Month: March 2018

Ida, Always

Last week there was an author visit to #1 Son’s school, so I purchased the two recommended books for her to sign. Sadly, due to the damn inclement weather they didn’t arrive in time. But, he still has them, so at least he is not left out when his classmates read them. He picked the first off his story book shelf tonight:I knew roughly the premise – it’s to help children deal with death. But I should have read it first. Halfway through I was choked up, and by three quarters in I was full on ugly crying. This is a truly apt description. The book is both haunting and heartbreaking and truly beautiful. Both in story and in illustration. What I had prepared for was some questions, but I had honestly hoped that the subtext might fly over his head

Things like this often do

But sadly, no such luck. He asked some very hard questions.

What will happen to me when you and daddy die? You are big and I am small. I will be all alone.

God my heart broke when he asked that. I think I handled it okay. We didn’t gloss over it, nor did we hide the truth. In fact, daddy went into quite a lot of detail about burial and cremation when #1 Son asked what happened to Ida after she died. (There is a reason I get him to help with the bigger questions). But there was a side effect we didn’t expect. A complete outpouring of grief regarding his former school in general, and one friend in particular. Floored me and his dad completely. But he was so distraught we are endeavouring to see if we can put them back in touch with each other if we can. I did also send an email to his class teacher, school counsellor and his own personal therapist outlining the above as well. As we say online: this is well above my pay grade!

Pass the whiskey

No. Really.

It’s 17:30, mom is starting her third beer, I am drinking my first (which is actually yesterday’s first – since my op I haven’t really drunk much in a go).

In the first instance mom kicked me out of the house, gently persuaded me, to take TT to the park.

She refused to wear her snow boots. Or indeed any boots. And there was snow.

Not vast amounts, as it is melting, but it was there. She got wet.

But there were moments of cuteness

She then found (and ignored) a stick

No. There was no stick song.

We stayed out for about 45 minutes, and she had a whale of a time. But she did end up soaking wet due to snow and falling down.

I had to bribe her with candy to get her back in the pram! She totally charmed the man behind the counter in the grocery store though 😂🤣

Then came dinner. Sigh.

Yes, it went about as well as expected.

Take a guess, dear audience as to which bowl on the right hand side belonged to which child….

Go on…

I’ll wait…

She scoffed it. We are having the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Honestly, even though I am tooting my own horn more than a little, it actually tastes really good!!!

#1 Son on the other hand? I basically begged him to eat three mouthfuls. Total bust.

I’ll keep trying…

Domestic Goddessing

No really. I have been.

Stop laughing at the back there!!!!

My wonderful momma is returning to Blighty a week tomorrow (😱😢😰) so I’m having to actually make a concerted effort to pull my finger out and get back to normality.

Right here and now I cannot promise to maintain standards of ironing for anyone beyond #1 Son – he likes “smart” so let’s see how we go.

God help me!!!!

So today, _I_ have thrown together the dinner for the children.

It is a stew of my own invention (and therefore probably lacks seasoning)

Order thrown into pot:
  • Fingerling potatoes – three colours
  • One small turnip
  • One parsnip
  • Three carrots – one orange, one purple, one white
  • One acorn squash
  • One boneless pork chop
  • Three (peeled) apples
  • Remains of a bag of frozen green beans that #1 Son has been refusing to eat
  • A bunch of fresh sage (I have since been informed that I shouldn’t have used that much and only used the leaves – these have since been extracted)
  • A pint of ready made chicken stock (like lamb, pork stock does not apparently exist)
  • Pinch of salt

Chucked it all in the slow cooker on high, been in 2.5 hours at the moment.

I’ll blend it down for their dinner and call it potage. TT will eat it. #1 Son? Almost certainly not.

Sigh.

Readathon Update

#1 Son has completed over 50 minutes of reading.

He has finished The Cat In The Hat, and is currently top in his class for both (recorded) minutes and money raised.

Thank you so much – $110 has been pledged already and we are so grateful.

Since I feel it is my duty to keep plugging away (as it is for the school after all), the sponsorship link is here:

Readathon linky

Food decisions

Since mom has been staying we have been trying to expand the food repertoire of both children. On Monday we made home made pizza.

Yes on these pizzas were:

  • Tomato paste
  • Taco cheese
  • Ham
  • Pepperoni
  • Peas
  • And on TT’s only – mushrooms

He tried everything before putting it on the pizza. Everything got the thumbs up.

Then once cooked? Nope. Nothing. Nada. Outright refusal. We then had to persuade him to eat 3/4 of it based on the fact that he had made it himself.

