Harvest Moon

The moon has had that orange glow these last few nights. Must be that time of year.

There's not much to share. I've been enjoying the days with the kids or at least trying to! Roman is adept at pushing buttons. He's definitely looking forward to getting back to school and spending more time with kids his age.

We finished a second camping trip and yet again it rained. We were close to home this time and elected to come home a day early. Somehow leaving a day early when you've only traveled half an hour is easier to accept than having traveled 2 or more hours. Something to do with making the travel time worth while.

Roman and Lauren had a great time regardless and weren't nearly as bothered by the weather or the shortened trip. After all, they didn't know we were planning for four nights.

We've received our packages from OT and PT with tasks for Lauren to work on. I simply need to remember to implement them. There's an underlying anxiety for me about making sure she builds strength and endurance from a young age in an attempt to circumvent issues later. It would be nice if I could get her Little Gym classes subsidized because I know Erica would be the first to help me build the PT skills into the gymnastics she's already learning.

The city starts registration for fall and winter programmes tomorrow. Lauren qualifies for "Sea Turtle You and Me" age wise but I'm concerned for her height. The kids stand on a platform in the big pool or the bottom of the therapy pool - both of which would be over her head or at least in her face. Either way she can't reach. The city offers 'adapted aquatics' for kids with disabilities but I don't generally feel Lauren fits the bill. She isn't developmentally challenged, simply vertically challenged. The city offers the programme in partnership with Kidsability so I expect we'd qualify. It's something I'll need to discuss with our PT/OT team I guess to see if it makes sense. Along with Lauren's height issues, we could run into strength and stamina constraints but I hate to get her into a stream that will classify her with negative connotations and I'd hate to take a spot from another child in more specific need than we.

On the other hand, she needs to know how to swim and she already loves the water. Getting her into a programme that will ensure she succeeds is important.

Guess I better make that call tomorrow.

Domestic Goddess Unveiled

Following yesterday's post, I thought some clarification was due. The only reason it would even occur to me that I might have reached goddesshood is in comparison to a normal day. Please note that the list includes very little of a domestic household nature. It's not often you can see the carpet through the toys or the counter beneath the produce, dishes and random bits that end up everywhere...

Here's how it usually goes:

Get up with kids and hubby.
Police kids squabbling over who gets what bowl for cereal.
Police kids squabbling over who gets to put out the bowls vs who puts out the spoons.
Eat breakfast. Consume coffee. Hopefully still hot by the time I get to finish it.
Police kids squabbling over computer.
Help kids with computer.
Deal with Roman interfering with Lauren on the computer.
Police kids squabbling just because they're kids.
Go to town for something to do - kids squabble less when we're in town.
Deal with kids squabbling over what music to listen to in the car.
Come home and feed kids lunch - usually sandwiches. Balogna. Shh don't tell anyone.
Somewhere in that time I might have been able to throw a load into the laundry machine.
If so, it's probably ready to hang outside.
Take kids outside. Push on swings to prevent meltdowns.
Hang laundry while policing kids squabbling over trucks/toys/swings/who's turn it is on the slide.
Realize I've forgotten to get meat out of the freezer for supper so have to come up with a different plan. Chicken strips, rice and peas anyone?
Explain again why Roman can't watch TV even though he wants to.
Get chicken strips into oven and rice rinsed.
Look despairingly at the clock wondering why oh why isn't it 6:30 yet?

Throughout this day there are usually periods of reading books with the kids, playing toys with the kids, trying to do something productive (even if it's figuring out what to do for supper since I forgot to get the meat out) with kids squabbling and wondering if I need to invest in a flak jacket for all the policing I do.

So a day like yesterday is astounding. I'm pretty sure my goddesshood will be revoked today as so far I have no inclination whatsoever to get anything accomplished...except a blog post. Wonder if there's blog goddess status...

Fate

Today, many of our veggies have met their fate.

The zucchini have been baked into a zucchini coffee cake which Lauren declares she will "eat it auw".

The tomatoes, the few that there are since we only planted 5 or 6, along with the jalapenos and onions have gone through the canning process and are resting on the counter.

The rest of the zucchini have been shredded and frozen for future coffee cakes. There will be more of them but I'm content. If they only make it to the compost, I'm satisfied.

Our corn has come to its end but we'll leave the stalks in place until the squash and pumpkins are ready for tilling.

Roman is spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa and was very excited when he left the morning.

Tomorrow he can try some of our salsa and see if the garden work has been worth it.

Domestic Goddess

Today, that's ME!!!

Okay, am I allowed to call myself a goddess or will I be smote down by the true goddesses of the universe?

