I've Got a Dino for a Pet

This is my daughter's all time favorite book. I only had to read it to her once before she had memorized the whole thing and now she likes to "read" it back to me with perfect inflection in the appropriate places. She's so adorable. We read it for bedtime tonight and took it in turns to read it together. She gave me, and my husband a dino to sleep with tonight and snuggled up to her very own rubbery, squeezable snuggly dino -- 'cos no dino likes to sleep alone.

Knock Knock

I found this great, great super cool company and wanted to share it with others on my blog. KnockKnock.biz is a company that sells fun and modern stationary to help you organize your life and your home. I picked a pad for doing chores around the house but there are a dozen others I would love to have and a dozen more that remind me of other people. Many of their items would make great gifts and stocking fillers. Their website is knockknock.biz.

Hopefully, my purchase will help distribute chores around the house --note the small print at the bottom "to each his/her own responsibilities"

Objectivity is a Virtue

Got a call back from the evaluator today. Emotions are amix. We discussed the possibility of autism. In her observations (without my input) she would borderline him as being at risk. At the end of the conversation I asked her not to currently recommend further evaluations but to reevaluate at twenty-four months -- a standard time when autism is checked for at well baby visits.

I've got the mother load of mothers guilt tonight. Maybe if I paid more attention to him during the day. Maybe if I sat down with him and did puzzles, and drawing. Maybe if I enrolled him in playgroups...

Then again, I say -- this is just who he is. Please don't label him. Put your pens down and just watch him. Talk to him, not at him. Hold him, hug him. Laugh with him, play with him. Wait; watch and listen. Look at him with your eyes, your heart and your soul. Forget the checklist. Toss it to one side and come back at playtime.

Objectivity is truly a virtue when it comes to providing your child with all that he needs and protecting him from the things he does not.

The Evaluation

An update from my post reference Ryan and his speech is that his initial home evaluation indicated he may be eligible to receive services for his speech but scored well in all other areas. This is what I expected to hear. In the meantime I'm waiting for an official report and listening to new sounds Ryan is producing practically everyday now.

I think the comment of the day goes to the physical therapist who was evaluating him when she said, "His cognitive skills are very good -- he 's a smart boy. That's good. Usually when there's a speech delay cognitive skills are behind too. He's showing good imagination too -- he's an independent boy."

Next thing to get checked out will be his hearing to eliminate a hearing loss, which is quite unlikely as his receptive language scored high, and then I'll have to decide if I want to participate in a program we're offered.

I'll post again on this when I have another update. Right now I'm going back to my son, to hold him, hug him and love him some more.

Stuff In My Kitchen and Why I've Blogged About Successful Dinners

When I blog about a "great new recipe" or "great dinner" it is borne out of sheer excitement and gratitude that for one night, I was able to get dinner just right. I've come a long, long way since I was first started cooking for myself let alone my family. There was a time where frozen pizza and supermarket pasta were my signature dishes. Thankfully I've come a long way since then, though I am still known pull out the supermarket pasta or rely on my dialing fingers to order in meals.

Despite my previous entries of meals -- I try, try and try even harder to consistently provide healthy meals for my children but often fail miserable and am so glad my kids happily down their vitamins. Just tonight for example, my children had their cardboard mac and cheese for dinner and I consider it a good week if I only eat or offer my kids fast food for dinner just once. Sometimes, just deciding what to cook completely overwhelms me. Looking at my list of "Stuff in my Kitchen" however, reminds me of how far I've come and makes me feel that perhaps I'm not doing quite so bad afterall. Tomorrow, I'm plannning to cook up some tacos in honor of Cinco De Mayo.

So without further ado; the contents of my cupboards, fridge and freezer....

A List of my must haves in the kitchen -:
Olive Oil
Garlic
Ground Cummin
Granulated Garlic
Dried red pepper & Chili Pepper
Fresh herbs, (I'm growing thyme and oregano)
Kosher rock salt
Ground pepper
Tamari Sauce
Hot Sauce
Malt Vinegar
Whole Grain or nine grain bread
Flax Seed
Potatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Canned black Olives
Parmesan cheese
Rice crackers
Avocado
Artichokes
Fuji apples
Frozen fruit (for fruit smoothies)
Natural yogurt
Maple syrup
Honey
Some type of fish (tilapia, sole, salmon, trout)

(psst..kids eat free at chick-fill-a on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at El Torito)

Asparagus and Sole

Just had to post a quick entry about dinner last night. Asparagus and sole are a definite favorite in this house. On first bite Maggie said, "Mummy the fish came out great tonight". She had more than one serving size of sole and ate her way through fifteen asparagus spears and half their stem. Ryan also enjoy some spear heads and a few bites of fish. The best part, next to seeing my kids eat something that was healthy, was that it took all of fifteen minutes to put together and only created two cooking dishes to clean up afterwards :-) This dinner will become a staple for the week. It has always been a hit with the kids and Eric. The big plus factor with this dinner is that Maggie performs beautifully at the supermarket as she races along the aisle (literally) and says, "Let's get some sole mummy! Oh yummy fish! And asparagus too please!"

Sole -: Lightly cook in pan with olive oil and finish with a sprinkle of black pepper.

Asparagus -: lay on baking sheet, drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle with rock salt; bake @ 400 for 8-10mins depending on thickness of asparagus and your preference for crunchy bite or soft bite (recipe from Dominica Catelli's kitchen)

A Purge and Look Who's (not) Talking

My son, my dear sweet, cherishable son is twenty months old and refusing to utter one coherent syllable. On a recent visit to the doctors office, I raised my concerns regarding his speech or lack there of and to cut the long story short he is being evaluated to see if he's eligible to receive services for an early interventions program. We've already had one home visit to go over paperwork and will be getting a couple more visits to track and assess his development.

It is a road I have been down before with my daughter who was born with a unilateral hearing loss and to be perfectly frank, it is not one I care to go down again. Fortunately, my daughter has adapted well to her hearing loss which has been registered by an audiologist as "mild to profound". To you and me it means she is relying on one ear to hear speech and the noises which occur in her environment. The program my daughter and I were enrolled consisted of regular home visits, paperwork and tedious homework. Personally, I think I was just filling someones quota. Though I think there is a place for early intervention for many families it wasn't right for Maggie and I, and I should have spoken up about it. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Now here I am again, going through the motions with Ryan. As a mother I want to provide my children with the best possible start in life and if that means they need a little extra help then so be it but no parent wants to hear their child is "developmentally delayed". What and whose benchmark do you use to decide if your child is delayed and how do you differentiate between personality and actuality of a so called delay that requires some sort of intervention? And when is it okay to speak out if you want to decline services without it becoming a black mark on your report card? These are the questions which have been rolling around in my head the past few weeks.

Of course, I am asking these question rhetorically, I don't really need an answer. I know the answer. I watch my son, and I love him unconditionally and protect him as I see fit. That is not to say that it is going to be easy to deflect uncensored judgement or criticism no more than it will be easy to accept some truths that may be very difficult to hear; after all nobody said being a parent would be easy. Sometimes it feels like a catch twenty-two.

Since our first home visit my anxieties about my son and his speech has watered down a lot. It seems as if Ryan is extended himself beyond his arms length to prove to me that he is more than capable of reaching milestones. If I could only describe the scene to you as he logically figured out how to get three soccer balls from the back gate back into the blow-up pool by picking each one up at time and then tossing them until they reached the poolside instead of fumbling to pick them all up and carry them to the poolside at the same time. My Ryan may not be talking yet, but his father and I adore him and can see the genius inside milling away.