All Mom Blogs

I sing and hum to my children, often like most parents. I am a bad singer, but they really like it, among other things I do for them. Music and my singing calms them. None of their family members have musical inclinations, so they will probably have a strong musical intelligence. Nonetheless, we do lots of singing.

Why do kids like singing so much? They learn when singing-the alphabet, rhyming, numbers, and animal sounds-but it goes beyond the facts that have been put to words. Tonight when my hubby ran in the store to grab something, I was left alone with two tired children and so I naturally sang to them, which calmed them. I’ve made long drives and sang to soothe crying babies until my throat hurt. So I know kids like singing, but why?

Waaaaaay back in January I was chatting with Nicole and mentioned how disappointed I was that all the blogger get togethers are always in the evening or during the week and I can’t go.

Then it struck me. Quit complaining and just arrange our own, already! So we did-and being so new to this whole blogger socializing thing, I was a little naive about the numbers. The tweet up went from five to twenty people in a matter of minutes, as I sat there with my mouth agape. Wow!

Saturday came much faster then I expected, and pretty soon there I was, following directions from Google maps to Commercial Drive in Vancouver. The closer I got to the restaurant, the more I nervous I became.

What if they don’t like the real me?
Is my hair okay?
Will they notice the zit?
Should I have worn this?
Oh my God, I baked cookies, what if they hate them?
What if they are polite and say they love them, but they really hate them?
Why am I doing this?
Will I even know anyone?
Will anyone know ME?
What if I end up sitting in the corner and nobody talks to me?

Can you say….terrified? I’m not really a very outgoing person. Once I get to know you, I’m fine but until then, I’m pretty quiet. I can pull off the socializing friendly-like, but inside I’m completely freaking out.

I walked into a full restaurant and didn’t recognize a soul.

“OH! You must be Scattered Mom!” I guess my arms full of tins of cookies was a dead giveaway, huh? Getting used to being called Scattered Mom was something I didn’t expect. I’ve never been called by that name in real life before so at first I was all, “who the hell are they talking to? Oh! ME!”

There were so many wonderful women (and Dads!) there, all of who were so friendly and amazing, and welcomed me just like an old friend. Really, I had nothing to worry about even though I admit I was really self conscious. Suddenly Michelle came up and hugged me, and I knew that I knew who she was but…I couldn’t place her! At ALL! I was so embarrassed.

(It’s not surprising, actually. I am REALLY BAD with names. There are people I worked with for three years, ate lunch with every single day, and I STILL can’t remember their names. Please don’t be insulted. This is why I have the name “Scattered Mom”, you know.

And, while we’re off topic, can you even imagine going to Blog Her? This was just a small group of people. Blog Her would be down right frightening, I think. My plan is to work my way up to larger groups of people. Next stop…Northern Voice!)

We chatted, ate the most amazing crab cakes eggs benny ever, I got to hold the cutest Pop Tart I’ve ever seen while she noshed on all my fruit, and generally just got to meet everyone in person. It was amazing. And a bit weird, in a good way. Everyone was asking about Jake, Hubs, things that I’ve blogged or tweeted about lately, and it was a little strange to have people I’ve never seen know so much about me. So who did I meet? (If I forgot anyone, please let me know so I can add you.)

Musings From Mt. Rogo

Strocel.com

Resolving Timeline Issues

Michelle Kent Photography

The Tsunami Mommy

A Lot of Loves

See Theo Run

Muggabug

Crunchy Carpets

Left Coast Mama

Also? I brought my camera and only took ONE photo because I pretty much forgot about it.

These ladies were so kind, they even called me the “Canadian Pioneer Woman.” Which is, to me, the biggest compliment ever because she is just….wow.

One thing I probably repeated about a million times was my awe at all the delicious, huggable babies. Mostly because they were all so cute and I wanted to take them home with me (not all at once) but also because I felt a bit old, being the only one with a teenager.

After we ate, and visited, Michelle and I took off to find a park so Cookie could run around in the sun (it was so gorgeous outside!) and she had a taste of my really wickedly bad sense of direction mad driving skills. Marilyn joined us and there we sat; enjoying the spring sun and talking about our families and blogs.

Of course I felt incredibly guilty for not reading their blogs that much-not because they aren’t awesome bloggers, but I haven’t read anyone lately. (*hangs head in shame*) That’s been quickly changed though, because since I came home I’ve checked out everyone’s blogs and subscribed to them!

Later the evening when we finally parted, I sat in the ferry line up waiting for the boat to arrive and began to get a bit nervous again.

-what if they hate the cookies?
-what if they were just being polite?
-now that they know me, will they still like me?

Then at last, it suddenly came to me who Michelle and some of the other bloggers were. (yes, that’s me. Reaaalllly slow on the uptake)

*smacks head*

Somehow I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

I’ve found a new food blog that I’m enjoying lately…..Weelicious! It features kid friendly food recipes. This is the first recipe I have tried but it was a big hit so I will definitely be making more!

