Pu's Corner

Monday, December 14, 2009

Still Here

Well, work has been as crazy as I had predicted. Last week I left the house every day by 6am and didn't get home before 6pm even once :( To top it off, last weekend was my Reserve weekend, so I was into my 12th day of straight work with no break. Not fun! In slightly better work news, although I will continue to be so busy I hardly have time to breathe, I am going to be heading to Germany for a week in support of this project. I had hoped to be able to take a day or two additional so I could swing up to Amsterdam to see my lil' sis and fiance, but I think I'm going to have to bank on them possibly having time to come down to Frankfort to see me :(

In other news, we had an update meeting with Early Steps today to talk about A's transition from the ES program (0-3 years) to FDLRS, which is FL's program from kids aged 3 and up. This was just a preliminary meeting to get the paperwork started, but I did find out that even if he does qualify for services (which I have no doubt he will) there will be a three month gap from the time he turns 3 in June until school starts in late August where he won't be covered by ES or FDLRS. My ES coordinator is going to try and help us secure some funding from other sources, but I have a bad feeling I make too much money to qualify for any special funding. So there's an extra 3mos of $$ we're going to have to sock away for A's therapy *le sigh* The good news is that FDLRS covers the cost of pre-K and transportation (yes, he will ride the short bus, lol!), so once school starts we won't have to worry as much. A is due for his 6-month eval in Jan, so we'll get a formal assessment then of how he's progressed since he started therapy in July.

In my personal opinion A has made huge strides, but he still has a long, long way to go. He started out with no words and is now up to about 20 or so recognizable words, even more if you count sounds (e.g. he says doo doo for train, ruff ruff for dog, mao mao for cat, teet teet for bird). He still has a very hard time imitating sounds. If I tell him something is yellow, he repeats ee-ooo. He also uses sounds that are easier for him to say to describe lots of things. He calls trains doodoos (he can't say choo choo) but he also calls Scooby Doo, doo doo. He calls everything a truck (guck because he can't say the tr sound) whether it's a car, truck, bus or train. On the positive side, he is definitely trying to use language and those of us that are around him a lot can understand what he needs based upon a combination of his sounds and other cues. For example, if he's standing in the kitchen or pointing at the fridge and says, "Anna mek," I know he's saying, "I want milk." He also uses some signs, although those are pretty infrequent. I plan to start using the Baby Signing Time DVDs again since he seems more open to them now.

Our GF diet has kind of fallen to the wayside recently. It was very hard to get Tim's Grandma (who watches him during the day) to comprehend the idea of the GF diet, and her mistakes made it kind of for naught. No matter how hard I try to keep him on the diet, if she accidentally gives him a cookie or some other "no" food, all that time, effort and money (going GF is expensive!) goes out the window and you start the timeline all over again. Our care plan may change starting next year, so we'll try again when we have a little more control!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Inadvertant Blog Hiatus

Sorry for abandoning my blogging duties so egregiously. I have a huge project ongoing at work that is threatening to eat up all my free time. I wish I could say that this makes me a littler happier (and, to be fair, it does a little since I can't stand being bored at work), but I fear we are being so obviously set up for failure that I work feverishly with the despair of knowing that our fabulous product will probably go nowhere thanks to the childish politics of the various government offices involved (e.g. My org should be leading this project, therefore I will sabatoge any effort you make in spite of that fact that we are fighting a war and people are dying. Who cares! It should be my project!!!!).

To tide you over in between my infrequest posts, here are some other stories of life in the Pu household:

C made some new friends with a few of the sixth grade girls at her school when she brought her copy of Twilight: New Moon to school to read at recess. I believe the coversation went something like this (as repeated to me by said child).

Random Sixth Grade Girl (RSGG): OMG! Is that, like, Twilight: New Moon??!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I looooove Twilight. Do you love Twilight, too??!!
C: OMG, yes! Twilight is, like, so totally awesome and cool. I love Edward. I am Team Edward all the way, whoo hoo!
RSG: OMG, me too! We should be BFF forever (hugs!!!)
C: Like, that would be so awesome! Twilight is so cool. I wish I had a vampire boyfriend like Edward.
RSGG: HE IS SO DREAMY!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
C: I KNOW!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RSGG: I have already seen New Moon twice and I am going to go again!
C: NO WAY!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't seen New Moon yet because my parents are so lame!!!!!
RSGG: No way! That sucks! You're parents are way lame!
C: I KNOW! What is wrong with them??!!
RSGG: You should tell that that you will just die if you don't see it!!!
C: I tried that!!!! My mom said that I was lucky to have the book! SO LAME!!!!
RSGG: LAME!!!!
C: I KNOW!!!!

And so on. Tween talk is very hard to interpret because of all the random squealing.

J, on the other hand, has become an expert at interpreting A-speak:

A: Oh weee
J: A says he wants Halloween candy.

