couldn't get them to stop playing the game. It went on for quite a while.

The second game was new to everyone, but an oldie for me. I wonder if this is just an Australian thing?

The Chocolate Game: You sit people in a circle with a bar of chocolate in the middle. Give them two dice. Each person takes a turn throwing the dice and if they get a double, they get to go and eat some chocolate. The hitch is that to eat chocolate, they have to put some clothes on (we had some crazy hats, shirts, and socks), then they have to cut a square of chocolate off with a knife before they can eat it.

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera out and take a photo. It was very intense and again, they were reluctant to stop! We didn't let them get through the whole bar of chocolate, but stopped partway and broke up the rest of the bar to include with the party lunch that some other mums had prepared.

The biggest hoot was that the teachers had made up JibJab cards (see another example of one of their cards here) with all the kid's faces (and one with the teacher's faces). The kids screamed. It was funny to watch, but painful on the ears.

Thankfully we fed them then, and they were all given a plate with a selection of food on it, so they didn't have to jump up and down for food. Everything calmed down then. At that point I heard that they'd had no outside break since 8.30 this morning. So we cut the party a bit short and sent them out to play for 30 minutes—for the sanity of the teachers teaching them in the afternoon!

2nd Grade Party

This was a complete opposite of the morning's party. Their teacher made the choice to make the party about someone else: orphans in an orphanage in the Philippines, where the class sponsors a child. The children brought not-so-expensive gifts, wrapped them, and wrote cards. That was the party entertainment. I thought it was brilliant!

They then had some light party food and it was home time. Much easier on the ears and the nerves!

Tomorrow's culminating events

Tomorrow is the last day before Christmas-New Year holidays. We get a full three weeks this year. Yay! It is our biggest holiday apart from the summer marathon. We're looking forward to staying in bed longer on these cold mornings. And not being slaves to the clock.

Tomorrow isn't as full as today. The usual (weekly) 8.30 prayer meeting, and the Elementary Christmas Concert at 2pm. Then at 4pm is the annual Staff Christmas party (adults only). After that is a Jazz Concert at school, lead by a famous Japanese drummer. I'm looking forward to going, but I'm not sure we'll manage to drag the rest of the family too.

Once that is over, we're free from school.

In a way, it is better than Australia, because we don't have End of Year stuff included in all of this, but in a way it is worse than Australia, because by this time of the year we're all tired. In Australia the kids aren't doing important work because school is winding up. But here they've still be working on spelling, Bible memory, maths worksheets etc. this week. And it's been hard to get them to concentrate with all the anticipation building inside them.

But for now, I need to get upstairs and get these tired, excited, strung-out, and wound-up kids to bed!

An almost normal Sunday

A couple of things about yesterday might make it distinct from a Sunday we might have in Australia.

For example, we rode to church. I've told you that before, though. Our church doesn't have a car park (US=parking lot). So it is either ride or walk.

On the way home we got caught in a short, heavy shower on the way home from church. I was riding too fast approaching a small t-intersection when I saw a delivery truck approaching from the right. I braked hard as I went round the corner and the bike lost traction and slid out from underneath me. Thankfully I was able to leap free of my bike and land on my feet. I'm also thankful that I didn't make contact with the truck! It was pretty stupid, though. I was already soaked, riding fast didn't make any difference except to make me liable to have an accident! And now my knee, that was already causing me some discomfort, is aching even more.

We had our usual Sunday lunch of noodles: udon and ramen (a.k.a. "two minute noodles"), all eaten with chopsticks, but there the similarity with the way Japanese eat these noodles ends. The boys usually put cheese, tomato sauce (US=ketchup), corn, and ham on their noodles and we don't eat them with the soup that usually accompanies them in a restaurant. Don't tell any Japanese people, they might be very shocked! It is kind of like them putting seaweed on a Vegemite sandwich!

After lunch we all had SQUIRT time (this is a standard Sunday feature).

Later in the afternoon the boys started to get a bit too much: pillow fights, wrestling, etc., in our tiny lounge room. They obviously needed to get some energy out, so I booted them out onto the street! Instead of going down to the local park they chose to time each other running around our tiny block (about 18 houses). That did the job and by the time they came back in they'd calmed down a lot. I didn't send them into our backyard. For a couple of reasons:

1. Our backyard isn't much bigger than our lounge room. There is no way they could get all the energy out that they needed to, in our back yard.
2. It is mosquito infested. There must be someone nearby breeding mosquitoes, because out there, they bite you through clothing, I'm convinced they even like mosquito repellant cream. And then they sit on your clothes and come inside and torment us for the rest of the evening. The backyard is a bad place in summer! 

