Butter

I'm under the weather.

So when my husband came home last night from work I decided to go lay down a bit, lest I spread swine flu to my entire family (not really but well, I can be paranoid).

I came out at one point to find out why my almost two year old was screaming "Mom Mom Mom Where are you???!!!" and found a butter wrapper on the floor.

This scenario has played out before:
1. Butter was removed from the fridge by crazy one year old.
2. Butter was unwrapped by crazy one year old with great fine motor skills.
3. Dog was fed said butter.
4. Dog barfed.
5. I cleaned up melted half digested butter off my kitchen floor.
6. Everyone was wicked excited.

So of course I yell to my husband..."have you seen butter???!!"

And of course he looked at me like I had six heads.

Me: "Butter, there's a butter wrapper on the floor."

Him: "No, haven't seen it."

Me: "Damn dog probably ate it. Uggggh CONOR!"

Him: "That sucks."

Me: "You're dang straight that sucks because now the dog is going to puke again and I'm going to have to clean it up. What were you doing while Conor was out here pealing a stick of butter feeding it to the dog?"

Okay, so that was an inappropriate thing to say because Conor is super stealth super fast genius child (said so I don't kill him) and could probably do things a professional illusionist only dreams of. He was however sitting in the den playing video games w/ Aiden.

Then I look in the den.

And sitting straight up on the arm of the couch NEXT to where my husband was sitting was a pristine unwrapped stick of butter.

Then I laughed my ass off.

And the worst thing, hubby had no idea why I was laughing. He didn't even SEE the stick of butter even after I lost my crap laughing at it.

A diagnosis.

(I'm not going to give excuses for the looooong time away, I'm here right now and we'll all just have to get over that month + hiatus)

Aiden has a diagnosis. It's kinda what we were thinking all along, he is on the autism spectrum and he has a disorder known as PPD-NOS.

Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) is a 'subthreshold' condition in which some - but not all - features of autism or another explicitly identified Pervasive Developmental Disorder are identified. PDD-NOS is often incorrectly referred to as simply "PDD." The term PDD refers to the class of conditions to which autism belongs. PDD is NOT itself a diagnosis, while PDD-NOS IS a diagnosis. The term Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS; also referred to as "atypical personality development," "atypical PDD," or "atypical autism") is included in DSM-IV to encompass cases where there is marked impairment of social interaction, communication, and/or stereotyped behavior patterns or interest, but when full features for autism or another explicitly defined PDD are not met.

It should be emphasized that this ''subthreshold'' category is thus defined implicitly, that is, no specific guidelines for diagnosis are provided. While deficits in peer relations and unusual sensitivities are typically noted, social skills are less impaired than in classical autism. The lack of definition(s) for this relatively heterogeneous group of children presents problems for research on this condition. The limited available evidence suggest that children with PDD-NOS probably come to professional attention rather later than is the case with autistic children, and that intellectual deficits are less common.

Christmas and Budgets

We all had a great Christmas. It was good for us to open presents at home and the boys loved their toys. Aiden is still continuously playing with his 'guys' so way to go! Conor is a nut and doesn't play w/ anything for an extended period of time yet...w/ the exception of knives and batteries.

Gearing up for the New Year I'm excited to enter into a Forget the Joneses bootcamp. :) Wahoo~! I hope I can be successful w/ it and hoping some of my friends join as well for that extra support.

We start on Thursday and will be having a 21 day spending freeze.

Yes I'm still fired...

For being a slacker blogger. Perhaps it'll be a 2009 thing to try and do it more frequently...like more than 10 times a year.

Anyhow...wanted to share this sweet Furoshiki instructional image:



For those of you like me who have yet to finish wrapping (or started) and would like to be a little more green this year. :) (Personally I have to use what I have...next year I'll be greener, I promise)

Banana Bread

I just made the best GF banana bread!

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
4 med, ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
1 teaspoon milk
2 cups Wendy Wark's flour mix (I'll share that in a bit)
1/2 teaspoon xanthum gum
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Oven - 350, 5x9 pan (butter it)
Cream butter, sugar, vanilla
Beat in eggs one at a time
mash bananas with a fork (w/ milk) and set aside
combine flour, xanthan gum, baking soda and salt in a bowl
blend dry ingredients w/ the banana mixture into the creamed mixture

Put batter into pan, bake for one hour until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack in pan for a few minutes and then turn out of pan to cool completely on wire rack...attempt to wait for it to cool before you cut it, but if it's half gone before it cools...well that's ok too (since that is what happened here). LOL

For the flour mix -
1 cup brown rice flour
1 1/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup potato startch flour
2/3 cup tapioca starch flour
3/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons xanthan or guar gum

(I actually used 3 cups of brown rice flour and omitted the white rice and sweet rice flours)

An update...