Cheese Puffs
Adapted from Weelicious.com

1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter (I used salted)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
6 large eggs (5 for recipe + 1 for eggwash)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix milk, butter and salt in a medium saucepan. Heat over low heat until butter is melted and milk is warm.

Dump dough into a mixer (with paddle attachment) or a food processor with the cheese. Mix until cheese is incorporated and melted.

Add the 5 eggs one at a time, mixing between each addition.

Spoon onto a silpat or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Brush with egg wash for a shiny crust. I did part of my puffs in my Pampered Chef mini muffin pan.

Don’t forget to see what else is cooking over at Shan’s!

My husband and I had a second honeymoon last week.

Okay, so it was less like the first honeymoon and more like a night at a hotel, but it was the antidote to a very long and stressful few weeks for us.  We had a brilliant time celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary - we had lunch at the hotel (the same one where we were married and spent our wedding night), spent some time pottering about in the city, saw a comedian as part of an arts festival in our city, had a spa, and woke up to a breakfast that - shock! gasp! - somebody else had cooked for us!  It was perfect.

Sitting there at lunch, it was hard not to get into a reflective mood.  Not fifty metres away from our lunch table was the courtyard where our wedding ceremony had been held.  The room we stayed in nine years ago overlooked the courtyard.  Even the staircase outside of our room this time around features in several classic wedding photographs.  It was a good day, our wedding.  Very simple (only about 60 guests), a dress made by my mother-in-law, a reception we did not go into debt for.  And photographs - we’ve all changed so much.  My nieces and nephews, then babies and preschoolers, are now in high school or not far from it.  Hair was less grey.  Girths were less wide (ahem).  And my mother was there.

My very favourite photo at our wedding shows DH and I, each holding a son, under the canopy where the vows were said.  Because the whole deal was uber-casual, the boys were dressed in tan cargo shorts and matching blue Hawaiian shirts!  Jay was 2½ and Boof just 8 months (poor Moo hadn’t been born yet).  We’d only just begun to suspect Jay’s development had gone awry, but were - at that stage - concerned with his hearing.  The next year would be prove to be one of the biggest trials we’ve since faced.  I would fall pregnant within a month of the wedding.  We would run through the battery of tests for Jay - EEG, MRI, genetic screening and then finally, two autism assessments.  By the end of the year Jay would be in speech therapy and autism playgroup and I would be the heavily-pregnant, stressed out mother of a preschooler and a toddler.  Oh, and all this by my 22nd birthday.

Fast forward nine years and oh boy, life has changed!

Jay has developed (after some initial scary years immediately post-diagnosis) into an intelligent, compassionate individual, on par with peers in academics and without some of the common ‘piggyback’ conditions autism-affected individuals can get (no epilepsy, no intellectual disability, no mutism).  At nearly 11 ½, he is almost as tall as I am and by the time he hits high school in a little under 2 years from now, he will be well on his way to nearing his father’s height.  Dark-blonde and with a friendly, open face, we’ve been blessed.

Boof, at 9 ½, is my Small Old Person.  The capacity he has for learning and retaining facts boggles me.  After an initial scare when he appeared to be showing the same early autism indicators as Jay did (our first clue was Jay’s lack of speech), Boof hit the ground running.  He skipped the first grade (which turned out to be one of the smartest moves we ever made) and now in the fifth grade, currently wants to be a research scientist.  The field of study changes daily!  He’s was already quiet short for his age before the skip but now the difference is quite stark!  His height is a non-issue - he has one of those engaging, inquisitive personalities that endears itself to everyone.  A very technical, detail-oriented soul, he requested (and was extremely enthusiastically obliged by Daddy, no big surprise!) a camera for his birthday and instruction on how to use it, and Photoshop.  Some Dads take their kids fishing - mine shows his kids how to photoshop Jaws belly-flopping out of the nearest river (fresh water be darned!)  Boof is truly Daddy’s ‘mini me’ - the only one of the three kids who has the black hair and brown eyes of both of his parents.  I love seeing them work together.

Moo, my angel-girl, is 8.  She was in-utero when the planes hit the Twin Towers (the next day, I took a scheduled ‘mum’s day off’ and the collective reaction from everyone, wherever I went during the day, continues to be one of the oddest experiences of my life - it was surreal, even down here in Oz).  She was in-utero when Jay had his first autism assessment.  She was nursing at every speech playgroup or doctor’s appointment I took Jay to for many, many months.  Never able to take an artificial teat - and retrospectively, something I’m quite grateful for - she was my constant companion for many lonely hours when Daddy later changed jobs (the day after we received Jay’s final diagnosis, no less) and had to live away during the week, home weekends, for a 6-month stretch.  By the time Miss Moo was old enough to begin speaking, she had the benefit of two speech-therapied big brothers and two over-pronouncing, word-modeling parents.  She picked up words with wild abandon and was speaking in full, comprehensive sentences at age 2 - long before the age Jay had said his first word.  After two non-typical sons, I was just fine with a regularly-developing pretty little girl to buy dresses for!

