May 30, 2009 @ 09:23

I love marshmallow anything.  It’s hereditary.  My mother swears that Fluff is the cause of her being diabetic today.  We all have our weaknesses, right?  So S’mores are just one of the world’s best things ever.  Like right up there with panties that don’t ride up or unicorns, except better because s’mores are real.  Not like panties that don’t ride up. 

I’ve tried making s’mores versions of probably everything, but marshmallow doesn’t like to be cooked really.  It disappears completely in brownie batter.  It gets gummy in bad ways in cookies, and not consistently . . .  so it’s very hard to count on.  But!  I think we got a winner this time.  I decided to try using the quirkiness of how marshmallows swell up and then collapse and holy crapoli it worked. 

First I filled my cupcakes cups about 1/4 full with chocolate cake batter, then I sat a large marshmallow on top of the batter.  Then I covered the marshmallow with more cake batter until it was completely covered, but wasn’t more than about 2/3 of the paper cup full.  The marshmallow was still very visible popping up in the batter.  Then I baked them.  Now they did exactly what I expected, which was the marshmallow swelled in the heat and created this crater in the center of each cupcake.  I then filled that crater loosely with graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar, exactly like you would mix up to make a graham cracker crust.  I then topped than with five or six mini marshmallows and put them in the broiler for just a few seconds to toast the marshmallows.  You can’t walk away from this.  I really mean a few seconds . . .  They looked like this. 

And honestly, I really could have been done right there.  The boys didn’t believe me at first when I said they weren’t done.  But I topped them with chocolate buttercream, a drizzle of chocolate ganache, and a sprinkle of more of the graham cracker crumbies.  Teeth achinly good. 

May 22, 2009 @ 16:02

 . . . that it was a miracle I lived past the tween years.  Did you think I was gonna say “there’d be days like these”?  The medication problem with Puppy has had to be pushed back.  I took him to school on Wednesday morning, un-medicated, and dropped him off.  As I walked away, he was perched in his little chair like a bird, hovering over his little feet, ready to fly.  By eleven that morning the teacher had exhausted all efforts.  He was spinning out of control.  I went home and picked up his medicine and went to school.  When I got there he was sitting at a table by himself in the cafeteria, away from his class, eating his lunch alone.  He was rocking from side to side and eating nothing but his popsicle.  I sat with him and made him eat his string cheese and the entire container of yogurt I had brought for the medicine.  Then walked him back to class a few minutes behind the rest of his classmates.  We are now going to wait until school lets out for the summer before taking him completely off and getting him back to baseline.  I don’t have enough vacation time for a mid-day pick up for the rest of the school year. 

Also, today, Bear got in major trouble at school.  He ratted on some girls who were smoking in the bathroom on a fieldtrip.  Those girls in turn riled up their friends until it degenerated into threats, some of ass kickings, some of death.  This is not funny.  This is never funny.  Instead of walking away, Bear mouthed off back at them.  He is now grounded until the end of time. One, because he was way out of line for saying what he said, and two, because you never know when some mouthy kid is actually not just mouthy, but unparented and crazy. 

And, we are not going canoeing for the holiday weekend.  Mother Nature is a hag and has given us a entire week of perfect, blissful, amazing weather, but Friday afternoon arrives and so do the clouds.  The rest of the weekend and all of next week, more thunderstorms.  Seriously?  enough is enough.  And not just for the fun of canoeing.  This weather is crazy.  And a little bit scary. 

And that’s all the whining I’ve got for now.  I have to go give Bear his next punishment chore.  Thinking maybe toothbrush cleaning the showers tile grout . . . 

May 20, 2009 @ 05:40

Well, they did worse than change Puppy’s meds.  They stopped them.  For two weeks to get him back to baseline.  When I left his class this morning he was already perched on his chair like a little bird, eyes darting around the room and ready to fly.  I’m hoping that if the rest of just this week is as dramatic as I suspect it will be, that they’ll go ahead and make a change Friday.  Otherwise  . . .  well, otherwise, I just don’t know . . .  Saints preserve us. 

May 19, 2009 @ 06:11

Okay.  We’re going to the big doctor today and I suspect will be coming home with a new perscription.  He’s been this strange mixture of sweet and wild for the last couple of weeks.  He’s affectionate and engaged.  But it’s only as he’s running past you in a cloud of dust.  He can’t get to sleep at night because he’s bouncing off the walls.  So after talking to my sister about it and comparing notes on how it’s been for my niece, seems like it’s time for a change. 

Wish us luck. 

Maybe we’ll squeeze in a side trip to the zoo while we’re in Little Rock.  : ) 

May 14, 2009 @ 05:51

I’ve picked up Puppy from the principal’s office twice this week.  We’re scheduled for an appointment next week and I suspect that he’ll be looking at a change in his meds.  I yelled at Bear twice this week over dishes and garbage and cried later.  I had blood drawn this morning for tests.  Possibly to determine whether or not there’s a surgery in my future.  Nothing too terrible, but not how I wanted to spend any of my vacation time this summer.  I’m more than a bit worn down around the edges.  But this brilliant woman I know said something about her bees today . . .  and it had a double meaning for me.  About some of her bees that are tougher than the others. 

