On the same day we built our own luge, we also enjoyed another favorite childhood past time: Snow Cream!
H had never heard of snow ice cream and thought it was something I made up. I found both of these facts concerning. Who hasn’t heard of snow cream? I thought it was a fundamental part of childhood! I mean we used to save up snow in the freezer just so we could make it during the summer. Didn’t everyone?
Anyway, we carefully scooped fresh snow into a bowl, added milk, sugar and a touch of vanilla and voi la!
Sue absolutely loved the stuff!
Obviously Edward cannot have real milk or cream so I decided to make his with this relatively new product from the So Delicious people. I had high hopes for this milk substitute because he has enjoyed their ice cream and yogurt for quite a while now.
For gluten and casein-free snow cream you simply add sugar, gluten-free vanilla and the So Delicious coconut milk.
He found it lackluster and bland.
On a more positive note, however, H used the milk to make pancakes yesterday and Edward declared them the best pancakes ever! He even substituted xylitol for the sugar.
So now at any hint of flurry, Sue runs outside with a bowl to catch the “clean” flakes before our puppy has a chance to touch them!
You can be thinking of me today while I help my fourth grader write a report on the Continental Army. He only cares about the weapons.
Below is the trash can of the ten-year-old who only cares about the weapons:
And here is the sink area of the ten-year-old who only cares about the weapons:
It seems that when you turn ten, your need for mouthwash, deodorant and shaving cream arises.
OK, I’m all over the place with this post. Maybe it’s the cold medicine, or the Continental Army report procrastination, or the fact that Sue is supposed to make a mouse out of a potato for her school?
If you are new to this blog, or if you are confused because I have never spelled this out in black and white, my son, Edward, who is eight, does fall on the autism spectrum, specifically with a diagnosis of Asperger’s.
(Like many of you dealing with a new diagnosis, I write this with mixed feelings of both relief and trepidation. This is a label that I am just now beginning to absorb. After so many “possibles” and “closely resembles” from a host of doctors, the need for services at his new school necessitated this label, and I am OK with that.)
<<Breath>>
As with any child, Edward’s behavior vacillates wildly, so there are situations where he is completely like his peers and there are other situations where his differences stand out more. Soccer is an area where he gels fairly well, so I struggled with telling his coaches about his diagnosis.
I am new to this town and I don’t know what to expect. Will they still let him play on a “typical” team? Would they treat him differently? Do I want him to be treated differently because he has made it perfectly clear that he does not want to be treated differently.
After much agonizing and reading various professional and parental opinions about how to handle just this type of situation, I decided to simply share that he has issues with focus, attention and self control, and might need more patience than some of the other players.
So I’m standing there yesterday at the first practice, my heart sort of racing, waiting to see how he will or will not fit in with this new group, and I see a mother rush over to her sobbing player. Initially, I think nothing of it–they are seven and eight-year-olds–they still sob from time to time, neurotypical or not.
(Deep inside, I am somewhat glad another child is getting upset because that will make it less of a spectacle if Edward gets upset. I know that might be a strange way to think, but I’m just being honest.)
The little boy keeps crying, although it’s clear that he’s not hurt, and some of the other mothers (whom I have just met) begin to murmur among themselves about the reasons he might be so distressed. Then the coach’s wife steps forward and gently explains that this little boy is autistic. He is actually a twin, and his brother is on the team, but is not autistic. Everyone nods in understanding and returns to their conversations about crock pot recipes.
My initial feeling is one of odd relief, and I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving. God knew what he was doing putting my child on this particular team.
This was a hard post to write in many ways, but as I sit here at 3 am, I am slowly, but surely, beginning to feel a bit more free.
I am tired of skirting the issue like it is something to be feared or ignored or talked around.
So many of you have given me the courage to press on with this by writing about your own children.
Thank you.
I am ready to talk.
“Owwwww my thung! My thung! It huuuuts!”
I am awakened from a dead sleep to a tiny girl clad in polar bear fleece pajamas, her tongue thrust forward to show me what can only be the beginnings of the thrilling “Hand-Foot-Mouth” disease. (A personal favorite!)
So I finally get her to agree to wipe her encrusted face with a warm washcloth. I smooth back her hair, examine the spots around her mouth, and ask her to show me the carbuncular tongue.
This is when I gasp and recoil because the tongue has a thick greenish oooze covering it.
I reel–my mind races–surely this is some horrific infection–possibly the beginnings of gangrene.
