Heading to Music Camp

Over the past five years, Bryce has relished the opportunity to attend The Salvation Army's Indiana Divisional Music Camp.  We've been grateful for his involvement.  When he entered high school, he learned that you had to be in the marching band if you wished to pursue the band class.  Thus, given his intense schedule with football and wrestling, he opted out of participating in band.  He's an outstanding drummer, with intense natural ability, and this camp is perhaps his only chance to play music in an organization (okay, our corps wishes he would volunteer to play drums with the Sunday morning praise band, but his attendance is sporadic and he doesn't wish to be involved).

This is the first year, however, when I will be able to attend the camp with Bryce.  I have so many fond memories of my childhood and teenage years, attending Salvation Army music camps.  I would count down the days until the next camp every year.  I have never before been on staff.  This year, I was asked to lead the 9-12 year old chorus and the Puppetry elective class.  I will admit that I am a bit nervous about my abilities to fulfill these leadership positions.  I haven't led a singing company (Salvation Army-speak for youth choir) since my graduate school days, over twenty years ago.  I've never taught a puppet class, or even ministered with puppets all that much, but I have been collecting small puppets here and there over the years.

My husband could really be teaching the puppet class.  For years, he would regale Bryce with puppet performances by Ronald McDonald (a puppet we received when we scheduled Bryce's 4th birthday party there) and Dopey and Woody.  Each of them had their own distinctive personalities and he did an outstanding job of altering his voice for each character.  Of course, they were sometimes naughty.  Woody did teach Bryce a little ditty that went: "Roses are red, violets are blue, poopies are stinky and so are you."  I was mortified when Bryce stood on his chair at church and repeated Woody's silly poem.

I am hoping and praying that we will have a really good time and that the students will benefit from whatever it is I can offer them in the way of instruction.  The main supervisor told me not to be nervous because "this isn't university ... it's just camp!"  I'm also praying my boys will be well-behaved in my absence.  I have two sitters lined up for Saturdays (when John works) and my mother-in-law is covering three days during the week.  It will be neat to have this memory with Bryce and fun to be involved in a music camp again, after so many years.

Book Review: Locked Garden

I stumbled upon Gloria Whelan almost a decade ago, when I read her wonderful book, Listening for Lions.  I enjoyed that book so much that I talked the 5th grade teacher (in the room where I worked as an individual assistant) into letting me read it to the students as a read-aloud.  They loved the book and I became a fan of Gloria Whelan.

In The Locked Garden, Verna and Carlie are still grieving the loss of their mother, when they are moved with their father and Aunt Maude to the grounds of an asylum for the mentally ill.  Aunt Maude seems determined to put a damper on everything in her own way of dealing with the loss of her beloved sister.  The girls do their best to make the adjustments to their new environment and become friends with one of the patients in the asylum.  As Aunt Maude feels her influence over the girls slipping away, she attempts to wrench away their affections from the patient/friend.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was a light read, but full of emotional pull.  The characters were well-drawn and the plot moved along quickly.  Inspired by the Traverse City State Hospital in Traverse City, Michigan, this book teaches, via story, a great deal about mental illness and depression and the facilities which used to treat such illnesses.

I even found myself incorporating one of the activities the girls enjoyed in the book, receiving a penny for every new word they learn, into our daily routine.  Trevor and Sean are extremely eager to garner new words into their language reservoir as a result of this.  Already this week, they have earned pennies for "irked," "facade," "configuration," "procrastination," and "mortified."  This book is sure to appeal to both children and adults and will teach young readers new words in both English and German.

Book Review: Journal of Best Practices

I am fascinated by memoirs of people with Asperger Syndrome.  Thus, when I stumbled upon David Finch's book, Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband, I knew I had to read it.  What a hilarious book.  There were times when I had to laugh out loud at the things which never occurred to David to question, it was just the way his Asperger brain was wired.

When David Finch received his diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome, he was actually relieved.  Finally there was an explanation for his differences from others.  In his book, he chronicles his adventure trying to write down reminders to himself to improve his marriage. 

Some of these reminders just made me laugh: "Don't change the radio station when she's singing along," "Do not EVER suggest that Kristen doesn't seem to enjoy spending time with our kids," "Don't hog all the crab rangoon," "Apologies do not count when you shout them," "Better to fold and put away [laundry] than to take only what you need from the dryer," and "It is not okay to leave for an hour in the middle of having company."  Others made me tear up: "Fixing our marriage is about working together and managing my behaviors.  Not fixing me."

It was almost comical how, in his Asperger tendency, he began to drive the act of finding best practices into the ground.  He was constantly looking for ways to improve himself, to the point where it almost became too much.  I was also amazed at how patient his wife seems to be.  She sounds like a true saint, helping him through his difficult self-absorption and into the world of thinking of others.  This book was a gem of a memoir!

Walking Maniacs

I have created two monsters.  It's a good thing, but exhausting.

On the last Tuesday in May, Bryce had his driver's ed driving test at the high school.  It was supposed to take 30-40 minutes.  Since our drive to the high school takes ten minutes, it seemed pointless to go home between his drop-off and pick-up times.  Thus, we chose to stay and occupied ourselves by running on the track around the football field.  The rest of the day, the boys were calmer than usual and I figured it must have had something to do with running off their energy.

