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!

Cooking Lesson - Tacos

Kai seems to becoming more aware that we, his parents, are not going to live forever. Earlier this week he asked, "Who's going to take me places when you two are gone?"

That led to a conversation about learning how to drive. I am pretty sure that Kai can learn the mechanics of operating a car and learning how to drive, but there's a lot more to getting behind the wheel than just the knowing how to steer and stop. I explained to him that the toughest challenges in driving were anticipating what other people might do, and to be able to remain calm under a myriad of unfortunate circumstances.

Kai misinterpreted what I was talking about.

"I'll just pull over until they shut up."

It took me a second or two to realize that he was talking about the hypothetical kids he would have in the future.

Ha, interesting to know that he expects to get married and have a family of his own some day.

But I explained to him that the challenges of driving go well beyond annoying passengers. Until he can show that he can keep calm under stress, I don't think I want him behind the wheel.

And so driving lessons look to be a ways off for Kai, but there are other things we are doing to prepare him to be independent.

On this day, it was time for another cooking lesson. Today he would learn to make another of his favorite dishes, tacos.

He turned on the stove and heated up the skillet. Then it was time to brown the ground beef. My wife taught him how to crumble the meat while it is browning.

When the beef was browned, my wife showed Kai how to drain the fat. This meat was pretty lean so didn't have too much oil come out.

After that, it was time to put in the package of taco seasoning.

He then poured in water and stirred and cooked until the mixture thickened.

My wife showed Kai how she likes to dice onions.

And then it was his turn to finish cutting them.

He set everything on the table.

And finally got to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Tacos are fairly simple to make so good as an introductory meal for someone learning to cook. Not sure I'm ready to have Kai cooking on his own while we're not there, but we're working toward that.

And the nice thing is that Kai seemed to enjoy it, too.

Cooking Lesson - Curry Rice

For at least a few years now, I've been trying to push Kai to be more independent and to have him learn life skills.

He's been doing his own laundry for over a year now, and also regularly takes out the garbage and recycling.

For a few years now, I have him make Mom's coffee on weekends when he wakes up before she does. And sometimes I have him help me make breakfast on the weekend. For instance, yesterday morning I made crepes and had Kai cut up fruit and spread Nutella and the fruit on top.

He doesn't complain much anymore about helping out and usually does a good job.

I've been asking my wife to have Kai help out once in a while when she is preparing dinner, but she hadn't done that too often. However she will be leaving for Japan in a few weeks and wanted to teach me and Kai how to make curry rice, so last night she had him do most of the preparation.

The first step is to wash the rice. My wife is showing Kai how she likes to do that - by squeezing handfuls of rice and then rinsing them out.

Next, we have to put in the correct amount of water - 6 cups in this case. Our Japanese rice cooker has several different measurement guides depending on the type of rice you want to make, so you have to recognize the right one.

Then you have to hit the "Start" button. This seems obvious, but my wife likes to remind me how I hit the wrong button TWICE before and we didn't have rice ready for dinner. (I believe I had wrongly hit the "Stop" button as I'm usually the one to clean up and I must have pressed that button out of habit).

Next it was time to prepare the other materials. First, my wife showed Kai how to wash and peel potatoes.

And then to cut them up.

Same for carrots.

My wife is not the most patient at teaching Kai how to do things so she was getting a little irritated when it took longer for him to do things than it usually takes her to do it herself. She's usually not watching when I have him help me with breakfast or yardwork or other things so I wonder if she didn't realize that his "helping" actually means a lot more work for me.

The last thing to cut was onions. We were nervous that Kai was going to slice his fingertips as he kept ignoring my wife's instructions on how to hold the onion so you're not exposing the fingertips.

But he got through all the slicing and dicing without any blood shed.

Next it was time to prepare the Dutch Oven. First my wife showed Kai how much oil to put in the pot.

They put the onions in and began to cook those first. In the meantime, my wife instructed Kai to season the chunks of beef with salt and pepper.

Then they added the meat to the pot.

My wife had Kai stir the pot a little to make sure all sides of the meat were browned.

Then she had him add the carrots and potatoes.

Next was pouring in a full container of chicken broth.

While that was cooking (about 20 minutes), my wife taught Kai how to steam broccoli.

And then it was back to the pot to skim off the residue that came up to the top.

The rice was ready about then so my wife told Kai how she likes to stir up the cooked rice rather than letting it just sit.

