Fun book about raising boys

One of my favourite Christmas presents was a book called "How do you tuck in a superhero?" by Rachel Balducci.

The author has five boys (and has since had a sixth child - a girl). The book is full of some great stories. My eldest grabbed the book last week and giggled his way through it and gasping at the amazing things these boys got up to. He read the best bits out to his brothers as we drove to our New Years party on Friday.

My response is a little more mixed. 

It helped me appreciate that some of the things that drives me crazy about my children is just a boy thing. Stuff like no concern for hygiene, highly competitive and missing subtle social cues that girls pick up.

A book written by a mum about boys is just where I am at. There are things we don't understand, and things that we don't really like about boys. 

She has a tiny bit of "I can't get enough of my boys" attitude that I find hard to read. Because there are many times when I've definitely had enough and just need time-out. She also has many stories about their backyard and the wrestling that kick-starts their days. Those things are hard to read because we don't have a backyard or the room to wrestle. Maybe that is why I get more tired of them - because I cannot kick them out into the backyard?

I loved the list "Stuff I say that no longer sounds crazy (to me)." and "Rules I can't believe I had to make." I cannot believe people who say, "We've only got two rules in our family." I'm always having to draw a new line in the dirt. Like - "No shooting at the table." This rule fits both of the above lists!

I really like her Family Rules. She writes, "The list hangs in our kitchen, and when I'm feeling low on energy and patience, I simply point to the standard or rule being broken before following through with consequences." p149 I'm seriously considering making one of my own. Particularly with this rule: "If we accidentally make a mess, we clean it up (or at least help)."

One small section was entitled "Oh-so-Tiny Acts of Love". This is a gem. It is helping me to open my eyes and appreciate all the hugs, the tiny ways they notice me and what I do and recognise that this is their way of showing me love.

But my favourite story is called "The Easy Life". She commented that many people say that boys are easier than girls. I wouldn't totally agree with that, but it does come up in conversation occasionally. The idea is that boys are less complicated emotionally and thus easier. I do agree with this, though, "If it's so easy, I wonder, why am I counting down the minutes to (bedtime)? Why do I sometimes find myself yelling? Why are there moments when the last thing in the world I want to do is get to the bottom of why your brother whacked you for no good reason?" p191

She then tells us of an outing to a museum. Of the big pep-talk in the car park about staying with her and not wandering off. Once inside, however, of course they rush everywhere and she is constantly reeling them in (sounds familiar to me). Then a friend who has five girls walks past - all the girls are holding onto a piece of their dad's clothing and walking calmly. Apparently the girls had also had a pep-talk and the consequence of taking off was to run laps or do pushups when they got home. Good consequences for a girl, but perhaps an incentive for boys?

Boys just love to explore, to be out there, not to linger or hold you hand, not to ponder or sit quietly for lengthy periods. This causes much angst and has shaped our family. We don't do shopping or art galleries as a pastime. We try to stay outdoors as much as possible. If we can ride or walk somewhere rather than catch a train or drive - we will!

Phew, this has turned into a long post. If you have boys, I recommend this book. Even if you have only one boy, it is worth it - even if to make you like you don't have such a bad deal. If you don't have boys, but have friends with multiple boys, it might help you to understand your friends better and be less judgemental. It is not bad parenting that makes boys be more wild and physical. They do need a firm hand and someone who can point out consequences to them. They do learn (be it ever so slowly), but - much of what we see is just how God made them.

Oh, and the author has a blog too. You can check it out here: http://www.testosterhome.net/

Capricornia - a new state in Australia?

This is an intriguing blog post. It reports that on Sunday Britains' Daily Mail published a story on the floods in Queensland. Trouble is, it included a map that marked Capricornia as a state of Australia! But it isn't - at least no one in Australia knows about it.

Queensland is the bright yellow state in this map. The Daily Mail split Queensland in two horizontally and made the top half into Capricornia!

Floods close to "home"

Usually we hear about bushfires at this time of year in Australia, but this time it is floods. Karen, a fellow Australian working in Cambodia, has just written a good post about the devastating floods in our home state. 

None of our family has had their homes inundated, but several of them have had difficulty getting home after visiting family or taking holidays at Christmas. My eight-month-pregnant sister was stuck in her small town without an obstetrician. In a small window of unflooded roads, she and her family made a mad dash through the night for the big smoke. Many of the roads that we travelled this time last year as we visited family for Christmas and New Year are currently cut off.

Home is indeed on our minds as we read daily reports of people losing all they own, cleaning sewage out of their homes and starting again.

Drinking upside-down

My sons are gradually discovering that one of the things Mum does on the computer is write a blog. They don't fully understand what it is, but the youngest one begged me to take this picture so I could post it.

Last week I shared with them my "cure" for hiccups: drinking upside down. They could hardly believe that their mum would do anything so cool! Or that she would allow them to do such an obviously "bad" thing.


I have to find some one of letting them see the fun loving side of me. Unfortunately whenever I stop being the "policewoman" things get out of control very quickly and it is hard to reign it all in again. 