So what do you do on an ordinary Sunday? Do you have a standard meal that you eat? Do you/did you take your kids to the park? Or play a game in the backyard?

Change looms

We're standing on the cusp of change again.

Change from school days to holidays. From "Mum does her non-family work while everyone is at school" to "Mum fighting to squeeze her work into any moment she can." From the boys getting rid of their energy at school to it being our responsibility to do it. From our days and weeks being structured to almost no structure.

Change from being well settled in a comfortable routine and house, to trotting around different people's houses in Australia and with no routine of our own.

Change from being a self-contained family with no extended family in the country to being in close proximity to family.

Change from being in Japan and being the ignorant foreigner and the minority of a minority (see here), to bring amongst Australians, yet not bring 100% Australian anymore. From having to explain Australia to others to explaining Japan to Australians.

Change from being with people who've only known us for a few years, to being with people who've known us for decades.

Change from weather that is increasingly getting hotter, to weather that is getting chillier (though not as chilly as the winter we've just had).

Yes, we're only going on holidays for five weeks, but it involves upheaval greater than many people have on their annual holidays. I'm not sure I like it, even though I am a willing volunteer, and was instrumental in organising much of it. I'm excited about some of it, and not excited about other bits.

Change isn't that fun in our house. I know that just the change from being at school to the boys being at home will be fraught with stress. Chuck in everything else that is coming up, and I'm apprehensive.

Hyperactive, me?

Meredith wrote this great post over here. She's called it "Getting Kids to Multitask". I think of it more as using little physical (but rather mindless tasks) to help them to focus their minds on what was being said.

I've mentioned before, I think, that I'm a rather hyperactive person. When I say that to people who know me a bit, but not very well, they are surprised. I don't jump around, I don't appear to have trouble concentrating. But the truth is, that I do jump around a lot, especially in my head. I flit from one thing to another. It is a pest when I'm doing computer work because I'm easily distracted from what I'm doing by a whole variety of things (while I've typed this post, I've printed out a couple of different documents, read an email, and opened another tag on my internet browser).

And I'm also quite a fast thinker and I get bored easily, that means that I finish people's sentences for them (in my head, if not aloud), that I often grasp the meaning of things pretty quickly and jump ahead too fast in a conversation.I think that this either impressed or drove my Sunday School teachers mad. It can be a big advantage, but it also can be a drag when I'm supposed to be quietly listening to someone. "Be still and know that I am God" is a real challenge for me.

My husband will tell you that when we got
married, I "ran circles" around him. I had a
lot of energy. Kids have slowed me down
a lot, though recently he's wondering if I'm
starting to return to my pre-kids level of
energy. I don't think so yet, they still
drain me lot!

I also have trouble sitting still. It isn't so noticeable anymore, because I've grown up. But if you watched me carefully, I change position quite frequently. Especially if I'm in a less-than-comfortable chair. I used to get in trouble for this in church. Mum hated it. In fact she's told me that if ADD was "invented" when I was a kid, I may have gotten that diagnosis. Probably incorrectly, because, although I have those tendencies, I'm able to manage successfully to overcome them. I had a look here at a webpage on adult ADD/ADHD and it doesn't actually describe me very well. I have tendencies in these directions, yet manage to be fairly organised and self-controlled.

However, back to what Meredith wrote. She talked about giving kids something small to do while they listened to a Bible message or some other lengthy verbal address (like in a classroom). It is a strategy that I've employed for myself quite a lot, and I also apply it to my kids, especially my squirmy, intelligent eldest.

As a teenager I used to colour in the church bulletin to help with sitting through a long sermon. As an adult I take cross-stitch to long meetings. It both helps me to sit still and to keep my mouth shut until an appropriate moment comes for me to speak (yes, that is a problem for me). And I'm not the only one who does this. A leader in our mission knits during long meetings, according to his wife he doesn't knit anything particularly, but just knits for the therapeutic value.

While I'm reading at night time after dinner, if our book happens to be a little bit slow, it can get rowdy and I refuse to read over noise. So often I encourage the boys to do origami while I read. Or some other quiet thing to fiddle with while I read. It keeps them quiet, and yet busy in a non-disruptive (or destructive) way. I really don't like other people reading at that time, I have trouble myself listening to the story without rushing off to do something, so I really do understand how my son feels.

How about you? Do you find you need to do something with your hands to keep your body still and mind focused at times like these? What strategies have you found works for you, or for your kids?

Christmas is...the smell of kerosene

If you consider that wearing jackets, using the heater and having freezing hands when outside is winter, then it has arrived in Tokyo, only a month after summer left.