The last step is to add the blocks of curry seasoning...

And to stir it all in.

As is often the case, when the food is ready I'm too excited to eat it and did not photograph the finished meal. But I can tell you that it turned out well and was very tasty.

I think one of the biggest worries of special needs parents is thinking of what will happen to their kids when they are gone. We still have a lot to worry about in that regard, but the more we can teach Kai life skills, the more reassured we will feel.

Knowing that Kai can make his beloved beef curry rice is one step toward that.

More Dogs, and Our Fourth of July

We usually visit grandparents on the Fourth of July, but with the holiday falling in the middle of the week this year, Kai not wanting to miss any school (or more accurately his school’s afternoon social activities), and an opportunity to sit for more dogs, we decided to stay at home this year.

After our success hosting a dog over the weekend, a pair of Miniature Pinschers stayed with us for four days beginning Sunday afternoon.

Becky and Lucy were quite different than Kix. Whereas the toy poodle was mellow and quiet, these two were high strung. They barked every time I walked into the room. Forget that, they barked pretty much any time anyone moved. And when you have a boy like Kai who can be a whirlwind of movement and emotions, you can imagine how much barking we heard over the past few days.

There were times when it seemed like an endless loop. Kai would do something to get the dogs excited, and their barking would get him to laugh and run even more, which in turn would rev up the dogs further.

Fortunately, all the barking did not bother Kai at all. He was not scared at all, and actually rather seemed to like it. While they did not fetch balls for him too often, I think the barking satisfied some of his desire to interact with them.

As with Kix, Kai insisted on going along on every walk with the dogs, even with the oppressive heat we’ve had the past several days.

After a day or so, Becky and Lucy started to feel more comfortable in our house. Oh, they still barked, but they warmed up to us, allowing my wife, especially, to hold and cuddle them, something they resisted at first. They even were able to relax around Kai.

Kai was also excited about the Fourth of July holiday. This boy loves his holidays and this one was no exception.

He helped Mom make the cake for the little cookout we had.


Quite festive, don’t you think?

In the afternoon, we found relief from the 100-degree heat with a visit to the local pool.

And after that, we had friends over for our cookout. Kai enjoyed playing with their kids. Although Kai doesn’t interact with other kids the way typical children do, he looks forward to getting together with these boys.

After eating, Kai wanted to do water balloons. Usually, I am the one who does this activity with him. On this muggy evening, I did not feel like running around and getting soaked, so I was grateful that one of the boys agreed to do this with Kai.

Aidan is very understanding and patient with Kai. On this occasion, when Kai started to get frustrated that he could not get the other boy with the balloon, Aidan stopped running to allow Kai to connect. And then they took turns soaking each other with the hose.

When it was getting dark, we went to our town’s fireworks display. Kai was excited (I feel like I am writing that word a lot, but it is all true). He even wore his Uncle Sam/Yankee Doodle hat.

We found a good spot for viewing, and Kai occupied himself with the iPad while we waited.

And once the fireworks started, he provided a play-by-play.

“That’s a giant one!”

“That one looks like an eye.”

“That one looks like a Poké Ball. That’s my favorite.”

As Kai was speaking, I recalled the time when therapists worked to get Kai to say even one word to describe something. Now, he was prattling on with ease.

Afterward, it looked like we would be stuck in the parking lot for hours, but my wife knew of the rarely used back way out and we escaped the traffic and avoided car agony.

Back home, we lit up the backyard for a last bit of fun.

It was a fun, busy, Fourth. And now that the dogs are gone and Kai is back in school, it sure is quiet around here.

Ahhh. ☺

Helping Mom Make Strawberry Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

Over the weekend, when we were at the farm where we picked our own strawberries, Kai spotted rhubarbs for sale. He had never seen them before and was curious. He asked what they were and how they tasted. We explained that they are frequently used in pies.

Kai wanted us to make a rhubarb pie, so we got some and my wife looked up recipes

She found a recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, and Kai was excited to help make it yesterday.

He helped chop the rhubarb under the nervous supervision of Mom.



He added the rhubarb and some of the strawberries we had picked to the cake tin.



He helped crack the eggs and add in water.



He assisted Mom with the mixer.



And poured the cake batter.



He was very happy when the cake was baked and Mom flipped it upside down.



It tasted yummy!



I don’t know how long it will last, but right now Kai really enjoys helping Mom in the kitchen. It made for a nice Mom-and-son activity.