Count Down Continues

Two days a counting people. Or at least that was the update from the office Count Downers to Santa's arrival this morning. This has really been a fun year for us. The kids are at such a great age for this whole Santa thing (not being Christian the religious aspect of x-mas doesn't even come into play for me, lol!). And I can't even begin to explain how effective threats of landing on the naughty list have been (for the kids, too! ;) If you've never seen it before, consider buying the Elf on the Shelf and revel in this new way to blackmail your kids into behaving!

Besides baking the shit out of my kitchen, my one nod to Christmas tradition is to force my kids to watch Christmas movies every night in the lead up to Christmas Day. A is particularly enamored of the Grinch (cartoon, not live action) and begs for it nightly. J prefers Rudolph or Alvin and the Chipmunks (Hubs bought the Christmas DVD set, how 80s are we??!!). C likes to switch it up, but last night was my night to pick. So we watched my all time favorite Christmas movie, the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Hubs is back from LA. He got in late last night, so I haven't had too much time to talk with him since I had to work today (although I did come in late since I have to close tonight). But I don't have to talk to him to know that while he was out drinking and gallivanting with the drummer from Fleetwood Mac (really!), I was having equally exciting experiences like this one:

C leans over and farts on A's head.
Both laugh hysterically.
J: *indignantly* Ew! That is gross! Mom! Make her stop fawting!
C farts again.
A laughs so hard he knocks himself over.
J: *in a whiny yell* Stop fawwwwwwwwwting, C!!! *suddenly burps, looks surprised, then all three laugh hysterically*

Or,

Picture this: you're calmly shopping in CVS. Your children are distracted by a colorful makeup display, so you are free to quickly browse the aisle when suddenly your youngest son starts screaming bloody murder, screaming like someone has gravely injured him. You rush over to see what the matter is and notice a bright red substance on his mouth. You worry that it is blood, that he may have bitten his lip, when you suddenly notice the bottle in his hand.
He has eaten nail polish.
I repeat, your son has opened up a bottle of nail polish and decided to eat it and now has a tell tale nail polish mustache that incites all people within the relative vicinity to stare at you like you are the worst mother ever
...also, he is still screaming and has drooled nail polish onto your coat.
...He takes after his father.

In retaliation to life in general, I have decided to start following this creed. I hope you will all follow suit and not fall into the trap, as I did, of not giving a cunt suck.

When It Rains...

So after Monday's insurance disappointment, I received in the mail yesterday a couple of medical bills from August! Apparently BC/BS just paid out their end. Awesome. To top that off, we made an emergency trip to the doctor for A yesterday only to find out that he has a bad staph infection on his tummy. That has to be the worst thing I've ever seen one of my kids go through (and that includes the staples in the head and the time C got stitches in her mouth). I had to hold him down while the doctor drained the damn thing. A doesn't have too many words, but he was in full command of "no, owwie, and 'op (stop)." And that look. The look of," Mommy, why are you doing this to me?" It sucked.

In other news, da Hubs leaves tomorrow for LA for about 5 days, so it will just be me and the kiddos for a while. Hubs gets back next Tuesday, he's home just over X-mas, and then off to Texas to visit the s-kids for a week. He gets back on the 1st and then a few days later I head out the door for Germany.

Also, I think I forgot to blog about C's first concert. C plays the flute in her school band (she begged me to do it last year, so I spent about $400 on that friggin flute and I'll be damned if she gives it up before she graduates from high school!). C was very nervous and attempted many ploys to avoid having to go through with it. But I have to say that on the day of, she was very excited and proud. The band was about as good as one might expect a group of 4th and 5th graders to be (lol). It was a wee bit painful. The concert only took about 20min, and when it was over I complemented her on how well she played and how difficult some of the songs were C replied, "Yeah, I know. I didn't even know half the notes on the last one, so I just made them up!" Ha!

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!

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!

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.

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!

Halloween '09

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.

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.

Yay for Fall Cooking

I have really been in to simple cooking lately for obvious reasons. I'm looking for delicious, flavorful dishes that can be made very quickly. None of this 30min meals bullshit where the 30min doesn't ever seem to include the actual prep time. I'm also excited for fall flavors. I love root veggies (if my Ode to a Sweet Potato hadn't tipped you off) and hearty soups and stews. So, in spite of the fact that it was 95 degrees here yesterday (!!), here is a great little fall recipe I made on Saturday.

Pu's Roasted Sweet Potatoes & Onions

2-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into ~1" pieces
1 lg sweet onion, chopped into pieces about the same size
1 sprig chopped fresh Rosemary
2-3 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Super simple. Toss the veggies in the oil with the spices and stick in the oven at about 400 degrees for about 30-40min (cooking time will depend on the size of your veggie slices). I served this with a lucious roasted chicken (nothing but kosher salt and an onion in its belly roasted at 400 degrees for abot 1 1/2 hours). Sooo easy!