I've just read a book that I want to tell you about soon: "How do you tuck in a superhero?" It's been coming into my conversation all the time, so it'll have to come into my blog soon. The author has five sons, so I found it very helpful as well as laugh-aloud amusing. Anyway, this woman makes me feel not so bad about being the one who has to be hauling in behaviour all the time!

One universal language - games

Today we travelled to a different part of Tokyo (1 1/2 hours on the trains) to spend the day with some Japanese friends. We met them six years ago when they were in Australia and the father was studying at our Alma mater, the University of Queensland. It has been a joy to keep up with them, seeing them every six to twelve months. They have two children whose ages are around the same as ours.They understand very well what it is to be a foreigner in the land where you are living. 

The tricky thing is that while we have some Japanese and they have quite a bit of English, our children are not quite so well equipped for playing with each other. They've lost most of their English and our boys have lost most of their Japanese. It is a pity. We're just hoping that in the future their motivation to learn the other language will pick up.

Nonetheless, we found ways to play today. Tag or onigokko is a universal language. As is 'Cops and Robbers'. The less energetic play included Monopoly and a modern form of tops that is popular in Japan with children.

Our children saw in the New Year

The last time I saw the New Year in was five years ago and my youngest was not yet crawling. It took me days and days to recover from that excess. With my kids five years older, the opportunity came our way to celebrate New Years with our missionary colleagues and we decided to try again. 

Because our eldest still talks about that night five years ago and the countdown, it has taken on epic proportions in our family-lore. There was no way that any of them were going to miss out on staying up till midnight.

We packed up and drove to the other side of the city to our mission's headquarters and settled in for a night of food and fun with 40 others. We ate a shared meal, played a couple of family-orientated games, shared the Lord's supper and then broke up to play board games (or whatever - I cross-stitched) until about quarter to twelve. At which time we spent a bit of time praying for one another and then counted down. 

I was surprised, the time went faster than I'd anticipated. Here is someone who never managed to stay up till midnight in her final year at uni in order to fulfil her lock the doors of the college (dorm) responsibilities. I always had to go to bed and set the alarm to do it! I think that in my "old" age I am becoming more of an evening person than a morning person. I have no idea why, but it just seems that way.

The photo is of one of the games. We were in small groups and given a Bible story to portray in a "freeze". We had just a few props or potential props. Can you guess our story? By the way, in the photo are 3/5ths of our family!

The game the our boys enjoyed most of all was the Bingo swap. A "white elephant" type game. Though I'm not sure if we have that label in Australia or if it that is an American label. Everyone who wanted to play brought a wrapped present of a certain value and they were pooled. Then the leader called out bingo numbers. When you got a "bingo" you got to select a present from the pile or "steal" one from another person - who then got to go and get another one of their own or "steal" one from someone else. It all got a bit messy, but at the end everyone had something. After it was all over, we opened our presents. A nice object lesson along the don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover lines!

It was lovely to see the boys participate in the evening with almost no corrections required from us. I was astonished to see our three playing some kind of ping pong game that also involved jan-ken-poi (Japanese for rock-paper-scissors) - it must have been about 10.30 or 11 and they were happily playing together. Most astonishing.

We did have some fairly grumpy kids yesterday, but that is to be expected. I haven't felt bad at all, I guess it must have been the sleep-in: after midnight we retired to our rooms at the next-door mission guest home and I slept till 10.45. A very rare event indeed.

Looking forward to 2011

Having just looked back at my "looking forward to 2010" list and found it to be pretty accurate, I'm not sure that I'll be able to match that this time around. We're at the end of two years of transition that has actually gone relatively as planned, at least in the bigger details, even if it felt as hard, at times, as this rock climbing looks. It is therefore a little strange to be looking at a new year that doesn't have big things planned for it (you know, like moving countries).

So, in looking forward to 2011, here are some things that are planned or I'd like to happen:

• After a good start with developing a new Occupational Therapy service here, I'm hoping to get more established and contribute more to CAJ in this area.
• Getting more into the editorial side of the magazine Japan Harvest, including regular meetings with the editor.
•  Continuing my freelance writing, I'm hoping to have something else published for which I'll be paid.
• I'd like to play the piano at home more, but there are so many other things to do. I even have a standing invitation to play a friend's baby grand that I am yet to take up.
• Friends, with their two children, from Australia are planning to visit for two weeks mid-year. We're all looking forward to this.
• The pastor and his wife who married us are in Japan for a year and we're hoping to get together with them soon.
• We're hoping my parents will visit this year. It would be great to have them for Christmas, but we'll have to wait and see. 
• We're thinking about getting an seasonal pass to a local amusement/water park - particularly for the long, hot Tokyo summer that is coming our way.
• Striking out on a new level of adventure, we'd like to get some camping action (tents) happening. 
• Two women's retreats plus our annual regional mission conference.
• And maybe more, only God knows!

Is that enough to keep me out of mischief? We'll see. I'm planning to keep on blogging too. So you can join me on the journey on the edge of ordinary in 2011.