“Does it hurt?” I wail, surmising that if there is pain, nerve endings are still alive.
“Oh Mama, that is just some of that green St. Patrick’s day flower cookie stuck on my tongue,” she smiles.
Certainly!
And I see you helped yourself to this before awakening me. Is it possible that the green coloring and sugar are contributing to the pain of the sores?
It’s a good way to start a day.
__________________________
Next the obligatory puppy-destroy.
It was a red, Nerf football.
Wait…this dog is like 18 months old…does she still qualify as a puppy?
_______________________________________
Yet the joy, joy of my day was picking up Edward and seeing a telltale green scrap clutched in his muddy hand. Yes, finally he is the recipient of a “Got Cha!” It’s a school award lauding a child for some great deed.
“Well, it says the award is for ‘Citizenship,’ and I’m not sure what that actually is, but I got it at lunch and I did stay in my seat the whole time and didn’t spill my pears so I figure I’m doing pretty good.”
Yes, it sounds like you are!
(This whole idea belongs to the Un Mom, so go visit her blog and learn more about Random Tuesday Thoughts!)
“See, we got all the ice out of the sandbox and we’re buildin’ our own Luge! Just like the Lympics! Sorta like a puzzle! It’s gonna go so faaaast! Just watch and see!”
“Da, deh, deh da da da da da…you know the Lympics song?”
“It’s gonna be so speedy, we’re gonna need some special glasses to protect our eyes!”
“This is what you look like, Mommy,” Sue asserted, handing me the portrait. And I have to admit I look happy but certifiable.
Something about the eyes is just not right, and in that vein, I have decided to spend some quality time photographing the myriad of light switch plates throughout my new house because I think they are overwhelming and affecting me in some deep existential way.
(In my old house I switched out all almond switch plates to a clean white…it helped me psychologically in such a great way…)
I’ll start with this one because it has a certain design flair.
Please note that the brownish gunk on the “knob” part is not smeared maple syrup but was present when we bought the house and appears to be some sort of tan nail polish or glue.
(Maybe it is varnish?)
This next one has baffled us to no end, but I must say is lovely with the wallpaper sheathing.
Note the care taken to swath the plate in the hot colors for 1992. According to the previous owner, this is some light-sensor time switch that cuts the outside lights on and off at appropriate times. Since we have moved in, however, the lights have remained on 24 hours per day.
Nothing will turn them off. We even took the batteries out of that white apparatus.
Creeeeepy…
Now for this next one, you might wonder why I would include it. I mean, everyone has switches like this in their home, right?
Let me first assert that the mathematical possibilities for the various lights and ceiling fans linked to this device appear to be endless. Turn one switch one way and one section of a ceiling fan turns on with no lights; turn the switch the other way, and some florescent lights begin to shudder in a troubling manner but the fan goes off. I have personally spent hours trying to understand the complexities of this switch to no avail.
Still, for design and aesthetics, the juxtaposition of the textured plastics and forthright colors makes a certain statement.
Ok, these next two need no commentary:
“Brass is back, baby!”
I have titled this one: “Self Portrait in a Brass Switchplate.”
Nothing trumps the simple beauty of wood:
Gracing Sue’s bathroom, we find this trifecta:
One controls a heat lamp, one a fan, and one a light that can be found, fascinatingly enough, INSIDE the shower. (It has a plastic cover.) You can imagine the types of things that happen when all three of these are left on…
My final offering can be found in the master bathroom:
It appears to control some sort of bathroom heat lamp on a timer. Yet there is no heat lamp to be found in the master bath. Perhaps it dually controls the heat lamp in Sue’s bathroom?
Do you have any ideas?
On a bigger note, what should I do?
After a host of trying decisions involving homeschooling/public school, old house/new house, to pen a diagnosis on a child/to leave things vague, to try medication/to stick with homeopathy, one decision we had to make lately has been delightfully easy!
This is Sue.
She is four.
She goes to preschool now two days a week and loves it.
She colors inside the lines, writes her name neatly and packs her own backpack.
Every day as I greet her teacher, I hear the same words: “Great day! Perfect behavior as always.” And I smile to myself every day and say a prayer of thanksgiving because I know what it feels like to be the mother who is motioned to the side almost every day for a one-on-one conference about the days’ infractions and trials.
Sue is a “young four” which means she would be one of the youngest in her class if she attended kindergarten next year.
As I said, it was an easy decision. She’ll go to Pre-K again next year. That give me one more year of jammie days, Barbie jamborees, teddy bear tea parties and playdates.