We got our heater out yesterday.

Here is a photo of our hard-working kerosene heater (or stove, as they are called here in Japan). When it starts or finishes it emits a small cloud of kerosene. When one of our boys smelt that this morning his response was, "It smells like Christmas!"

Wow, what an association!

In the past we've smelt that smell a lot, possibly more than others who don't have rowdy boys. The heater has an inbuilt earthquake safety feature. This heater stood to the side of the narrow walkway between our dining/kitchen and tiny lounge room for the last four winters. Do you know how to simulate an earthquake? Run into the heater and it will think there is an earthquake and immediately shut the heater off emitting a cloud of kerosene...you get the picture! Then you have to re-start the thing, which produces more fumes. 

And when Christmas here is in the middle of winter and three weeks holidays from school, you can imagine that there was heaps of "earthquakes" in our house around that time. No wonder the kerosene smell reminds our son of Christmas.

Sore legs

Today we went to the same park we visited two days ago. We took our new friends and this time we went prepared with a change of clothes. The park has a delightful flowing water-course (man-made, but nature-like). They got wet, very wet.

After a good long play we went to the aviation museum and ate lunch at their all-you-can-eat small restaurant. Very yummy. It was quite reasonably priced, even if we had to wait half an hour to gain entry. We got our money's worth, though. And now I don't have to cook a main meal this evening. Bread with peanut butter, Vegemite etc. will suffice.

Refuelled, we took on the museum. We've been there several times, so much was familiar. But it is still fun! There are lots of hands-on things. Planes and helicopters to climb in and out of and this time, even a pilots hat and blazer to try on.

We made it home without anyone throwing themselves in front of a train (highly possible when our boys get tired and silly) and had some quiet time. I lay down.

I've been finding my legs are getting sore too quickly at the moment. I've blamed it on the heat and my low-sodium diet. But suddenly realised today that it is probably also because I haven't been to the gym since June. Some people go to the gym to lose weight or tone up. I go to maintain my stamina. (The toning is good too!) When I don't, I get tired too quickly and can't keep up with my energetic family.

Too much is going on in the next three weeks for me to conceivably start going again. I'm aiming for the week after I get back from Hong Kong. In the meantime, maybe I could try doing more stairs or something. Actually exercise in non-air-conditioning is not very attractive at present. I don't like swimming, but maybe...

Unexpected day

Today we'd planned nothing. So we ended up with an unexpected day.

To start with I unexpectedly slept in to 9.30! I guess I must have been tired and must be feeling relaxed too. My brain was pretty fuzzy after that, though, so it is good that David took charge and got us all out of the house. While I ate breakfast he made a picnic lunch.

Soon after that he shoved us all out the door on an unexpected adventure. We stopped at the local shopping centre to post three more boxes and then searched for a bookstore. None there, so we drove on. You see we're such book lovers that we find this period of in-between libraries very hard. So we dashed into a second-hand bookstore that we found along the road (much cheaper than our original plan) and found a book for our 11 y.o. to read on the plane.

Then we headed off for New Farm Park, which has become our most favourite park in Brisbane. We parked under this tree that the boys instantly claimed as their own. And had a picnic lunch nearby on the grass. Then we headed over to the location of the most terrific playground we've found in the city, only to find it shut for renovations (same thing at South Bank the other day - didn't anyone tell them that it is school holidays?). Huge disappointment! Nevermind...plenty more trees to climb.

Nearby was a place we knew existed, but weren't sure what it exactly was "The Powerhouse". David had it confused with a museum in Sydney called by the same name and I thought it was a theatre. Turned out I was correct, but I'm glad I went to check it out anyway because they had a free performance for kids starting about seven minutes later. Very cool group called "Clocked Out".  Based around percussion, it was a fabulous and free 30 minute performance, followed by another half and hour of exploratory hands-on music creation for the kids (picture on left is of the boys making waves like sound waves as demonstrated in the performance).

Of course, to get back to our car we had to explore every climbing tree on the way. I doubled back to use the loo (bathroom) and had one of those unexpected encounters I wrote about the other day. Except this one was fairly pleasant, if rushed. Someone who'd gone to my parents church while I was in Brisbane studying in the early 90s. We parted, vowing to catch-up on Facebook. Gotta love Facebook!

The way home was straight past our new favourite second-hand book store. David had got to thinking he'd like a book on the plane too and I wanted one too, so we stopped. I then had to do a very hard thing - chose one book! I'd much rather borrow several from a library, then there is no pressure to read or even enjoy a book. I can choose different genre and pick up the one that suits my mood. BUT be restricted to one choice!?! It took too long and the boys were complaining, but I found something that will have to do. The whole concept of travelling with my children on a plane AND being able to take my own book is quite a foreign one!

