The Tuesday Ten & I Am Loved.

The Tuesday Ten… Not happening. Sorry. Can’t do it. Is anyone surprised? Ok good. Perhaps I’ll post random facts or some sort of meme-ish shenanigans on Thursday… Thirty Thursday sounds like a stretch if Tuesday Ten is this daunting. Hmmm. I do have plenty to share. We’ll see….

Alex came home with this neat little “about me” packet he filled out when he started at his new school.

I asked him if I could share it on my blog and he said, “Oh Mama. Of course you can. You can put it all over your blog if you want to.”

I think this even tops the one from two mother’s days ago when he said I was pretty as a cupcake.

Such love in that kid. I make sure to tell him, especially when things are extra challenging, that I’m the luckiest lady in the world because I get to be his Mama. It’s important, to me, to make sure that he doesn’t go through life feeling like an imposition, or a 2nd class citizen, or as though my life is challenging because he has Autism. No kid should have to feel that way. It’s so damaging and endless. So I remind him all of the time how proud I am of him, and that I love him stinky feet and all. He says the same stuff back to me, which is unnecessary, but to me it shows that he’s getting some of this reciprocation thing. It’s also incredibly healing for me, as he is the first person in my world, in my immediate circle, to love me as me and not as a chunk of clay to be molded into something more desirable. So much of my life, starting at a very young age, felt like I was some piece of something getting thrown out and everyone around me tried to upcycle me into something useful for their needs, rather than helping me navigate the way to being the authentic, strong, unique me. So my kid’s admiration and love for me is a pretty gigantic thing considering how long I went without that trust, acceptance, and unconditional love. I don’t lean on him like a crutch, but he can’t help but inspire me to work harder and to be myself. After all, what would I be teaching him if I wore a mask all of the time?

xo

B

Pigs, butts, photographs…

Alex wanted me to take a picture of the pig’s butt (everything is butts and gas lately.. Oh and Captain Underpants, of course…). So I told him I would, but only if he got in the picture too. Here you go…

For me?

School’s out FOREVER. It’s true. Kiddo’s school closed for good- no camp this year, no brand new school year in August. The economy and the resulting drops in enrollment have left us scrambling for options for his second grade year, and without an appropriate summer program. Eeeeek! Trying to figure it all out, trying to heal and get strong (I now have Enbrel on board), trying to get our shidoobie together as it feels like we’ve been in survival mode for far too long and that stress has taken quite a toll on all three of us.

I’m sad about the school closing, but also aware that this is an opportunity to change things up and maybe put a more holistic program into place for kiddo and for me.

Necessity is the mother of invention and the mountains that appear unconquerable at first, in time become the source of great opportunity and unparalleled learning.

Puttin’ mah boots on and waiting on a new pair of wellies for kiddo. We’ll climb the mountain, and stomp in a few puddles before this summer cools off.

xo
Bek

Say Cheesssssssssssssse.

Behold, the Cheesssssssy Bread that I conjured up for Alex’s Halloween luncheon at school…

I was thrilled that I was up for making something from scratch for the festivities, and also grateful that the Vermont Cheese Bread recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day had proven itself to be an easy beast to get just right, and also one that I could tweak a little bit without *poof* complete kitchen disaster.

In this case, I stretched the dough into a large rectangle.  I then sprinkled even more cheese over the surface (the recipe says to use good cheddar, but I made this with the part skim kraft shreddy stuff the first time around and the taste was pretty nice- tasted, with the slight sourness of the dough, more like the asiago bagel of my ABP frequenting days in New England)… Then I rolled, stretching the dough even more (in all directions) until I was left with a long, fairly thin log.  After resting for an hour, the log was big and puffy, so I gently pulled on it some more and realized that ovens should really come in letterbox.  So I bent it into a squiggle, said “Eureka!” aloud, and then I went off-recipe again and brushed the top with an egg-water wash to give it that slight hint of change of color that snakes have between their topsides and undersides… I was thinking of putting almonds in for eyes (and then I thought of making scales with sliced almonds) but decided against it because the whole point of this project was to make a food for the luncheon that Alex likes and could enjoy with his classmates, as he has been a trooper but still seems to feel a little isolation at school as far as his dietary needs go (due to G6PD Deficiency).  I also thought of burning a screen with the gocco to egg wash on a scale pattern.  Then I realized (and this is a major development in the world of my head and creating) that I was heading down my usually disastrous path of gilding the lily.  So I….