So, we began going to the track daily.  I offer them five cents for each lap and ten cents for the winner of the first lap (since we run that one, but end up walking part or most of the rest).  We had generally been doing between a mile and a mile and a half each day.

Then, the boys requested a return visit to Jack-in-the-Box for their shakes (a treat we enjoyed during my parents' brief visit at the beginning of June).  We set a goal of reaching 20 miles before treating ourselves to the shake.  I didn't realize this goal would turn them into walking maniacs.

Yesterday, I intended to walk eight laps (2 miles).  I ended up doing twice that because the boys insisted on walking 20 laps.  It was probably the hottest day we've had.  After the twelfth, I thought if I sat it out, they would tucker out and give up.  At fourteen, I begged them to give it up (fearful even that someone might come by and think I was forcing them to walk all those laps).  On their seventeenth lap, I rejoined them through their finish.  Thankfully, the building was open so we could go inside and get more to drink, since we quickly drained the water bottles we had brought along.

Although I'm proud of them for plugging away through five miles (and I'm thrilled that Trevor is slimming down some as a result of our daily laps), I'm hoping they don't think this is going to be a regular thing.  It takes way too much time out of our day, even if our summer days are basically empty.  Plus, I'd be broke if I had to pay them a dollar a day (their fitness is worth that, though). They may just whip ME into shape, in the meantime.

Relief After Heart Surgery

On Monday, we took our oldest son, Bryce, to The Children's Heart Center of St. Vincent's for a heart surgery to identify and correct the cause of his Supraventricular Tachycardia (irregular heart beats during exertion or excitement).  Bryce decided that he wanted to take care of this condition once and for all instead of remaining on medication for it for the rest of his life.  I think his dad and I would have been content to stay on the meds, but at 16, Bryce is certainly old enough to make that decision.

I was fairly anxious about the procedure.  We have a friend whose brother went in for a routine dental procedure and came out of the anesthesia mentally impaired and physically tied to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  Now every time I approach a situation where any type of anesthesia is involved, I feel a twinge of hesitation and concern.

Overall, it turned out to be a positive experience.  We received wonderful care and consideration.  We arrived at 6 a.m. and were met there by our pastor who stayed to talk with us for a while and pray with us prior to the doctor's arrival.  Once Dr. Steinberg arrived, he prepped us on what to expect for and from the surgery.  He had to go over all the possible outcomes and it was difficult to listen to (one of the worse case scenarios being stroke).  He explained that there are three sections to the heart and complications possible with each of the sites.  The goal was to go in and locate the source of the heart's misfire (the diagnostic portion of the surgery) and then cauterize, either by heat or cryogenics (freezing) the location of the source of the problem (the therapeutic portion of the surgery).  Each would take two or more hours to complete.

Waiting in the waiting room was a bit tricky.  It always amazes me how some individuals are not at all aware of their personal space in public, since one woman plugged in her earphones and sang along with her music from time to time.  Others were merely hard of hearing and carried on loud conversations.  I would have relished distracting myself by getting absorbed in a book, but found my concentration lagging.

Still, I was very grateful for the patient liaison who came to us from time to time to let us know how things were going.  Two hours after the surgery had begun, the doctor came out to inform us that they couldn't seem to get Bryce to go into SVT.  They said his heart was doing erratic things and that it was especially difficult to fully sedate him.  He seemed extra anxious about the whole thing (although he told me afterwards that he was wishing he could stay awake for the whole thing because when he first got the meds to sedate him he felt happy and almost high).

Since they couldn't determine the location of the source of the tachycardia, they had to make a reasonable guess about where to cauterize the heart.  I think they said they found a small hole on the AV node and that often this presentation indicates a particular type of tachycardia (AV nodal re-entry tachycardia).  So, they treated it as if this were the case.

When Bryce first came out, it was hard to watch.  He was so sleepy and looked absolutely horrible.  I had to look away because it was breaking my mother's heart.  However, after a bit of time, it became almost comical to watch him come out from under the sedation.  He asked repeatedly how he got to the recovery room.  He asked repeatedly if the whole thing was already over and how could it be?

The funniest part had to be the television.  They offered a selection of 30 fairly recent movies to choose from.  Four different times, Bryce asked to go through the choices and each time he'd end with "those choices are crap."  By the fourth time, as he was cursing through the list, he said, "I bet the choices are just crap," and I chuckled and said, "Yep, you're right, they're just crap."  At one point, I put on Transformers because I knew it was a movie he had seen in 3-D and thought was amazing.  After he came fully out of the anesthesia and I was explaining the funny movie review situation, he said "They had Transformers?  Really?" (like he would have watched it, if only he had known - ha).

The other thing he kept saying was "Berka."  This is one of his pet phrases when something doesn't go his way.  It was hilarious how he would nod off and then jerk awake and try to lift his head (a no-no, because it might rupture the sites of catheter entry, where they wanted it to heal closed) and say "Berka!"  He still can't believe that he was out for almost seven hours of the day.  He finally came to more fully around 3:30 in the afternoon.