I’ve reached the end of my tether with #1 Son now. Since before he turned two he’s been beyond ridiculously picky about food. It’s been four years.

His sister (who is two) was, I thought, just as picky. But no. She’s just been copying him. I cannot deal anymore.

So we’ve decided that we cannot simply cater to the lowest common denominator anymore, as she is suffering for it.

I’ve had a rule in place for at least the last year, that if you just try the thing on your plate, and you cannot eat it, I will make toast to replace it BUT YOU HAVE TO TRY.

So last night he went to bed both early AND hungry, because he refused to try potage. It was basically just highly blended down slow cooked beef stew with pasta. We had made it into a sauce dammit.

He just had to TRY IT. And he refused. While his sister wolfed it down. Followed by a dessert of oven baked banana, with a topping of natural yoghurt and a shall amount of melted (Hershey) chocolate. No, he didn’t get any.

I’m at the end of my rope. It’s not purely sensory as he eats things of various consistencies.

I also feel guilt because he’s been recently complaining that meals are “boring” but what am I supposed to do?

This morning we had a breakfast treat of chocolate cherry pie. He REFUSED. Then when finally argued into it claimed it made his tongue “minty”. It wasn’t a sour cherry pie, he’s eaten frosted cherry pop tarts and loved them.

He has particularly been grumping about breakfast being boring. But when I actually try and get him out of his rut? Meltdown.

He did have cereal first, so it’s not like he has gone to school hungry – that would be academic suicide – but lord.

I’m just exhausted from the daily battles. If it’s not food, it’s school, if it’s not school it’s some other perceived unfairness.

Can I have booze yet?

A sponsored Readathon

From today (March 20th) until April 3, #1 Son is undertaking a sponsored Readathon:

https://fund.whooosreading.org/supports/new?source=sm&student_id=80669

Anyone who feels that they can sponsor him – either as a one off, or per minute/hour read (as he is only in Kindergarten!) your donations are gratefully received.

It’s all done and tracked online, and there are lots of prizes, both individually and for the class.

Many thankings 😘

Gastronomy Wrongness (yes, again)

Today we needed to pop to Shaws to pick up some last minute missing items from the normal weekly shop.

Missing because #1 Son had another party yesterday – apparently March is a month of many birthdays in his class, and so the shopping trip needed to be cut short.

So away we went.

And our first stop was hummus.

What could possibly be done to make hummus wrong I hear you ask.

Well dear audience may I present:

Yes. Yes it is. Chocolate. Hummus.

🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

Can I also point out the spelling as well?!?!?

Argh.

So I picked out some regular hummus, and some nice cheese, and we then headed over to the Easter end cap where I could, I hoped, get some more Peeps.

I love Peeps

Well, guess what I found instead:

What. The. Fuck. Is. This. Abomination?!?!!?

Leave it alone America. Leave it alone.

I was most grumpy about this.

Then tonight I ventured over to the dark side as part of our dinner and I cooked grits.

Appetising

Actually, to give them their dues, paired with the Salsa Verde pork that was our dinner, they were remarkably edible.

(I still felt like I was eating porridge with my pork though 😂🤣)

Experiments in Snow Dyeing – Parts 1 et al

As we are currently experiencing a second white out, I am planning my second set of snow dyes. Which reminded me that I had not finished this previous drafted post.

Cue the wibbly screen and spooky music as we go back in time

Overnight on Wednesday last week there was a massive snowstorm. It took its time though. Mom spent most of Wednesday complaining that she had been promised “big” snow

And she hasn’t had any dammit

I had also decided that I wanted to try snow dyeing yarn. A technique that produces truly one-of-a-kind skeins and is extremely time consuming but oh so fun.

As a result, I fully expected no more snow until next winter 😂🤣

But the heavens obliged and we received a few inches of snow.

So I obtained a bucket of snow (with thanks to the hus-creature and my Mothership) and set myself up to produce my first ever snow dyed skein.

It looked amazing. I was so happy. Then, when I tried to wrap it in cling film to steam it? The bloody thing fell into the dye runoff!!!

😰😰😰😰

I was just so angry with myself. But, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and with encouragement from the Mothership (who went to get me another bucket of snow) I started another one off:

So, they weren’t going to be ready to prep til the next day.

Due to the washing and rinsing, the skeins were very tangled so needed to be balled and re-skeined.

The Dye-saster Yarn:

And re-skeined up:

The colours though:

The redye:

Much darker in shade than I expected.

The two siblings together:

I felt much better after this and decided to carry on.

