Fending for Ourselves While Mom is Away

My wife wanted to go to Japan on her own. When we go as a family, it has to be in the summer when it is extremely hot and humid. The weather makes it harder to travel with Kai, and my wife doesn't get to spend as much time seeing friends or doing her own things. We decided that a fall trip on her own would work out.

And so she left this past Thursday. We said our goodbyes before I took Kai to school as her taxi would come a few minutes later.

She will be in Japan for 10 days which means that Kai and I are on our own at home. I am working remotely from home, planning my schedule to be able to take Kai to school and pick him up afterward, and to get him to his swim lessons, tutor, and family therapist as well.

Any sort of change is hard for Kai, and you had to figure that Mom leaving would be difficult for him. The day that my wife left he had a rough time in one of his classes, but it's hard to say if that was because Mom had left. And then he had a blowup at end of his swim session, but that might have been tied to the emotions from school.

Still, he's been fine otherwise.

We had a big early snow on Halloween and he still did his chore of taking out and bringing back the garbage containers.

Yesterday we resumed his cooking lesson.

While Mom is away I decided to make oven fried chicken. Kai and I love fried chicken but we don't have it too often. Using a mix such as Shake 'n Bake, or, in this case, Oven Fry, makes it pretty easy.

I reviewed the instructions on the box with Kai, and then had him do the first step of beating an egg.

Then he moistened each piece of chicken in the beaten egg and pressed it in the Oven Fry coating,

We baked the chicken in the oven for 40 minutes at 400 degrees, turning the chicken at the 20 minute mark.

While the chicken was cooking, I had Kai heat up a can of baked beans. We had shown him how to use can opener before, but he needed a little refresher.

I don't particularly want him eating a lot of canned foods, but it is very convenient and he can get by pretty well if he knows how to do this.

I sauteed some beans in butter as a side dish.

The end result turned out pretty well.

I want Kai to feel comfortable in the kitchen and by preparing a variety of foods, the more second nature it will become for him.

Another week to go before Mom is back... wish us luck!