Yes, we’ve been blessed.  In nine years, we’ve lived a whole lifetime

They will surely have sore legs after sitting on the floor most of the day inspecting our new arrivals in the brooder.

Hello 5:30, am. I wish you weren’t here. More importantly, I wish you were here but I didn’t know about you, which would translate to me being asleep.

Of course, I’m not because Za did not sleep well last night and fussed most of the night and wanted to nurse most of the night which is fine but she wouldn’t sleep and nurse, which leads me to wonder if this is really going to be a more common occurrence. I wonder why she cannot sleep and nurse at the same time, which she normally excels at. I wonder if I’m being too tough on her because she is probably going through a growth spurt, teething, or something else that one year olds do. Then I wonder if I am being a softy and should put her in her bed and pat her to sleep. That translates to me getting less sleep than normally, so I don’t do that, but I still wonder if I should.

I wonder how I’m going to do today because I actually have to work. I wonder if I’ll be grouchy or if I’ll manage. I have no other choice but to manage, but I wonder if I’ll do it well. Probably not.

And, here comes the sun. I wonder if I can get another hour of sleep before the kids are up for good.

Note: In Canada (where I live) our $1 coin is often referred to as a loonie.

“So Jake, we got the results of your fine motor screen.”

I wave the paper. I hate all these tests and screens and things to prove stuff to important people, but whatever. We need to go through them.

“What does it say?” He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t care, probably.

“Well, according to this you really have a hard time with anything to do with a pencil and paper task. Writing, copying from the board, that sort of thing.”

“Really? How bad?” He looks up from his keyboard. (snort) As if he didn’t know that already?

“Well according to this you are in the bottom 1% of kids when it comes to writing stuff. Actually in the bottom of the bottom 1%. Which means that 99.6 percent of kids your age can write and copy things better than you.” Holy crap, this is significant. I mean good Lord, no wonder the boy’s head almost explodes when people want to take his computer. How could we have a kid whose intelligence is in the 99th percentile, and his writing ability in the bottom 1st percentile? Is that possible?

Now THAT’s dyspraxia.

Jake thinks for a second and then pipes up,

“So if my cognitive ability was the same as my writing ability I’d be, like…handicapped.”

“Sweetie, you’d be comatose.”

It’s that time again. Time for another round of the Knowing Me, Knowing You interview series brought to us by the lovely Fairy Blogmother!

1. Do you play a musical instrument?

Nope. I took piano lessons when I was young but I refused to practice so not much came of that. I would like to learn to play the guitar but I have a hard time commiting to yet another thing in my already hectic life. Dewey is more than willing to teach me since he is a kick ass guitar player. I do love to sing and I have been known to sing in public occasionally though mainly around the campfire.

2. Do you have a set of every day dishes and a set of “good” dishes?

Nope. I decided not to register for two sets of dishes when Dewey and I got married. Instead I registered for a beautiful set of blue Denby. I have been very happy with my decision so far. We entertain quite a bit but it’s usually more of a casual, barbeque type affair where “good” china would end up getting broken in a million pieces.

3. Chocolate Milk or White?

I don’t drink a lot of milk either way. I do love chocolate milk but usually I would rather eat something than drink it. My favorite way to ingest milk is as part of a latte or a caramel macchiato. Yum!

4. What time do you usually head up to bed?

I usually try to go upstairs to my bedroom at around 9pm. I don’t go to sleep though….there’s too much to do! I normally have my laptop on & I’m blogging/tweeting/Facebooking all while catching up on my favorite TV shows on the PVR. I normally try to be asleep by 11:15 at the latest. I am lucky that I get to sleep a little later in the morning (usually aroun 6:45). I can definitely tell a difference when I get more sleep (well….when my husband’s snoring or Evan’s screaming isn’t interrupting my sleep, that is)!

5. Do you hang your toilet paper over or under?

Over. Always over. Since I am the only person in my house who seems to know how to change the toilet paper roll, I always get my way on this one.

Want to play along? Just copy these questions over to your blog & fill them out. Then head over to Shan’s blog to sign up on Mr. Linky. Please leave a comment here, too, so that I can check out your answers!

If you like this blog, please follow me using Google (see my left sidebar). If you use Google Reader to follow blogs, the feed for this blog will be automatically added. Neat, huh? Plus it makes me feel loved…..just sayin!

We spent on morning over at the local news studio filming a live cooking segment with Cricket Azima. It was fun and exciting and she was fantastic! I’ll be featuring a full interview with her here later this week as well as a Fruit Simple Giveaway! Stay tuned…

Until then here are the behind the scenes photos I managed to squeeze in.

What are they making? Her amazingly yummy Fruit Simple Fruit Salsa. I’ll post the recipe later this week with her full interview.