An easy decision…
Since I enrolled Edward in social skills immersion public school during October, I have become accustomed to emails from his teachers which usually have subject lines like “A Situation Today,” or “Not sure how to handle this one please help,” or sometimes simply “Edward!”
(Eureka! You see now why I haven’t blogged lately. Not that I don’t have any content, per se, but that I haven’t yet built up the emotional stamina required to withstand all this teacher input!)
The latest one involves an award-winning titanium pencil sharpener, a pencil eraser and my second grader.
Apparently Edward approached his teacher with a concern that the pencil sharpener was “broken,” only to be corrected by a well-meaning (and honest) classmate who offered details regarding Edward’s attempts to sharpen the eraser end of the pencil to which Edward retorted something to the effect of “Silence! Don’t speak about it!” obviously trying to hide the fact that he had indeed shoved the a$$ end of a Ticonderoga into a rather expensive sharpener that was naturally a gift from a classmate’s attorney-father.
Naturally.
His explanation? “I thought it would be interesting and entertaining.”
Sound familiar?
So cut to the Office Depot where we are purchasing a new titanium pencil sharpener for the class. Edward locates the sharpener and approaches the counter where he carefully studies the box while waiting for other patrons to complete their purchases.
“Look–it says this sharpener is three times stronger than steel!” he muses, garnering the attention of the waiting patrons.
“Is that your personal experience with the sharpener?” I ask coyly.
“Uh, no……….ma’am,” he says looking up at me sheepishly.
And then he’s on. People are looking, he’s got an audience and he is ready!
“This sharpener broke at my school so now I’m sellin’ my brand new Star Wars Lego Separatist Shuttle complete with Nute Gunray, Onaconda Farr and three Droids. Sellin’ it to pay for the broken titanium sharpener,” he announces, a little too proudly, to the “audience.”
Yes you are, baby.
Yes you are.
H’s great-grandmother was a baker of divine cakes–some homemade–but most, I am told, inspired by Betty Crocker. She was known to taste a bite of someone else’s cake at a covered dish event and murmur under her breath, “Well, you can tell it’s not Betty!”
My own attempts at gluten-free cakes and cupcakes have been met with comments like “Sort of like quinine,” or “My…hmmm…can I get a glass of water?” or “It reminds me of unflavored corn pone.” Usually Edward just licks off the frosting and leaves the cake for squirrels, much like this.
That’s why I got so excited a few weeks ago when the Betty Crocker Gluten-Free products showed up at my local grocery. I made the cupcakes to prepare for Edward’s school Valentine’s party, and paired with some Whole Foods dye-free sugar sprinkles, they were decent.
As Edward explained, “The icing was great, the sprinkles pretty good and the cake is not that bad.”
While these cupcakes looked exactly like their gluten-infused counterparts, they were still dry and crumbly. Betty’s fine, but we’ll keep looking for the PERFECT gluten-free cupcake!
Last night as we left OT, Edward’s eyes lit up as the snowflakes fell, ponderous and thick, drifting on the van and rendering it somewhat civilized. By the time we got home, our deck and yard were covered in an inch, and by bedtime, three glorious inches transformed our yard into a veritable wonderland.
We even made a small snowman (complete with chocolate goldfish eyes and an organic carrot nose) in anticipation of the morning to come.
I was awakened this morning, however, by a blood-curdling scream.
“NOOOOOOOO! Where is the SNOW???? Agghhhh! I cannot take it people!”
In the cruelest weather trick, a cold rain reduced this glorious bounty to an alluvial slush-fan.
“We can’t even make Gatorade ‘icees’ out of it!”
(Or even hope to sled.)
(That sled cost me $20.00, I kid you not! Snow-hope price gouging at its best! Trouble is, I bought three of them!)
So now I am sitting here just listening to my three and their eight-year-old cousin…listening and typing verbatim:
“Edward, your head is BLOCKING!”
“I am the king and you two are my henchmen!”
“Stop it! You’re being a Jack-Math!” (Do you get this? Is it a way to avoid saying Jack-A$$? Should I be worried?)
“What??? That is so cheap!”
“You know Mario and Luigi are brothers.”
“I don’t care if they are Siamese Twins. I don’t care if they are Japanese Warriors.”
“No human shields, OK? No human shields allowed!”
“Edward, I mean seriously man….you ran ahead!”
“We’re in this together–we’re tryin’ to WIN!”
Always about the winning, isn’t it?