I only say it because somehow I managed to complete a whole raft of tasks, none of which were actually on a list. Not sure I qualify? Here's how I justify my nomination:

Two kids up and fed while hubby rushes to get out the door after getting up a bit later than usual. This includes making coffee which is usually his job.
Clean the bathroom.
Go to the local produce market with two kids - get romaine for dinner, spinach for something, two tomatoes to add to my own for a batch of salsa and some berries. Cause they love berries.
Feed two kids lunch. Okay. This was pogos in the toaster oven but don't tell anyone.
Pack one kid off to Grandma's.
Entertain kid number two.
Need to use up zucchini - make zucchini coffee cake.
Need croutons for supper (grilled chicken ceasar) - make bread by hand.
Prep tomatoes to add to already prepped veggies for salsa.
Take number two outside to play while bread proofs.
Take pictures of hawks and turkey vultures.
Take pictures of little turkey vulture playing in the back yard (that would be Lauren...)
Check garden and harvest more zucchini.
Bake bread.
Finish cooking salsa.
Need to get rid of MORE zucchini so shred, portion and freeze.
Start prepping supper (cook bacon, wash lettuce, chop onion, prep bread).
Continue entertaining number two.
After supper, finish canning salsa.

Hubby says, "did you want to finish fixing the elderberry jelly that didn't set?"
Nope. Not today. I didn't get the pectin I need and, well, I think the goddess has done enough for one day.

Lauren helped with the zucchini coffee cake, the bread and shredding the extra zucchini so this makes her a domestic goddess too. A tiny one but a goddess nonetheless.

Controversial? Absolutely. Changing our minds? Not likely!

After our 30 month assessment Tuesday, I returned home to find the surgeon's office had called regarding Lauren's ptosis on her right eye (see Confessions of a road weary mom, March 2010).

She was on the waiting list and I was expecting a call to set up the pre-op appointment this fall.
Yes, we needed to set up a pre-op appointment but they`d had a cancellation for this October and did we want to take the space.

Hell yeah.

Now I will confess, there are a lot of reasons to NOT have her droopy eyelid adjusted - she`s so young, what message does it give her? why put her through it? they might screw it up, as a teen it`s much easier, she can learn to deal with it, yadda yadda yadda - but it`s our decision to make.

And we`ve made it.

Her eyelid doesn`t impede her vision (or it would`ve been fixed long ago) but it makes itself evident when she`s tired, in most of her photos, when we look in the mirror and pretty much anytime we look at each other. It`s just there. Is she beautiful? Absolutely. Will this change how beautiful she is? Not really. But it will remove one more target from the list of things the other kids will find to tease her about.

Because let's be realistic. Kids are cruel. They'll find whatever they can to hurt and harass each other. Lauren will already have enough challenges with her height and looking different without looking more different.

"But I don't see it," you might say. That's because I'm VERY selective of the pictures I post or even keep. Here's one we kept because it's her birthday:



Sure, other kids have it worse and yes it's probably a select moment because of the direction she's looking but it's still there.

I also look to the far future when she's job hunting. Let's assume she's applied for a job worth having. Another applicant is equally qualified - equal schooling, equal experience, equal ability. Given Lauren's asymmetrical features, who do you think will get the job? To assume it would be Lauren is naive. To assume it's the other person might be pessimistic but I think heavy on reality. She would never be told it's because of her appearance because other excuses can always be made.

I remember clearly an incident about a summer intern working at the agency. She was nice and very capable. It was said by one in authority, "It's too bad she's so big..." though I expect the comment wasn't meant to be heard by others.

But it's reality. We are, even subconsciously, judged by our appearance - what we wear, how we wear it, our features, our smile (or lack thereof), our weight and then, maybe our abilities play in.

Could I leave this cosmetic decision to future Lauren? Absolutely. But in all selfishness, I don't want to see the scars form during her younger years. We can do this for her now just like we'll see braces on her teeth and cut her hair in stylish ways to suit her special face.

So in September we do the dreaded drive again to prep for the October surgery.

Garden Update - Mid August

It's official. The corn did not survive the onslaught. All the stalks had ears, they just didn't get a chance to grow big enough to harvest. We have one pumpkin and I have yet to see any squash. A few pole beans are struggling to make it as evidenced by some beautiful scarlet blossoms.

We've now harvested far too many zucchini, made a fabulous zucchini coffee cake for friends and accidentally left some loose in the garden last night. I have yet to go and get them but with a half dozen already on the kitchen counter, it's not a high priority!

The eggplants are doing well and we grilled one for dinner last night. The slices were a bit too thin resulting in them being a tad overcooked but I was surprised to find I actually liked it. Of course they soak up olive oil and salt like a sponge and I luuuuuv olive oil and salt...

The bush beans continue to do very well are are reaching their end. The most recent planting though has come up beautifully and are well on their way to a fall harvest.

Which is good since everything else is pretty much pooched.