A: Ah guck!!! Ah guck!!
J: A wants his truck. You are sitting on it, and he wants it back before your butt eats it.

A: Mo geegah!
J: A wants to have more cookies.
Me: But you don't have any cookies.
J: Yes, that's why he wants more.

Post Turkey Day Ideas:

I always make way too much food for Thanksgiving (who doesn't), and I'm not crazy about having T-Day feast repeats over and over, so I have become pretty good at figuring out what to do with the leftovers. So far this year I have made Tom Kha Gai with turkey and a hybrid turkey pot pie (mashed potato crust, so sort of a turkey shepherd's pie, really). One of my favorite recipes for leftover turkey, however, is Turkey Tetrazini. It is really delicious and it is also super, super easy. Here is my version, which is very slightly adapted from an old Homes & Gardens Cookbook I have.

Pu's Tetrazini:

1 lb spaghetti, cooked
1/2-3/4lb chopped turkey
3- 3 1/2 cups of chicken broth (or turkey broth if you saved it)
1 cup half & half
1/2 cup sherry or white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
6 tbsp butter
1/2 cup flour
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 lg onion, chopped
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt & pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt 2 tbsp of the butter in a large pan on medium heat (large enough to hold all ingredients mentioned in the recipe) and cook the onion and mushrooms with a little salt and pepper and the lemon juice until cooked through (about 5-7min). Set veggies aside and melt the remaining butter in the pan. Add the flour and stir the roux until it is smooth and a nice caramel color. Slowly add the chiken or turkey broth and sherry until the mixture is a thick almost chowder like consistancy. Add the half and half and nutmeg and season to taste.Then add the saved veggies and chopped turkey and cook just until mxture is heated through. Spread the cooked spaghetti evenly in a large oven-safe pot or dutch oven. Pour the turkey mixture over top of the spaghetti and sprikle the cheese evenly on top. Bake at 350 for about 30min or until the cheese browns slightly. Let the dish cool for about 10-15 minutes and then slice into even pieces and serve (like lasagna). So delicious!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Boys Are Stinky and Girls Are Mean

Very uneventful weekend. On Saturday we held a birthday party for Tim’s Grandma (the one who watches A for us). We all pitched in and bought her a ticket back to Buffalo to visit her family back there. I found it humorous that we live in FL and bought her a ticket to go on vacation to Buffalo in January! We also went to the market on Saturday and got lots of produce. I tried to make a cauliflower soup with curry and cardamom, but it turned out to have way too much cardamom and no one would eat it :(

The temperature here has dipped a bit. It still gets into the high 70s/low 80s during the day but it’s down into the 50s at night (hey, after the summer weather, this feels like ice to me!). So in honor of the cooler weather, here’s my current recipe for Tom Kha Gai:

Pu’s Tom Kha Gai

2 cans Coconut Milk
2 cups Chicken broth
4-6 Tbsp Roasted Red Chili Paste
1 stalk lemongrass
1 6” piece of galangal
1 can straw mushrooms
½ lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp Thai fish sauce
2-3 Tbsp lime juice
Kafir lime leaves
1 serrano or Thai bird’s eye chili seeded and sliced (big slices so you can fish them out) *optional
Salt & pepper to taste

Season the chicken and cook it in a skillet until cooked through. Set aside. In a pot, put the coconut milk and broth, peeled & sliced galangal, and lemongrass* and turn the heat to medium high. Add the chili paste, lime leaves (as much as you’d like to taste – I put in about 8-10), fish sauce, sugar, salt and pepper, and serrano chili**. Bring the soup to a boil and then turn down the heat to let it simmer. There is no prescribed cooking time for the broth. The true flavor of this soup comes from the galangal. You cannot substitute for it, and the flavor will be deeper the longer it cooks. So don’t be worried about overcooking it! Conversely, if the broth tastes good to you after 20-30 min of cooking, so be it! Once you’ve decided the broth is done, add the straw mushrooms, chicken, and lime juice (use this judiciously and taste as you add so you don’t accidently put in too much) and cook for another 10min or so.

*Prepare the lemon grass by chopping the stalk into 1 – 1 1/2” pieces and bruising them with the side of your knife.
**Depending on how spicy you like your food, this ingredient is totally optional. It is mainly for the heat and its omission won’t affect the flavor of the broth that much.


This is one of my favorite comfort meals. It is warm and spicy and soothing. I craved this soup daily when I was preggers with A. Hubs used to get it from his coworker who lived near a hole in the wall Thai place in Long Beach that made the absolute best version of this soup. I have never been able to equal their recipe, but this version is as close as I’ve ever gotten. One of the great things about Tom Kha Gai is that it is a very personal recipe. You can add or take away as much of any one ingredient as you like to make the broth fit your taste. Hope you like it!

Thing Heard Recently on Pu’s Corner:

J: My brain is telling me to eat your head.
Me: Hmm, well I would tell your brain that that is a very bad idea.
J: *very seriously* I know. I keep telling it that, but it doesn’t listen. Stupid brain.

