Sunday Surprise: Making Christmas Ornaments

We began the Sunday Surprise program last weekend to try to help get Kai more accustomed to unplanned activities so that he will eventually be better able to tolerate unexpected events. We thought long and hard about what our second Sunday Surprise would be, and it wasn't until Saturday afternoon that we decided.

My wife was in a craft store and saw a demonstration of people decorating Christmas ornaments and thought that would be a fun family activity. So she bought all the stuff we would need: several clear plastic ornament balls, glue, various colors of paint, glitter glue, and sparkles/glitter.

The basic idea is that you take the clear ornament balls and put glue inside of them...

Then you spread the glue around by shaking the ornament...

You then put sprinkles or glitter inside the ball and continue shaking to spread it all around. Alternatively, instead of glue, you can put paint inside the ball and shake that up. You can also use glitter glue. If you'd like, you can decorate the outside of the ornament ball with either stickers or a marker.

I used mostly paint inside my ornaments while my wife made several nice ones using glue and various aprinkles/glitter inside.

Kai put green paint inside his ornaments and then decorated the outside of them with a marker.

Yes, you see correctly - he made biohazard bombs. After all, nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a biohazard bomb.

I think he enjoyed the activity, but after making just two of those, he didn't want to do any more. So, my wife and I made the rest of the ornaments.

Ah well, it was probably better that way. After all, how many biohazard bombs can you put on one Christmas tree?

Kai's Second Overnight Camp

Kai had his second overnight trip to a YMCA camp in southern Wisconsin last week. The outing is an annual event organized by his school, and all staff attend along with the students.

Last year's trip was his first overnight stay away from relatives. He had a great deal of anxiety ahead of the trip though it helped that my wife took him up to the camp a few weeks beforehand so he could see the place. He ended up doing fine, and seemed to even mostly enjoy the experience. He participated in all of the activities, including the high ropes course. We were told by staff that Kai climbed to the top and waited 25 minutes before finally walking across with the encouragement of the staff and fellow students. The following photo taken by a staff member gives you an idea of how high that ropes course is.

This year Kai was again anxious leading up to the trip, though not quite as much as last year. With Kai, he often seems to forget that his previous experience went fine. This time we did not take him up to preview the camp as he had already been there before, but we did put up photos of it in his room.

But as the day of the trip grew closer, his anxiety heightened. We tried to keep reminding him that all went well last year and that he enjoyed it.

This year, he had a cell phone with him, and as the trip started, he used it to text Mom.

He was texting often, keeping in touch with Mom.

Things seemed to be going well.

Until they weren't.

We're still not sure what exactly happened, though we heard that there was a change in schedule due to anticipated bad weather on the following day. And we know how Kai doesn't deal well with unexpected events. All we knew for sure was that Kai was upset.

We hoped that he wouldn't call and ask us to pick him up and take him home. Not that we would have done so.

We were relieved when we later got another message from him.

Apparently he had settled down and participated in all of the activities.

We later heard from his teacher that he did everything, including the high ropes course. And this year, he walked right across without hesitation.

Sunday Surprise

Unexpected events is one of Kai's primary challenges. He likes it when things go according to plan and struggles when things do not, as is often the case in life.

At school, he still gets upset when there is a fire drill or when special events cause things to deviate from the normal routine. At home, he likes to plan out and write down his daily schedule.

A social worker that we have been seeing suggested that we could try to address this by setting up fun, unexpected events on weekends to have Kai realize that unexpected events do not necessarily lead to unpleasant outcomes, and have him practice dealing with these situations. The idea is that my wife and I would plan something fun - it could be an activity, a new meal, really anything - but we would not tell Kai too far ahead of time so that it would be a surprise for him.

Today we had our first Sunday Surprise.

I did tell Kai yesterday that we would start these Sunday Surprises and explained what we were hoping to accomplish.

He was not happy about it.

He wanted to know what the surprise would be. He said he wanted to plan for it and put it in his schedule. I explained again that we wouldn't tell him because we wanted him to get used to dealing with unexpected events.