Even my beets. Not a peep.

And I can't blame it on the rabbits or groundhog as this time I fenced them in!

Having learned many lessons this year (don't plant the onions and potatoes quite so early no matter how warm it is, pull that unknown plant before becomes a triffid and don't bother trying shallots every again) I've already put hubby on alert that he'll be tilling more ground in September and helping me shovel trailer loads of manure from our local red angus farm. (Gold-bar. mmmmm red angus...)

So as much as I hate wishing time away, I'm already looking to next year and hoping to do better by our garden.

30 Month Assessment

Tuesday we had our 30 month follow up with Lauren's development team - OT, PT and Infant Development.

Everyone was thrilled with Lauren's progress. She took a little while to warm up to everyone but in no time, she was finishing puzzles, jumping, answering questions in her sing song voice...

Everything is on track. For both OT and PT, Lauren meets and in some cases beats expectations for the average 2 1/2 year old. Woo Hoo! Where she falls behind, she's always fallen behind - things like climbing the stairs unaided and alternating feet with each step. She can hardly get up the steps with help let alone do it "by welf" as Lauren would say.

For OT things, Paula was thrilled. It was the little things like stringing beads. A 2 1/2 year old is expected to string x number of beads before losing interest or getting frustrated. Lauren just kept going and would've added more if there'd been any more. She can also imitate what people draw and holds her markers just right. Always has.

I took the opportunity to pick all their minds about how to avoid some of the issues other parents have talked about with respect to Noonan Syndrome. Things like their teenagers being too tired during physical activities or getting tired doing school work etc.

I want to do whatever we can to work beyond it rather than accepting fatigue as a limiting fact of her life. If people can train to run races or play team sports without fatigue, what can't we?

Our PT confirmed that what we can work on is Lauren's endurance. To do so means repetitive actions with suitable rests. For example, if the kids are playing tag, play until she tires then let her rest. As soon as she's recovered, let/have her play again for as long as she can. Rest again and repeat, repeat, repeat. Over time, the length of her play will increase and the length of her rest periods will shorten.

The key is the repeat. If we stop after the first set of activity, let her rest and end it there, she'll always have to end there. When she gets old enough, organized sports will help as there'll be more incentive to continue.

Bike riding is another great area for strength building. It's fun, kids get addicted to it and it's perfect for building strength and balance. I asked whether we should be starting with a balance bike then learning to peddle as some have said it's a faster process. Our PT's preference is to master peddling then worry about balance. It's the peddling and repetitive action thereof that builds strength and endurance. So in this, we'll stick with it. Lauren has a tiny Radio Flyer tricycle that's the smallest we could find and just right for her to get on and off herself. We're to help her learn the pushing motion by pushing her feet or knees to move the peddles instead of always pushing her from behind. Peddling is a 3 year old skill though regardless so we're not to expect too much too quickly.

One of my other areas of concern for Lauren is her ability to hang from a bar, swing, etc. One problem here is the size of Lauren's hands - she can barely get her fingers around the bars at The Little Gym, let alone support her own weight but it turns out there is also a very significant and justifiable reason she has trouble.

Hyper-extensible joints.

Her fingers and thumb are so flexible at the joints, there's no rigidity to provide strength. With opposable thumbs, 50 percent of the grabbing strength is in the thumb and the joint where the thumb connects with the hand. With Lauren's thumb joint flexing so much in all directions, the full 50 percent of her strength is unavailable for gripping. There's no way to fix this but we can help her learn to compensate and build up the strength in her wrists instead.

The extra flexible joints in her fingers will also cause us problems in the long run. As there's no way to strengthen them specifically, when it comes time for a lot of writing during school, her hands are going to get tired. All three of our practitioners lit right up when they said, "so a computer is in her future!".

Hmm. Don't think I'm nearly as excited about this as they are. Yes. My daughter will be able to manage with a computer. And yes, she'll be frightfully computer literate (she already is but more on that another day), but do we really need ANOTHER thing to make her stand out from the rest of the class?

Maybe by the time it's relevant, it won't be relevant. Maybe everyone will have computers by then or maybe she'll be old enough and confident enough in herself that what other people say or think really won't matter.

Regardless, for right now, she's ahead of the game so we celebrate our success.

Off my game

I'm not sure why this happens but it does. Expectations for an appointment change and my plans for the day get tossed.

This morning we had an 8:45 appointment with the ENT. It was originally scheduled as a follow up from our March appointment. After our last visit to the audiologist, it became a necessity to clear out the wax build up.

Even Denny couldn't clear everything out - "It's too deep" he says.

So now, at bath time each night, we're to drip mineral oil in both ears and flush with warm water. This will certainly add to her current bath time enjoyment don't you think? I see a calendar and sticker rewards in our future.