Since he managed to walk and keep food down, he was released and we went home to rescue Grandma (my husband's mother) from the little boys.  We were so grateful that she was able to come so that both of us could accompany Bryce for his surgery.  As we left the facility, Bryce commented that he thinks it probably did take care of the problem because he can already notice a difference in how his heart feels.  He said that before, when he didn't take his medication, he could feel his heart beating differently and after the surgery he couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary with his heart.   We're taking that to be a good sign, but we still have to wait to see whether or not the tachycardia presents again.

I find it amazing how quickly he healed from the whole thing.  He received the best of care while there and now is already feeling up to doing everything that he normally does.  It is hard to believe he was in heart surgery just two days ago.  God is good and I'm grateful to the medical staff of St. Vincent's for their expertise and wonderful care.

Book Review: The Last Thing I Remember

While browsing in the young adult section, this recent library acquisition caught my eye.  The cover is enticing.  The back cover included an endorsement by Stephen King, hailing Andrew Klavan as "the most original novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich."  I have no clue who Cornell Woolrich is, which indicates I'm not up on my crime/suspense literature, but an endorsement by King is really saying something.  I clearly understood it to be an adventure/suspense novel geared towards teen boys.  Sadly, I found myself somewhat disappointed with the book.  However, I do indeed think it would appeal to your average teenage boy.

Charlie West is an outstanding young man who earns good grades, practices karate and dreams of becoming an air force pilot.  He awakens one day to discover he is strapped to a chair, bruised and bloody, with torture instruments next to him.  He cannot remember how he got there.  This book follows Charlie as he attempts to unravel his memories of his last recollected day and the whys behind his new perilous existence.  He is being tortured by the Homelanders, an organization he knows nothing about.  When he escapes and seeks the aid of the police, he discovers they will not be of any assistance to him either.

The book is full of action and escape sequences.  It has no foul language.  It bears a message of perseverance, with Charlie clinging to the advice of Winston Churchill to "never give up."  Published by Thomas Nelson, it is clearly a book well suited to Christian teens.

Although the book kept me riveted (wanting to find out how Charlie ended up in his predicament), I found it tiresome.  The action seemed overly dramatized.  A teenage boy manages to escape the clutches of trained killers and secret service agents?  There was a great deal of redundancy (constantly turning over Churchill's advice, little sermonettes on trusting God when things look confusing, and repetitively outlining the main character's sense of confusion and strongly held political and religious beliefs).

Sadly, I never got to find out how Charlie ended where he was because the book is a cliffhanger.  This wouldn't be a problem for me if there were some basic story to the first installment, but it was all a lead-up to the future installments.  I'm just as confused as I was in the beginning.  I have more questions than answers.  How did the progression of his relationship with his love interest move so quickly?  Why is Charlie connected to the Homelanders in some way when he is diametrically opposed to the very things they stand for?  How could he possibly elude police pursuit when he never bothers to disguise himself in any way?

I don't know if I'll give the second installment a whirl or not.  At the moment, I doubt our library has a copy and I'm not willing to shell out money since I didn't exactly end with positive feelings towards this first book.

However, having said that, I still believe that this author probably does hold great promise.  I haven't read his other books, but did see a movie version of one of them, "True Lies," and it was entirely action-packed.  I'm pretty sure this writer does a better job when he is not trying to write for a specific Christian teen audience.  For the audience he targeted, he probably fulfilled his goals, though.  My reluctant reader, Bryce, would definitely find it wanting since it is long and never gets to the point of resolution.

Book Review: The Cardturner

Louis Sachar is a great name in children's literature.  I generally look forward to reading one of his books.  While this book was good, I'm not sure it will hold the interest of young people because of its intense focus on the card game of Bridge.  Granted, I'm not a card game enthusiast, especially when it comes to partnering card games.  I have horrible memories of attempting to play Euchre with a guy I really liked.  He was deeply disappointed in my abilities and I found the whole experience quite frustrating.

Thankfully, The Cardturner had enough of a story behind the game to keep me interested in that.  Alton Richards is a teenager facing a summer of forced servitude to his "favorite uncle Lester."  His mother insists on Alton's services as Lester's cardturner because Lester has a lot of money and she wants to ensure their place in Lester's will.  Lester requires a cardturner because he has recently lost his sight, but still wants to play the game. 

The previous cardturner, Toni, lost her position when she questioned one of his moves.  Lester is an amazingly proficient card player and has a phenomenal memory for the cards he is told he has been dealt.  In the midst of developing a bit of a relationship with his uncle Lester, Alton becomes interested in the game of Bridge and in Toni, as well.  Of course, the fact that she becomes interested in his best friend complicates things.

Sachar tries to give warnings when the drudgery of Bridge explanation is coming, but it didn't really make the explanations any more palatable.  I merely zoned out during those bits and stayed alert for the story line, which was worthwhile and interesting enough to hold my attention.  Sadly, I'm afraid young adults will fail to give this a chance because they'll feel bogged down by the game descriptions.  If they stick with it, though, the story is quite enjoyable.