Today, he got more anxious. I did tell him in the morning that the Surprise would be an activity we would do as a family and gave him a heads up on the time. We would leave the house at 10:30. But he was not happy that he did not have more information about where we would go or what we would do. He started yelling that he had enough stress in his life and this was adding to it.

Finally, when it was time to leave, we told him where we were headed. We would go to nearby Evanston, home of Northwestern University, and walk around the lakefront and look for Pokémon. After that, we would go to a great burger joint where they had special french fries and milk shakes.

He finally seemed somewhat happy.

It was a beautiful fall day with unseasonably warm temperatures. It was a perfect day to get out and walk around.

The lakefront by the Northwestern campus was really beautiful. There is a nice big park and all along the rocky shore, students have created graffiti art.

My wife had never been to this part of Evanston before and enjoyed seeing the Northwestern campus. Kai just enjoyed playing Pokémon Go.

Afterward we went to another part of town to have lunch at Edzo's. We each had their famous milkshakes - Kai had Oreo, my wife had coffee, while I had hot fudge. Kai had already eaten the cherry and whipped cream on top by the time I snapped this photo.

Kai also had a Chicago-style hot dog which he enjoyed. My wife and I had burgers which we both loved. We also had the garlic fries - very garlic-y which was a good thing if you like garlic.

As we were leaving I asked Kai how he liked the first Sunday Surprise. He said it was better than he thought it would be. And he was happy because he caught a lot of Pokémon.

It will be interesting to see if this type of experience every week helps him deal with other unplanned events. But it can't hurt to practice it. And so far we are off to a good start.

Trick or Treat with a Friend

Next to the really big worries we have (like will Kai ever be able to get a job and live independently), one of our persistent concerns is whether Kai will be able to have a good friend as he gets older.

He has known a few kids over the years that he liked and enjoyed playing with, but his first year of middle school was a rough time. He didn't bond with any of his classmates and often said that no one liked him. While we don't always take what he says as the literal truth, in this case I suspect that what he said was largely true. Between easily getting dysregulated, inappropriately expressing his frustrations, and not taking the perspective of others, it wouldn't be surprising if it wasn't easy for the other kids to warm up to Kai.

So it was welcome news this fall when he found out that a former classmate from elementary school three years ago was going to join Kai's class. E and Kai had a great relationship when Kai was in 4th grade. They hung out together at lunch and during breaks, and we even had E over to our house for a few successful playdates. And now in middle school, it seems like they were able to renew their friendship.

Last week, though, they hit a bump in the road. Kai found out that E will be transitioning to his home school. At Kai's therapeautic school, many kids come and go, staying long enough to work on their behavioral or social issues, then transitioning to their home school when ready. For six years now, Kai seems to be the only kid who hasn't been able to transition. When Kai found out that E was transitioning, I think he was crushed. But when Kai feels this way, he doesn't allow himself to feel sad. He reacts angrily.

He told E that he wasn't his friend anymore, and E responded in kind. Kai came home from school upset that E told him that he wouldn't be Kai's friend, but we got the full story from staff later.

The school staff helped to mend the relationship just in time for the boys to keep a planned playdate for Halloween. They would go trick-or-treating together in our neighborhood.

My wife picked them up at school. E did not have a Halloween costume so my wife let him wear the old Mustard costume that Kai wore about three years ago while she dressed as Ketchup. Kai was in his zombie costume.

My wife went with them at the very beginning, snapping the following photo at the famous house down our block that does Halloween up big time.

The residents here always put up elaborate decorations, many that move and make scary sounds, and they give out quarter gallon size ziplock bags full of candy including full-size bars. Plus they serve hot chocolate for the kids, wine for grownups, and doggie treats for the furry members of the family.

After the stop at this house, my wife returned home with the dog she was watching. The two boys went around on their own. 12 year olds don't usually go trick-or-treating with their parents, but this was the first time we've let Kai go without our presence and I was a bit nervous about how he would do.