Today I learned A has a new word. As I got dressed for the day, my beloved youngest son pranced around my room wearing nothing but a diaper and my push-up bra draped attractively over one shoulder. "ahhh, sssss!" he cried gleefully. To celebrate this complete nonsequitar, I bring you a new feature here at Pu's Corner:

Things You Never In a Million Years Imagined Would Come Out of Your Mouth During Normal, Daily Conversation:

"Did you just lick the shopping cart?"

"Yes, that is my son in aisle five on all fours meowing like a cat."

"Yes, cats fart, but that wasn't the cat."

"Don't shove that in your ear. You are not Mr. Potato Head."

"Please don't punch Mommy in the butt."

Today He Called Me Mama

And it was the sweetest sound I've ever heard.

Our Crappy Weekend

* I meant to post this earlier in the
week (obviously), but it has been an
incredibly busy week at work so,
sorry!

So here we are looking blissfully happy just before we got our asses handed to us by Miami (Miami! 0-3!!! Well, now 1-3, I guess *sigh*). To add insult to injury, Land Shark stadium is a truly crappy place to be (although the seats give you a pretty good view). It was so hot I was sweating from places I didn't even know were capable of producing sweat. Anyway, Miami itself was a fun little diversion. The game sucked, we had kind of a crappy time with the in-laws (FIL's wife is a piece of work!), Hubs, J and now C all have the flu, and I am the busiest I've ever been at work.

Musical Education

Lamest Football Weekend Eva!! (seriously, both my teams lost miserably and then I got my ass handed to me in fantasy -- where I have Drew Brees as my QB, so not only did we get trounced by NO, I also got no pts for Fantasy since he didn't throw for any TDs!)

In the awesome news pile, however, J came home on Friday and announced with much fan fare (and in a monotone yell-y voice):

In September for a while,
I will ride a crocodile,
Down that chick soup-y nile.
Paddle once, paddle twice
Paddle chicken soup with rice

I cannot express my joy! However, as much as I tried to implore J to sing other verses of the song, I soon learned that September was the only month she knew and the only one I could remember was February *le sigh* *

It was only after consulting with the Hubs that I realized not every child grows up with a musical-theater obsessed older sister, and therefore does not benefit from hearing the songs of Really Rosie over and over and over on cassette tape. I also realized that I had been neglecting my children's musical upbringing by playing them dumb shit like Mozart and Chopin. So I immediately went to Amazon and bought them a box set of Maurice Sendak stories as well as a DVD copy of Really Rosie (starring the Nutshell Kids, thank you very much!). Problem solved!


*I do, however, remember all the words to A Alligators All Around, which I think speaks volumes about my childhood!

Another Day, Another (potential) Diagnosis

A's SLP (I have included an acronym list at the bottom of this post..you may need to start referring to it for this and what looks to be many future posts) brought me some handouts on sensory integration (SID/SPD). She thinks A exhibits many proprioceptive behaviors (a lack of sensory input that causes the child to seek out stronger sensory input), which could be better addressed with OT.* Since we are switching our insurance from BC/BS (because they SUCK!) to Tricare, I called up the ES folks who are going to try and schedule an OT evaluation hopefully at some point in the next few months. As I am learning, I was actually fortunate to have forked over $1500 for A's speech and hearing evaluations through All Children's Hospital because they (being a private, for-profit organization) gave A thorough diagnostic testing and came up with an appropriate diagnosis fairly quickly. If you go through ES to being with, you will probably not be so lucky and may spend years waiting to get and appointment much less the proper diagnosis. Now that we are going to go through ES we already qualify for 2x/week speech therapy based on his initial diagnosis (which their independent evaluation confirmed); however, from this point forward we are back at square one for any other issues that might come up. If I were able to shell out the $$ for a private OT eval, we could probably get A in to see one in a fairly short time period, but since I can't afford any more medical bills we are going to have to put up with the system.

The good news is that A's ST is going well. He is very enamored with the word "no" and uses it almost constantly (I have never been more thrilled to hear a toddler say no!). His SLP gives us tons of information, tons of handouts and suggested therapy techniques. She has offered to start doing 1x/week with us at home and use the other session w/Hubs grandma, who is A's primary caregiver when I am at work and Hubs is in school. Although I would like to have all the sessions for us, I think she makes a good point that it is important for Grandma to be on the same page as us and using the same techniques to work on A's speech.

Various Acronyms for Your Reading Pleasure:
AOS - Apraxia of Speech
COS - Childhood Apraxia of Speech
SLP - Speech Language Pathologist
ST - Speech Therapist/Speech Therapy
OT - Occupational Therapist/Occupational Therapy
SID - Sensory Integration Disorder
SPD - Sensory Processing Disorder
ES - Early Steps (Florida's Early Intervention Program)
GF - gluten-free

Other Child News:

Wait, I have other children? You may not think so from reading this blog since I seem to be devoting much of my written time to A's journey, but I do in fact have a couple of other munchkins that I occasionally glance at from time to time ;) C & J have recently discovered computer games (I say recently only because I have only recently allowed C to start touching the home computer). So when Hubs settled down on the couch with his laptop last night it was no surprise that J immediately snuggled up to him and asked him to play a game with her.
"Sure," said Hubs," This game is called 'Help Daddy bet on the Dolphins.'"