“You get stung more often, but it’s a small price to pay for girls that have sense enough to attack invaders instead of letting them come in and trash the joint.  “

Tired of fighting.  But what else can you do? 

Three (O’clock) in the Morning
 
At three in the morning I used to be sleeping an untroubled
sleep in my bed.
But lately at three in the morning I’m tossing and turning,
Awakened by hypochondria, and gas, and nameless dread,
Whose name I’ve been learning. (worry)

At three in the morning I brood about what my cholesterol
count might reveal,
And the pains in my chest start progressing from gentle to racking,
While certain intestinal problems make clear that the onions
I ate with my meal
Plan on counter attacking.

At three in the morning I look toward the future with blankets
pulled over my ears,
And all of my basic equipment is distinctly diminished.
My gums are receding, my blood pressure’s high, and I can’t
begin listing my fears
Or I’ll never get finished.
At three in the morning I used to be sleeping but lately I wake
and reflect

That my girlhood has gone and I’ll now have to manage without it.
They tell me that I’m heading into my prime. From the previews
I do not expect
To be crazy about it.

Judith Viorst
 

May 10, 2009 @ 20:30

Miles:  0 (this was not a good week in many ways)

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  2

Pounds lost:  Zero, lord knows it’s a miracle I didn’t gain any . . . 

This is not a complaint.  My mom came for lunch today and then took Bear to see Star Trek.  I stayed home with a very wound up Puppy.  That’s all for now, as I can feel a migraine coming on.  It’s been a long time since I had one of these.  So, I’ll just be quiet now.  Grateful for Mom and not gaining and quiet. 

May 08, 2009 @ 20:37

Puppy had a field trip on Thursday.  You might remember the last field trip experience.  But this time around, he seemed okay.  It was a concert, followed by a picnic.  A very short bus ride, just 1.2 miles.  In fact, the concert was on campus where I work, in the building next door.  Thankfully.  About five minutes into the concert Puppy had had enough.  A theater full of several hundred (I counted at least five different school districts’ busses outside) was more than he could stand.  And when the wild music started he was done.  He had clamped his hands over his ears and begun rocking.  His teacher recognized that he was close to having another panic attack and called me.  I met them outside the theater and took him back to my office until it was over.  He held my hand tightly as we walked up the sidewalk to my building.  He was chanting the phrases he repeats when stressed, his robotic speech, over and over all the way to my office door.  He stacked cups in my doorway for the entire hour he stayed.  By the time it was time to go meet the bus, he was calm again.  He went on to the picnic at the park with the rest of his class without incident.  I’m still not sure if this was a success or not.  If I had not been right next door, what would have happened? 

Today I met with his teacher and his speech therapist to discuss the plan for him next school year.  I make myself focus on the daily successes.  It’s easier that way.  But thinking ahead is harder.  Right now, well, I can manage that.  Each day I handle the plateful of problems that we have to handle.  Wake up, get dressed, choose breakfast, take medicine.  All pretty simple until we break it down.  Waking up is tough when the medicine makes it hard for you to get to sleep until about eleven every night.  Getting dressed is becoming a mine field of textures and buttons that we don’t like and zippers that must be zipped all the way up or all the way down and socks and shoes that must go on in the right order and jackets even if it is 85 degrees.  And getting breakfast in him at all is a problem.  This morning I rubbed my hand across his belly as I woke him up and realized that I could feel each of his tiny ribs distinctly.  He’s razor thin and pale as a ghost.  So unlike the round cheeked boy that Bear was.  Brown as a bean and almost blond by the end of the summers at Puppy’s age.  And taking the medicine is something he doesn’t like.  I pull open the capsules and pour the tiny beads over yogurt and cover them up with more yogurt so that he can gulp them down.  But sometimes they stick in his throat and make him choke.  Sometimes he’s so wiggley that half is spilled on the floor and I could go mad trying to figure out what to do then.  More?  Leave it?  Is it enough, is it too much?  If I thought about a years worth of that I’d probably stop getting out of bed every day.  I’m afraid to think too much about how things will be in five years . . .  ten years . . .  I know it may seem like just average parenting stuff.  But that is just the first hour of our day.  And now it seems like all of our everyday moments are tied to a ritual.  Not all of them sweet childhood rituals, like reading Good Night Moon one thousand times.  The drop off at school each morning has a very regular script.  The pick up each afternoon does, too.  So many of our conversations are now scripted.  And when every one of them, scripted or not, takes place on a pendulum.  Swinging back and forth between the sweet sweet boy that he can be and the rigid little tyrant that so often consumes him . . . 

So I’ve started reading a book by Temple Grandin.  Finally made myself open the cover and dig in.  By page three, I was weeping.  And I mean page three of the introduction.  Because I can already tell it’s going to make me think about five years from now and ten years from now.  And when I’m gone.  Dammit, Janet.  But this is good.  Focusing on the little picture has gotten us through the last two years.  But I agree, I need to look at the big picture again.  And make plans for us.  Strategies.  Even though all I really want to do right now is sit in the doorway and stack cups. 