Needless to say, we've postponed tomorrow's audiologist appointment. No point driving across town to try and test Lauren's hearing when we know without question that it is physically impaired.

We've scheduled to see Denny in September after a month of drops and flushing followed by the audiologist a day or two later.

But all this somehow threw me off track for the day. Our plan had been to go to the doctor's, go to the bank, get groceries and take the kids out for lunch and time in the play zone. But somehow NOT getting results this morning tossed it out the window. We came straight home instead. I guess I needed time to regroup and reorganize my expectations for the week.

I've also gotten to the point where I hate putting more appointments in the calendar. I'm so ready to be done with all that and here I've had to add two in. Not going tomorrow is nice but it doesn't move the other appointment I have for tomorrow with Lauren's development team. The week is still packed only now we're two sets of results behind where we were supposed to be.

You must be this tall ---- to ride

I've always known we would be faced with height restrictions for Lauren. We envisioned it being a factor as she hits her early teens and it's time for a trip to Canada's Wonderland, or even Disney. She's a dare devil so a desire to ride roller-coasters is likely in our future. We expect we'll have to deal with anguish and disappointment as she falls time and time again below the required height - you know, that little character holding his hand out that if you can walk under it you're too short?

I never envisioned it would be an issue to a preschooler.

Last week we had the opportunity to visit a local attraction. We checked the online amenities list for activities suitable for our two plus a couple companions. Low and behold, there are two play areas and a splash zone. It's to be a stinky hot day so spash zone is a great idea.

The problem? You have to be 40" tall to use the splash zone. In the play zones, one is for 5 years of age and younger, the other, you have to be 36" tall. At 31", Lauren is all set for the toddler area as admittance is age dependent but one of the companions is too old. Regardless of which zone we pick, one of the friends is going to be excluded.

This is a fact of life. Everyone has at least one encounter where height is a limitation. Admittedly, my immediate family has never encountered the "too short" problem, generally, the opposite. Of course, being too tall for a ride or activity generally means you're too old anyways so no loss there.

This situation brought home the harsh reality that Lauren, growing only an inch or two in the past 6 months, is destined to be too old for the play and splash zones before she's ever tall enough to get in.

At what point do we fight with attraction management to work out special allowances? Let's be realistic here. There are going to be 3 year olds tall enough to play in the splash zone while my eventual 6 year old can not. How can height truly be the deciding factor when some participants lack age acquired judgment and abilities? Surely a smart 6 year old would be safer than an inexperienced 3 year old regardless of stature.

Now what about other kids who are just short because their family is short and not because of a syndrome like Noonan's? Perhaps they reach a suitable height more quickly? They may not be in the zone at 3 but probably before 5. Regardless, my argument still holds:

How can a big 3 year old be safer than a smart 5 or 6 year old?

Happy Peppers

It's fajita day in our house. Fresh tomatoes, jalapenos, red onion and cilantro for salsa. Fresh green peppers and red onions to go with the most incredible Gold-Bar Red Angus beef from just up the road... mm mm mm mm mmmmm...

Even the peppers were happy - right down to their core - about the company they'd be keeping:

Mmmm Garlic!

Everything green flourished while we were camping.

Especially the weeds.

Roman, Lauren and I tackled the herb garden and I rediscovered the garlic planted last fall. It was literally moment of surprise. After I snipped the scapes in June, the other plants surrounded the garlic stalks and out of sight truly is out of mind.

Today, while Roman was at summer camp, Lauren and I pulled the garlic least it start to rot. Last thing I need this year is to loose my hard earned garlic crop. The past two years I've sacrificed ALL the bulbs to planting and not consumed a single one. The originals came from our last season with the local CSA and were glorious. Organic, flavourful and large!

Of the twelve cloves planted we had 9 or so survive. Pretty good I think given they get no care whatsoever.

I did, however, miss two of them when trimming the scapes. "They" always say to trim them or the plants will put energy into the seed heads and not the bulbs. It's not that I didn't believe "them" but here's the photographic evidence:



Bulb on left- not trimmed and, while not shown here, has a very long stalk and a tiny seed head on top. Not much to show for all its effort.
Bulb on the right - glorious heavy beautiful culinary bounty. Mm mm Mm Mm mm. Of course this one I'll probably save. Again. For planting.

I wonder how many plants will be enough or how many years I'll have to live on substandard cloves until our own crop is sufficient... Perhaps this is when Roman's favourite number comes into play...

"We need one HUNNNNDRED!" he'd say. But perhaps 25 or 30 would suffice?

On an unrelated note, my FineCooking e-news came today with a link to this amazing blog: Food In Jars. It's well written and definitely worth a perusal if you're a home canner of any sort. She's inspired me to get more jars and more produce. Maybe we'll even try some pickles this year.