But apparently all went well.

By the time I got home from work, the boys were exhausted from walking around for most of the past three hours. They had collected a huge bag of candy each. I'm sure the bags had gotten heavy by the time they were done. Kai had gotten some good exercise in, ha!

We had dinner together and then Kai and I drove E home. E was very nice. He spoke nicely with us, answering questions and telling us about how things went. He gave us more information than we usually get from Kai. He also politely thanked us.

And so Halloween was a nice success this year.

Childhood friendships oftentimes are not long lasting. And with E getting set to leave Kai's school in the coming months, this one likely won't last all that much longer. But these friendships can serve as a learning experience, and help teach a child the social interactions that will be necessary to maintain longer-term friendships when they get older.

For us, though, it serves another purpose. Maybe, just maybe, if the right person comes along, Kai can find a good friend.

More Pumpkin Carving, and Kai's Halloween Costume

Though he carved a pumpkin on his own last weekend, Kai wanted to carve a couple more pumpkins with me.

This time we used some Angry Bird templates.

Kai carved one Angry Bird.

While I carved an Angry Bird pig character.

Here's how the pumpkins look lit up at night.

This year, Kai said that he wanted a scary costume for Halloween. He picked a scary one alright.

I guess the days of cute costumes are past.

Kai also created a special video for Halloween.



Kai said that his favourite part of the video was Mom's screams. Ha!

Have a Happy Halloween!

Kai Carving the Pumpkin

It has been our father-and-son tradition for Kai and I to carve Halloween pumpkins together. Years ago, I did all of the carving, but in the past couple of years Kai has started to carve much of the jack-o-lanterns after I got things started. This year, I had to go away for the weekend so Kai did the carving all on his own.

He even used the occasion to make one of his YouTube videos, complete with a little Kai humor.



He went on to finish up his jack-o-lantern.

The kid is growing up fast. He did a nice job all on his own.

United Airlines' Response

After our awful experience trying to fly from Chicago to New York a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an email to the CEO of United Airlines, and also sent a detailed message to Customer Service via their website.

On Friday, I received a response.

I will show you their entire response below, but first let’s quickly recap what happened that day.

1. Our 1PM United Airlines flight from O’Hare to LaGuardia was cancelled due to “air traffic control” and we were instructed by the airline to fly standby.
2. We did not make it onto the first several flights we were standing by for, and as we were rolled over from standby list to standby list, we did not make much progress in moving up the list as the airline prioritized flyers “with status” over us.
3. At around 6:30, my wife and son finally were able to get onto a flight. However, an hour after the plane had pulled out, it returned to the gate with three malfunctioning oxygen masks.
4. One passenger volunteered to get off the plane and was compensated $500. Needing two more passengers to get off the plane, the airline told my wife and son that they would have to get off the plane as they were the last standby passengers. They did not receive compensation.
5. At the gate for the next flight where I was standing by, the UA agent put my wife and son at the bottom of the standby list despite my explaining how they had made it to the top of the standby list only to be kicked off the previous flight.
6. When the supervisor was called over, he told me that I would have to quiet my son who was understandably upset after hours of waiting and then seeing that other passengers were moving onto the plane ahead of us. My attempts to explain that he has autism and has difficulty waiting and dealing with unexpected events were dismissed by the UA representative.
7. During the entire time from early afternoon to late into the evening, the attitudes of the UA personnel were uncaring and dismissive at best.

With that, here is the full-text of the response from Customer Care at United Airlines:

Dear Mr. Fukunaga:

I'm sorry your travel plans were interrupted as a result of Air Traffic Control.

I can certainly understand your frustration. I regret we were unable to get you on your way any sooner. I'll make sure to report your comments. We'll take that feedback to help us work harder and provide better recovery, while keeping safety our top priority and working closely with Air Traffic Control. I'll also send you and your family an Electronic Travel Certificate each, which will arrive via email in a few days. We hope this gives you a future opportunity to receive service you deserve.