Me: Your cousin, Y, is about to have a baby brother. What advice would you give her?
J: I would tell her not to have a brother. Boys are stinky and poop in their pants. She should have a sister.
Me: Like C?
J: No, not like C. She is mean and won’t let me play with her movies. Sometimes I can play with her cats but only when Daddy yells at her.
Me: But you would still tell her to have a sister?
J: *thoughtfully* No, she should just have a cat. Cats are soft and if you want their toy you can just take it and they don’t get mad.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Stuffs

So Halloween has come and gone (as evidenced by the pics in my last post), and now we have entered the true Holiday Season. That is, now we get to be inundated with commercials about how we need to spend, spend, spend for all the upcoming holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, C’s Birthday*). This year the Hubs and I have decided to keep our spending to a minimum. We are hell bent on getting ourselves out of debt, and I can’t think of much that we actually “need” (vs. want J ) We will be buying each child one large gift and stocking stuffers. Wish us luck in actually sticking to that, lol!

In other news, A’s therapy is progressing well. He has approximate sounds that he uses as words, which I am starting to figure out. For example, he says:

Jus – juice

Tada – Potato (as in, Mr. Potato Head or just to refer to potatoes in general)

Doodoo – Scooby Doo

Eeeoo-uu - IDK

In other news, I totally forgot that I have my reserve drill this weekend (1st one at my new base), so if I promised to Skype with you that's obvs not going to be an option. Sowwy!

*This one is considered optional for the population at large, but Amazon likes to remind me that it is coming up and I should buy, buy, buy to prepare!

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Halloween '09
















Thursday, October 22, 2009

Forgot to Mention the Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkin patch was okay. Apparently the entire state of Florida decided to go the same day as us, so it was a wee bit crowded. Lines were long, there were pony rides (A refused to participate, but, surprisingly, J was very nonplussed by the whole situation, and even a mini-circus. It was all a bit overwhelming. Whatever happened to the good old days where there was, you know, a pumpkin patch. There were pumpkins, but they were in a cordoned area and already picked.So, it was alright, I guess. Next year I am hunting for an actual pumpkin patch where you can pick your own pumpkin and there might be perks like a cup of cider or a bale of hay to jump on. Pics are loaded to my new Facebook page, so I won't repost them here (mainly b/c I am lazy), but I will give you a taste:

Ha ha ha. This is my new favorite picture of A. He looks very Calvin to me.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

All Around Update

So, I'm very conflicted about all these new kids movies coming out. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that the literary greats of my childhood (Where the Wild Things Are*, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) are getting their pop culture due. On the other hand, these are literary greats because of their indelible whimsy and, yes I'll say it, brevity. What is left to the imagination if it's all put out there in an hour to hour and a half movie? Granted I've not yet seen the movies, but, still, I feel vaguely betrayed.

In other movie news, da Hubs and I went all the way into Tampa to see Paranormal Activity, which is a new horror flick in the style of the Blair Witch Project. I'd heard about it on the radio where people were touting it as one of the scariest movies they'd ever seen, blah blah blah. Honestly, not that scary. Also, I figured out the ending before it occurred, so it was kind of a let down. Hubs, on the other hand, keeps telling me we have a demon in the house, so think of that what you will ;)

In other news totally unrelated to movies, I recently discovered Facebook. Okay, I didn't actually discover it, but I did create a profile and have been spending way too much time looking up people I don't really care about (and some that I do). We'll see how long this fancy lasts, but I am enjoying posting redonkulous updates about pooping (see our "in" list below).

Recipe

In the spirit of cooking easy, yummy food. Here's a quick recipe for those busy weeknights.

Pu's Hoisin Pork Chops:

1lb boneless pork chops, thin cut
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
3 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp rice vinegar or Shaoxing

Salt & pepper the chops to taste. Combine all other ingredients in a small bowl and then brush over the pork chops. Place in a shallow dish and broil for about 3min per side (baste again when you flip). Yum! I put these over an asian inspired noodle salad (rice noodles reconstituted combined with 2 tbsp Shaoxing, 1 tbsp Hoisin sauce, 1 tsp minced ginger, and 1 tsp minced garlic - toss all that with thinly sliced green & red peppers, purple onion, & cabbage).

Things Recently Heard on Pu's Corner:

Bringing an old feature back, we recently had a serious discussion on what is currently "in" in the Pu household. For your reading pleasure:

"In"
- Tinkerbell
- Miley Cyrus
- All Things Mr. Potato Head
- Punching People in the Butt
- Bubbles
- The Word "Poop"
- Hello Kitty Underwear
- Farting Noises
- The Color Pink

"Out"
- Dora the Explorer
- Carrots
- Playing Nicely With Your Brother
- Zombies
- Socks
- The Color Yellow


*btw, also authored by Maurice Sendak - see Chicken Soup post.