May 06, 2009 @ 20:43

So our plans for the weekend were to try to get some yard work done if the weather holds out, go visit Grandma for Mother’s Day, get Puppy his first ever haircut in a salon.  Now his Mimi is a stylist, so he’s had real haircuts before, but they live an hour away.  So I figured I really ought to get my self on board with letting a stranger near him with scissors.  I started preparing him for it last week.  Just talking about it casually here and there.  Apparently I did too good a job of it, because he felt so inspired that last night on a routine trip to the potty (I thought), he climbed up on the counter and found a pair of scissors that I keep in a hanging basket in the bathroom and got started on it himself.  Grrr . . .  So his lovely long hair isn’t anymore.  I had to take him for an emergency cut this afternoon.  I had straightened it up as much as I could before school this morning, but he just looked like he ought to be sitting on some rustic porch in overalls and no shoes and no shirt with dirty feet and a dirty face.  I should’ve taken some pics of it to share, but didn’t think of it in time.  I took him out to a quick, walk-ins-welcome place and just got it over with.  He did really well.  Sat somewhat still for it.  Wasn’t too freaked out by the noise.  Although when a nearby stylist broke out the clippers he did get nervous.  But the girl cutting his hair was great and smoothed him right out.  He’s now got a much shorter 70s-ish cut.  Still over his ears, so I’m happy.  I like that long hair.  And I’ve got a new hiding place for the scissors.  I’m just grateful today wasn’t picture day at school and that he didn’t cut more than his hair. 

May 05, 2009 @ 06:21

It is hard when you don’t have what you need to do what you should.  Sometimes it’s patience, sometimes it’s permission, sometimes it’s give-a-damn.  But sometimes the very people who make your head want to come off, give you what you need to keep it squarely on your neck for one more day . . .  or you manage to wrestle it up from the bottom of your barrel with bare white knuckles yourself.  I haven’t whined here in a while.  It’s not because life got perfect, I promise.  We’ve got the IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting at Puppy’s school this week.  And I got the report back from the developmental center big visit last month in the mail a few days ago.  All of the things we cling to, words like mild and high-functioning . . .  Well . . .  this report was specific.  It gave us hard numbers.  On a scale of 1 to 10 kind of numbers.  You know in your head you can think “oh it’s just fine”.  He’ll be one of the lucky ones.  When he’s a grown up, if you didn’t know, you’d never know . . .  but . . . 

Now I don’t know if that’s true at all.  Because all of his numbers are firmly on the scale.  Every one of them.  Exactly in the middle.  Words that you formerly thought of as qualifiers now feel hard and cold.  Like threshold . . .  It only sounds like a tiny first step when you aren’t looking back over your shoulder for it.  Denial is no longer an option.  But I know I already knew.  I knew!  I knew the diagnosis.  I knew it knew it knew it!  I thought I was through grieving it.  But I guess I wasn’t.  And the past couple of weeks have been really tough.  He’s been hard.  The new meds make it harder for him to go to sleep at night.  He’s not down until nearly eleven every night.  I wait until the very last minute to wake him each morning to make sure he gets at least 8 hours in.  But that makes things hard in other ways.  He cannot be rushed.  And it’s not his fault.  And I’m sucking at the whole patience thing lately.  Finding myself clenching my fists at my sides and counting to ten far too often.  Having to walk away because I don’t want to scream at him.  You know I can’t watch Monk anymore.  Because it’s not funny now . . . And I’m.  Angry.  For him.  For me.  For Bear.  Just a couple days ago Bear was talking about something that he wanted to do while he is in college.  And it was pick up Puppy from school every day.  All I can think is wow.  What a kid.  And dammit.  Why should he have to think like a grown up right now.  I don’t even want to do that and I’m the grown up.  I don’t want to think about how this might affect the rest of my life and I don’t want to think that Bear is adjusting his future for it, too.  I want my biggest worry to be thinking about Bear on some far away college campus someday.  Not that he chose a school at home to help take care of us . . . 

I swear, in spite of everything I just said, I’m happier right now than I’ve ever been in my adult life.  I’m in love with my kids, my friends, my house, my job  . . .  Bear is a miracle and makes it all easier.  But I admit it, I just need a break, or maybe just a half of a break . . .  Puppy needs and deserves it.  And I don’t want to sit on my back steps every night after the boys go to bed, staring at the sky and praying for patience.  I’d rather just be staring at the sky.

These are some things that held me together this past month.   

1. Puppy’s observations . . .  driving past a bike trail at a local University, “See that trail, Mommy?  It leads to adventure!”  Or regarding the carton of organic milk with the happy cow picture on it, “Mommy, this is Cow Nog!” 
2. The fact that Puppy has slipped back into calling my Mommy and not just Mom.  I am so grateful. 
3. The ability to mostly keep my mouth shut when I ought to . . .  despite . . . 
4.  . . .  the occasional slip. 
5. Over-sharing with Sharon. 
6. Cooking two giant slabs of salmon and getting it right. 
7. Mint Juleps. 
8. Bear. 
9. Bear. 
10. Even with stinky teenager feet . . .  Bear.