As MileagePlus members, we thank you for your business and loyalty. We welcome the opportunity to provide better service for you the next time you fly with United.

Kind regards,

So they mention “Air Traffic Control” twice as if that is what my complaint was about. No, United, that is not this is about. I understand that flights get delayed or cancelled at times. It is your response to the situation that matters. And putting us at the bottom of the standby list after we had finally moved to the top of the list is not an acceptable way to handle this situation.

I am guessing that their response was a form letter or at least based on a template. But that is keeping with how they handled the situation to begin with. During our whole experience that day, the United response was consistently that of a bad form letter. Their personnel were not trained to adapt to the situation or to actually try to help their customers.

A day after this message came, I received another one from United that we would each be issued a $100 travel certificate valid towards the purchase of a United Airlines ticket. Sorry, United, that will not begin to make up for this entire experience.

#NeverflyUnited

NYC Weekend - Our Last Day

We had one more morning left in New York City before we would have to head over to the airport to fly home in the afternoon. (Kai had school off on Monday due to Rosh Hashanah).

It had been unseasonably cool all weekend but on this last morning the temperatures were slightly warmer.

And that turned out to be a bad thing.

It was just over a half mile walk from our hotel to the Empire State Building, nothing compared to the 7-8 miles we had walked on each of the previous two days. But as we got near the NY landmark, Kai started complaining incessantly about being hot and tired.

With no line on a Monday morning, we were able to walk right in and get right on the first elevator. There are three observation levels, with the first on the 80th floor. Although it seemed air conditioned up there, Kai continued to loudly complain saying he could not breathe. We told him that he should sit down to cool off, both physically and emotionally.

But he could not sit quietly. He tried to lie down on a bench and we told him that he would need to sit up. All the while he continued to be upset. (Note to the United representative who told me to quiet my son on Friday: What you saw on Friday was a mild level of anxiety that emerged after hours of poor treatment by your airline. This is what he can be like when he is really upset).

We were all tired after our long weekend. I wasn't particularly patient or helpful in getting Kai to calm down. I was more upset that our visit here was spoiled because Kai couldn't tolerate a little discomfort.

As we waited in line for the elevator to take us up to the next level, a worker saw that we were all upset with each other and came over and spoke with Kai. She asked him what was wrong gave him a hug and then rode up the elevator with us. Kai started to cry, saying he was sorry for being so upset. Renata told him that he wasn't in trouble with her and he wasn't in trouble with us.

When we reached the 86th floor, she told him that she would give him a special tour without Mom and Dad.

She seemed to be an old pro at dealing with kids who are upset. And with parents,too. She gave us all the space we needed to calm down.

Her stepping in to help when it was not her job to do so was a very sharp contrast to the extremely poor service we experienced earlier on the trip.

After that, she went back down to her post while we went up to the top level, the observation deck on the 102nd floor. The skies were not as clear as we ideally would have liked. This is probably the best photo, looking south toward lower Manhattan, the area we walked on our first day.

We didn't take many family photos here as this was not a pleasant experience.

But as we walked out of the building, Kai remarked that he never calmed down so quickly before. Thank you, Renata!

By the time we finished up at the Empire State Building, it was late morning. We didn't want to get to the airport too late as we didn't have confidence that United would handle our return trip correctly.

But we had just enough time to take a taxi to Chelsea Market. That was the place we were to have dinner on Friday night, but we had to cancel our dinner reservations when our flight was cancelled. On this day, we quickly walked through the Market and chose a seafood market to take out lunch to have at the airport. My wife and I had lobster rolls while Kai chose a bowl of clam chowder. In our rush, I forgot to take pictures.

At the airport, we were relieved that United did still have us booked on our return flight, and that it was not cancelled or delayed.

We made it back without any unpleasant experiences.

It had been a long, tiring weekend. After other vacations, I always feel tired but happy that we went. This time I just came back feeling very drained, and wondered if it had been worth it. Now that it has been a few days, I can look back and see that we did have some good times.