Stopped.

I did.

Really.

Did you see the picture above?  That was the first try. Even after my fantasies of silk screening my meandering length of cheesy dough.

I really did.  See what I mean?  I think that turning 35 next week has me suddenly having great moments of clarity and I’m really embracing all of my quirks these days, instead of putting on “the normal”…  Now I feel like I can use my quirky powers for good, and not derail myself completely.  I have to work smart, conserve what little energy and strength I have, and not go full on sparkle, glitter, laser show, sequins, fog machine, showgirls, hydraulic lift apeshit on everything.   But sometimes I will, because I’m a behind the scenes- make stuff happen- challenge myself (seriously. You know Barney in How I Met Your Mother and how he is always saying “challenge accepted” but nobody actually challenged him… Yeah. I do that. Or I used to. I guess only time will tell.) kind of creature.  And you can take the craft supplies away from this chickadee, but face it glitter freaking sticks to and gets in everything, so really, you can’t totally take away the craft supplies.  That and inspiration is everywhere.  Ooooh. Mah pain meds seem to be kicking in.  Mama is getting more verbose than usual.  Please tell me that you could tell and not that this seems like regular, ol’ me?  Please?!?!?  Pretty please with some demerara sugar and some edible glitter on top?

Where was I?

Oh… So when kiddo came home from his festivities at school, it was reported that 1. the kids and adults loved the bread and it was devoured fast as a wink and 2. the teachers told Baldguy that he should let me know that I am welcome to make this bread and bring it in any time I have the urge to do so.   I knew it was good, but Yippee! Other people actually like it and think it is *that* grand.  Kiddo reported that he was so proud of the reptile themed bread because it was tasty and all of the kids thought it was the coolest food ever. Woohoo!  And then he said that he is proud of what a good bread baker I am (he has plans for us making bread for the whole world!  I’m barely managing a loaf a day for us!)

Oh and the cookies we spent forever decorating? Nobody ate them! They were all stuffed with cheessssssssssy bread!

Remember, sometimes what looks like a trick is actually a treat… and vice versa.
Happy Haunting!

xo

Bek

Red Blood Cell vs The Bad Guys

Yee-haw.

Ok, not really exciting. Or at least not exciting to most of you… I was trying to explain to Alex what happens between exposure to a trigger substance and the hemolytic anemia part of G6PD Deficiency.

So I told him that the bad stuff makes them explode.

That got his attention.

Eventually, he’ll know the scientific terms for the process, but the idea of cells exploding and making him feel sick is enough to keep him hyper-vigilant over what is safe to eat.   Of course, being my sweet little hyper-focused Aspie with a splash of OCD in there, he triple checks everything that I (a hyper-focused Aspie with obsessive attention to detail) have already quadruple checked.  I told him that I would not put anything in his lunch box that is on the “bad stuff list” and he came home twice that week with some lunch items uneaten because he had questions about the ingredients.  I reaffirmed that I am staying on top of it, but at the same time I am enormously proud that he is this committed to protecting his own health.

Anyway, above is  a picture he drew in his school journal this week, and here is the text that accompanied it…

More on our adventures with G6PD Deficiency coming soon…. The best page I have found, so far, as G6PDDeficiency.org.  There are plenty of general info pages, and a couple of information sites, but I find G6PDDeficiency.org to have the most real life information that doesn’t rely on the stereotypes promoted by early research (important research, but one that prevents diagnosis, in my opinion, when it is the only very incomplete version being passed around to this day).

xo

Bek