The last few days have seen me work on these:

These have yet to be fully re-skeined so there will be a further post.

Yes I’ve done a lot, some of those batches contain multiple skeins, but this process is very much weather dependent.

I am having so much fun.

I think the neighbours may truly think I’m crazy now 😂🤣

I need a shop name now….

Snow Days

So, we have had (another) blizzard. Which has included more school closures.

Which normally means that the children have to make up all the relevant days at the end of the school year (the week is already built into the calendar).

However this year the Melrose school district has decided to pilot a School Cancellation Project system to limit the number of additional days required. Which I personally think is great, as teachers need their summer vacation as well as the kids.

So the idea is that per snow day the children pick from a list of published and publicised activities to do an hour’s worth of work. This is both worksheet based and is recorded and signed off by an adult in charge.

Sadly under the current “rules” (as it is a pilot system) if there are two consecutive snow days, the second must be made up in the summer. Which I find ridiculous but I’m presuming that it has something to do with the fact that the teachers are the ones compiling the extra work and it was a system only put into place after the first snow day of the academic year.

Anyway, #1 Son did over two hours worth on his first day – which was mostly with Nanny as I was still in significant recuperation mode. I do hope he gets credit for it.

Day One:

  • Snow Science – where he was to ascertain water in its solid, liquid and gaseous states. Nanny got him to try two examples – which meant we had a plastic beaker full of snow on our mantelpiece and on the front porch. In snow. Much to the amusement of our neighbours 😂🤣
  • Snowman Craft – we did several of the listed options, which included a snowman face (which I managed to get a picture of)
  • Snow Book Report – the children were allowed to choose their own book for this, so he chose Robot Rumpus which is one of his cycle of favourite bedtime stories.

Day Two:

For this there was a different set of exercises, which was a crying shame, as I had prepped loads of ideas based upon Day One’s remaining options. However, all was not lost, and this time we completed:

  • Teen Number Practice – which was a maths based colouring worksheet.
  • Roll A Sight Word – the USA ones are different to those taught in the U.K., as phonics are not taught in schools as standard, so that is… fun. However I downloaded a dice app onto my phone and we completed two sets of these on separate sheets. As expected, #1 Son did not enjoy this activity as much.
  • Snow Book Report – yes again. He enjoys them, as he doesn’t have to do the reading himself (listening to someone else read is fine) and he loves the drawing part. So this time we read Kitchen Disco which is another firm favourite.

Sadly there was a consecutive snow day so holidays are affected, but hopefully the snow will soon be over.

Ice Skating

On Saturday #1 Son was invited to the local rink – Flynn Rink for those interested – for a birthday party.

The birthday boy’s mother was prepared for there to be non-skaters in the group, and had set up snacks and hot chocolate (with marshmallows and chocolate dragée candies) for those children to hang out away from the ice.

How Daddy thought it would go:

That he would outright refuse to try it.

How I thought it would go:

That we would persuade him to go out on the ice. After 30 seconds he would slip/fall/be unable to move and probably have a meltdown.

We got him into rented skates. Helmets are apparently not compulsory and as such were not rentable.

We gave him a milk crate for balance and stability, and watched him go out on the ice.

With, I admit, our hearts in our mouths.

And then this happened.

Also this – the kid has moves

Please remember this was the first time he had ever been out on the ice!!!

I’m not ashamed to admit, I cried. Full on blubbed and sobbed. I was overwhelmed with how proud I was. I couldn’t explain it.

In fact I find myself tearing up as I write this post and re-watch the videos

He enjoyed himself.

Yes, he fell down. Yes he blunderbussed his way into other children. Yes I spent an inordinate amount of time apologising to the world in general (as I had no idea which parents belonged to which child) but he had so much fun.

Sadly the rink is now closed, a month early, because they had received a $3 Million grant for refurbishing, but they will reopen at the end of August – so we will see if we can sign him up for lessons.

He showed an interest in learning, the rink is close by, and hockey is BIG in this town. I’m not necessarily thinking we will get him into hockey itself, not for a while, but learning to skate is a really good skill to have while we live here.

After the skating was pizza, juice and cake. Sadly the first few pizzas were more than a little carbonised on the bases and so he refused to eat them. So we said our goodbyes and left a little early, but overall I would consider that party a huge success!

As we grownups hadn’t eaten, and the cat needed food too, that we would go to Wegman’s very nice burger bar via PetCo.

Where there were beautiful Bettas (Siamese Fighting fish) – some of whom had made bubble nests yay!

Also gorgeous reptiles of various persuasions.

All in all, a very very good day.