But forgive me if I'm not ready to take another trip any time soon.

NYC Weekend - Sunday

Sunday was our second and last full day in New York City.

We began with a walk down 34th Street where we saw the original Macy's, the site of the Thanksgiving Day Parade and also famous for the Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street. Here we are by Macy's, with the Empire State Building in the background.

From there we walked up Fifth Avenue and made our way to Grand Central Terminal. The main concourse is impressive.

But what Kai enjoyed most was a small gift shop in the terminal that had a number of novel items. His favorite was a gadget button that came in three choices: Yes; No; and well, one that begins with the letter F. I have to admit I thought it was funny, though totally inappropriate for Kai. He laughed and laughed and kept wanting to push the button so I had to pull him away.

From Grand Central, it was a short walk over to Rockefeller Center. There we went to the Nintendo store. Before the trip, Kai was hoping that we would buy him some plush Mario characters there. But he lost that chance the day before we left when we found out that he had been deceitful about his homework. We stuck by that punishment, but he still wanted to visit the store. While there, he enjoyed taking pictures of some of his favorite items.

And he had fun playing a Mario Kart game on the Wii U.

There were some big Mario characters in the store.

There were several plushies; not as many as at the Pokémon Centers we saw in Japan, but enough to interest Kai. In the end he bought this Chain Chomp with money given to him before by his Bubbe.

At another part of the Rock, we saw these cardboard figures of the Today Show cast.

Of course, we had to walk over and see the famous skating rink there.

There was also a Lego store that had a miniature Rockefeller Center.

From there we walked up to Central Park. Kai had been happily playing Pokémon Go throughout our time in New York, but he was especially looking forward to going to Central Park as he heard that there were many Pokémon to be found there.

Central Park is huge, and as we had already been doing a lot of walking, I thought it would be better to take a carriage ride to see some of the park. We settled on a pedicab tour. A pedicab is a human pedal-powered rickshaw. We took the one hour tour which took us all around the lower loop of Central Park. The driver explained the sights as we passed by, and made several stops for us to see things up close and to spend more time.

Here he took a picture of the three of us at The Bow Bridge.

And this is one of the lakes.

We stopped at Strawberry Fields, the memorial to John Lennon, located very near the Dakota Hotel where he was shot and killed, and where his widow Yoko Ono still lives.

The pedicab ride was a nice way to see the Park and to rest a bit after all the walking. Kai enjoyed it because he saw a lot of Pokémon. Afterward, he wanted to walk around the Park more to find even more Pokémon. But Mom was particularly tired so we decided to sit at this statue which was a Pokéstop with a lure module that was attracting a lot of Pokémon. Here we saw a lot of people playing Pokémon Go, ranging from kids to even a couple of senior women.

Next on our agenda was to find a place to eat. We would be seeing a Broadway show in the evening, so we wanted to have a late afternoon meal (late lunch/early dinner). We chose a steakhouse that was about halfway between Central Park and Broadway.

Our waiter struck me as being a bit overly formal and polite, which seemed phony to me, but as I don't frequent these types of places that often, I thought maybe that is how it is. We each ordered a filet, medium rare, and ordered three sides to go with: sauteed mushrooms, garlic mashed potatoes, and steak fries (for Kai). When the food arrived, the waiter placed a filet in front of my wife, and what appeared to be a hamburger in front of Kai. My dish was not served. I told the waiter that we did not order a hamburger; we had ordered three filets. He took away both plates. A couple minutes later, someone else came from the back to confirm our order; I told him three filets, medium rare.

Several minutes later, they brought out the three filets, along with a side of sauteed mushrooms. But when they did not bring out the other sides, I had to call the waiter over again. He had completely missed that we had ordered the garlic mashed potatoes and steak fries. I was halfway through my filet before those were brought out.

Along with the horrible treatment by United Airlines on Friday, we were seeing some awful customer service on this trip. As this was not a cheap place to eat, I was especially surprised by how badly they had messed up our order.