Now we're 'home'. The day has been both unexpected and pleasant. The children are watching DVDs prior to some kind of dinner that I have to manufacture out of almost nothing. Oh, we do have 2 minute noodles, that's something I guess.

Tourism with young boys

Tourism with lively boys is not for the faint hearted! Shopping is out, browsing is out, trying out restaurants and coffee shops is largely out, art galleries and craft shops are out. Historical tours, especially those which require lots of reading and good, quiet behaviour are definitely not on. Long public transport journeys are pretty much out too, at least for our mob. Walking is okay. Forests, playgrounds and large open spaces are good. Kid-friendly museums are not bad. Swimming is great. Zoos, aquariums and caves are definitely worth the effort. We decided that as we had our exchange student for only eight days, we should make a little bit of an effort to show him Brisbane. Our boys also were asking to go on the CityCat as we did two years ago when we visited briefly, so we thought it'd be something fun and manageable. We drove to our Alma Mater, University of Queensland and caught the river ferry up to New Farm Park, where we discovered a wonderful playground for the kids. Ate a home-made picnic lunch and headed back again. Stopping at South Bank for an icecream (and a coffee for me) and short exploration before getting back to UQ and driving home. The whole outing cost less than $50. Ice cream being the biggest expense. The boat trip only $15. The most difficult part was supervising spirited and competitive boys on the boat. Closely supervising four boys on a boat is not the easiest task. It worked fairly well, but there was plenty of pushing and shoving along the side, in order to get the "optimal" position for viewing. Thankfully the side was high and the chance of a dunking was minimal. The 50 minute trip was about 30 minutes too long, however! I even discovered a brochure advertising a local performance of Les Miserables, which will be a good birthday present for the-worst-person-in-the-world-to-buy-a-present-for, my husband. Overall - a good day. I didn't even have to cook dinner. We had left-overs and David assembled it all (while I folded several days of washing). Now I'm looking forward to cross-stitching in front of some great cricket viewing (finally the Aussies have got their act together over in England).

Fun in the sun and some great news!

Today we had a great family day. Boat trip out to Green Island, glass bottom boat tour and a swim in the ocean at the gorgeous beach there. We almost lost a backpack, but primarily due to my husband's mean 400m dash (hah!) it was retrieved before the boat left the island. On the way home we gathered our energy to visit yet another park along the esplanade which has beaut (I'm working on my Aussie vernacular) play equipment. This is truly a beautiful place. We wish we had more time (and money) to explore it in greater depth. The green-ness is particularly stunning, particularly for people who've spent most of the last four years in the concrete jungle of Tokyo. We all came home tired, but happily so. I didn't have a headache. Probably because I didn't try to take the boys into a shopping centre :-) We ate left overs tonight too, so I just needed to warm up dinner. (Fish and chips tomorrow night! Something we haven't had in a looong time.) When we arrived home, a note awaited us. We'd missed a Real Estate Agent's call by five minutes this morning! We tried to call back, but they were already closed (5.15pm). Wondering, wondering what this all meant...but just before we put the boys to bed, I logged on to send an email and found the email we'd been waiting for. "Application approved!" We have an address to aim for next Thursday (9th)! Yay!!! Praise God for His kind mercies. Now, we're looking for help to move furniture into the house. Various people are lending us things which are being moved in this Saturday as well as on Tuesday afternoon when my parents are bringing stuff they've stored in their house. Do let me know if you have some muscle !! to lend.

Ueno Zoo

Well, previously I wrote about getting to and from the zoo, but nothing about the zoo. To be honest we were pleasantly surprised by the zoo. The only other Japanese zoo we've been to is the Sapporo Zoo and even though the kids loved it, we felt like calling the RSPCA (animal welfare association in Australia) because the animals looked very unhappy. BUT Ueno Zoo was greener and by and large the animals looked happier. We even found some Australian animals beyond the kangaroos. A couple of emus with evil eyes. Kangaroo rat, fruit bats and a couple of others I've already forgotten. The gorilla was a great one. We were looking at them through glass, when this guy hopped up and came right over to us and sat down, looking cheekily at our boys. I cannot believe I actually got this photo. The whole zoo experience, though, was a reminder of how energetic our three boys are. Our Japanese friends have two children, a girl just a little younger than our eldest and a boy just a little older than our youngest. Our boys outran them all the way. They were looking a tad ragged at the end of the day (so were we). This kind of comparison helps us feel that our tiredness at looking after our mob day after day is legitimate :-)