*I may not want A to have any more issues than he already has, but this does explain a lot of his behavior, particularly his penchant for chewing on everything and his propensity to do every activity with the apparent intent of killing himself.

Cuttin Out the Tasty

So, based on some good advice from my mom (I should really just consult her before I run off willy, nilly like I always do), we had A tested for food sensitivities and vitamin deficiencies and the like. Lo and behold he is most definitely sensitive to gluten, but casein - no problem. So, yay we get to keep butter (THANK GOD!) and various dairyliciousness; however, I am going to have to figure out how to cut out every bit of gluten-based product in our house. Or, as my Hubs said, everything that is yummy tasting. Sorry, Hubs. The thing with gluten is that apparently it is very easy to get cross contamination, so you really do have to make the house basically gluten-free. That means I have to get rid of every bit of flour (and scrub and possibly repaint the cupboard where it was stored) and anything that might have been touched by a utensil or finger that previously touched a gluten-filled product (breadcrumbs in the peanut butter, flour in the sugar jar, and ohmygod I may have to burn down the kitchen and start from scratch). This going gulten-free thing is not going to be easy, but if it will help A then how can I not do it? The really hard thing is going to be bread. According to the internets (and the gluten-free goddess, who also has a fantastic guide on how to go gluten-free without completely losing your mind...or at least without losing all of it), gluten is that wonderous thing that gives bread and baked goods just the right texture. Not being a fabulous baker to begin with, I quiver in fear at the thought of having to make a just right, gluten-free bread to appease the whole family. This is a true test of my will, people! Pray to the baking gods for me...hopefully they are kinder than the magical pony gods of travel and will take some pity on a poor, overworked mom!

In some good news, A is now saying "no" and "go" with great gusto (okay, so they come out sounding more like new and goo, but still, I know what he means!). He also says "up" and "guck" (he measns stuck...anything he can't open/close/get to is stuck in his mind). So we are making some serious progress here! C is excelling in school. She is getting A's in all her classes except religion (where she got a big fat F, hah! That's what you get for having a Jewish mom!). She also started back up with band, where I was able to dazzle her with my absolute lack of any musical knowledge when she asked for my help in perfecting her E Flat (I gave her may best "WTF is that?" face, which promptly encouraged her to go ask her dad instead). J is also enjoying school. They do color-themed weeks which culminate in color appropriate dress-up Fridays. This ensures that all week long J is excited about it being, for example, purple week and equally exciting Friday mornings where she decides that she wants to wear anything other than the purple outfit we already picked out and will have a terrible temper tantrum if we try to make her wear it (also we learned that she doesn't own any yellow clothing, how odd.).

Also, this is how I imagine J as a girl scout:

Appropriate, eh?

Constantly Amazed

by the creative ways the Bills are able to lose football games. It is really an art.

*sigh* Welcome to football season; looks like it's going to be a long one...again.

I Can Never Think of a Title for These Things

Back in Colorado; been here since Tuesday, so forgive the blog-io silence. UCI (big ole inspection) is underway and things are going better than I expected. Hubs is suffering accordingly at home alone with the kiddos and everyone's crazy schedules, so send him some lovin! I'll be home next Tuesday, and this is my last trip up to Colorado. I have filled out my paperwork to make it official, but I have joined another unit just 2 hrs from our home. This has been a long time coming, but I wanted to see the unit through our inspection and I'm glad I was able to that and see all of our hard work pay off.

In my spare time I have been doing more research on A's condition. Unfortunately, apraxia is kind of like autism. They are both neurological disorders (in fact many kids with autism also have apraxia) and very little is known about what causes them or how to cure them. Some parents of autistic and apraxic kids have had luck with a gluten-free, casein-free (dairy) diet (GFCF). It seems to improve their symptoms, particularly with language acquisition. So I've decided that it can't hurt us to try it. This will be quite an adjustment for the family (I think it will be easier to make the house GFCF rather than try to police just A's diet), so wish me luck in convincing the Hubs! I've also been in contact with some other moms in my area regarding an apraxia support group. I feel like I have to reach out as much as possible so I can start to understand this and help my son. So little information is known on this disorder, it just really makes you feel helpless.

Home Sick

Well, I could feel it coming on for days, but I finally came down with the non-swine flu that's been going around the office. My throat is sore, my sinuses are all stuffed up, and I have a raging headache. So I'm home ith A today (that should alleviate my headache, hah!). Fortunately this is the Friday before the long weekend, so I can console myself with the thought that no actual work was probably going to get done today anyway :)

Reflection

Getting together with the people you care about most just doesn't happen as often as you would like and life continues to keep pushin' on...

I always love taking a moment to read everyone's blogs and I try to do so each day. We all go through so many different things in our lives, good and sometimes challenging, it really is beautiful that people share these things.


What better way to celebrate blogs than with music..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGDQ85Dg-ss


Enjoy!

And Now