After the meal, we walked over to Times Square. Kai loved going into both the M&M store and the Hershey's store across the street. We did not buy any chocolate, but enjoyed seeing all of the unique items.

Times Square was crowded and bright and crazy, but you have to see it. Kai liked it as there were plenty of Pokémon to catch.

In the evening, we went to see The Lion King, the huge hit that is now the third-longest running show in Broadway history. This was what I had most looked forward to on this trip, having heard so many rave reviews from friends, relatives, and in the press. I had gotten great seats from months ahead of the trip and had sky high expectations.

It turned out to be quite a letdown.

The costumes were great but other than that, I thought everything was just okay. The storyline was nice though simple. I knew some of the songs from before, but did not think that most of the music was all that memorable. That would have been fine if Kai or my wife had really enjoyed it, but they both agreed that is was just okay.

We had debated going up to the top of the Empire State Building afterward to see the nighttime view of the city. But Kai really wanted to get back to the hotel and have his iPad time, and we were all tired, so we decided to put that off until the next morning.

We would have a half day left before having to head home.

NYC Weekend - First Full Day in NYC

After our long day and arriving at our hotel at nearly 1 AM, we slept in the next morning. It was late morning before we took our first NYC subway ride and made it down to Battery Park at the south end of Manhattan.

Kai was already having a great time as he was seeing a lot of Pokémon in the park.

But besides finding Pokémon, our main objective was to take the boat to the Statue of Liberty.

This was the first time that my wife and Kai would see Lady Liberty up close. It is so much more impressive to see her in person from on the island than it is just from photos or on television.

It is also great to see the Manhattan skyline from the boat. Even on this cloudy, cool day, the view was good.

After we came back from Liberty Island, we walked through lower Manhattan. Here we are by Wall Street with Trinity Church in the background.

Then we made our way over to the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Bridge is, of course, another icon of New York, but I was still surprised to see how many people were walking across.

Kai said he was scared to cross but I wanted make the walk. He was nervous the whole time and wanted to hold my hand on the entire crossing except when we took pictures.

But the long walk was worth it as some great NY pizza awaited us on the other side. We went to the famous purveyour of NY pizza, Grimaldi's, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. We had to wait about a half hour before we could be seated.

But the walk and the wait were worth it when our pizza came. We ate up this large pepperoni, mushroom and olive pizza.

We were all very hungry after the long walk and that made the pizza taste even that much more delicious. My wife said it was the best pizza she ever had.

After that we took a taxi and went to see the 9/11 Memorial. I had previously spoken to Kai that the Memorial was a solemn place and we would not be playing Pokémon there. As we approached the area, he dutifully put away his phone without me having to remind him.

While viewing the Memorial, we saw that there was no line to get into the 9/11 Museum so we decided to visit that as well. We rented headphones so we could listen to the audio tour as we walked through the museum. For those of us who lived through 9/11, we will never forget that day. For youngsters like Kai who only know of it from history books, the museum helps to tell the full story of the day.

We stayed at the museum for a couple of hours and then took a taxi to Chinatown.

Chinatown has no shortage of souvenir shops, many which have off-color items on display. Kai laughed and laughed at the t-shirts and license plates that had inappropriate words or photos on them while I tried to get him to move on.

We found a place for dinner. We were not very hungry as our pizza lunch was quite late. Kai had soup, my wife enjoyed a noodle dish, I had crispy duck, and we shared some dumplings. The dumplings were great but the duck was more soggy than crispy and frankly, the duck I had in Michigan was much better than this one in Chinatown.

Kai and I ended our day by walking over to Little Italy to get some cannoli while my wife got a foot massage back in Chinatown. We did get her a cannoli and double espresso, and we all enjoyed our dessert back at the hotel. (It is hard to see, but that is a cannoli in Kai's right hand).

So despite our late start, we were able to do a lot. During our long wait the day before, we were thinking whether we would go home and try to fly the next day instead. But because we endured, we were able to see and do as much as we did.