Well I spend so much time spouting off about 'serious' issues that I'm not talking much about 'us' these days. Though I guess we are quiet serious.
I think it's because I am unsure where the line is on what is too personal to put out there in blog land?
Or perhaps because I don't want to sit down and think about it all?
Or is it that if I put here, it becomes permanent, therefore real...and not something that I just think about or discuss in hushed whispers.

Here's a recap version, it will still probably be really long but I promise, it's actually the 'quick' version. Back in April, Aiden's ped recommended a neurological assessment. For those that don't know, Aiden has had Early Intervention, Speech Therapy and inclusion preschool...so we've covered our basis for the most part. We contacted Hasbro and Children's Hospital. Hasbro said "No." Period. They don't take our insurance and won't see us. Children's said "Okay, we don't take your insurance, we will still see you, please expect to pay $3,000 upon walking in the door and oh yeah, there is a 19 month waiting list." Around this time we also had Aiden's second TEAM meeting, which is the one that qualified him for preschool. I asked what they felt about the neurological assessment. This was in a meeting with the head of the Early Learning Center, the woman who gave his educational assessment (later to become his teacher), the Occupational Therapist, and two of his Speech Therapists. They said, they felt that with the addition of Preschool to his IEP that it was enough and we didn't really 'need' the neurological assessment. Sweet...works for me. Honestly, in the back of my mind I think I knew that it shouldn't be that easy, but I didn't need someone to tell me twice, and well I was wrong for that.
Fast forward to last month. Aiden had a private assessment with a local Speech and Language Center and of course qualified for more services (two sessions a week for 45 minutes per session of one on one speech w/ the therapist there). This is on top of the one on one session he receives once a week at school. The therapist asked if we had had a neurological assessment for him. I went through the tale told above. He said he noticed some 'markers' (this was after I told him about Aiden being on a GF diet because it helps his behavior) and said that he encourages it, because if we do get an 'official diagnosis' than he will be able to qualify for more services.
Aiden is very intelligent, we all know that. But he is very scripted and memorized and unable to comprehend part of a sentence/direction and tries to answer/respond as best he can w/ limited info, he has an unusual intonation pattern and doesn't know how to respond to new situations, he also has echolalia and some phonological errors...anyhow...all this is okay when you have to list your colors, numbers, shapes (planets, presidents, national landmarks) but when there is a direction such as 'circle the tree above the line' only parts of that are heard/understood. So he would either circle the line or circle a tree, not necessarily the one asked. Mr. Aiden is also a bit of a perfectionist. Ask him if he wants you to draw a picture for him, sure. Here are examples from two particular occasions - First occasion - he requested Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night. I'm not joking. Second occasion - requested a picture of the Great Sphinx. He gets upset if they don't look like them. He wanted to draw Starry Night and got VERY upset that it wasn't coming out right. OK, you are four dude...you aren't going to recreate VanGogh the first time you try...sorry. I don't think anyone could! He wanted to play Piano when we were on vacation and we said, sure let's show you how to play a song - no, I don't want to play Mary Had a Little Lamb - I want Beethoven, like this - And he starts humming Beethoven. Forget it when it comes to writing. We are trying to get him to write his name, he'll have no part of it...he tries a few times and then gets so upset that his A looks more like a Mountain than an A that he refuses to continue. I told him it was okay, it doesn't have to be perfect, we are just practicing, nope...nothing is working. He is in the third week of school and now waking up refusing to go...because he is facing challenges that he can't complete. Or at least can't complete perfectly. He is four. My happy boy is turning into someone who is using avoidance rather than the face possibility of failure, this is not the school career that I want for him.
He is actually home today from school, he has an ear infection. We went to the ped earlier this morning and will have a script for him in a bit.
Conor is being Conor and we will be headed Early Intervention soon, we still aren't talking.
Oh and I did finally fill out all the paperwork to get Aiden into Children's Hospital for his neurological assessment, this is the paperwork I had to gather to send in with it:

-Early Intervention
Developmental Profile 10/19/06
Developmental Profile Update 06/07/07

- Public Schools
TEAM Meeting Summary 12/04/07
Special Education Eligibility Determination 11/29/07
IEP 11/29/07
Speech and Language Assessment 11/26/07
Progress Report 03/10/08
TEAM Meeting Summary 4/15/08
Occupational Therapy Evaluation 3/28/08
Educational Assessment 3/24/08
Speech and Language Update 4/03/08
IEP 4/12/08
Progress Report 08/04/08

– Speech, Hearing and Language Center
Initial Speech and Language Evaluation 9/12/08

Thankfully, when Aiden started Early Intervention I decided to keep a binder with all of his formal assessments so I had all the info handy. I'm going to do that with Conor too, just in case. We also had paperwork that the school had to fill out and send in - so I believe four of his teachers met and finished all of that.

It's a lot of work.
It's frustrating.
It's depressing.
It's necessary.
It's going to be okay.

From Green Blog - Congrats on your Dodo Palin!

Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award



The former unknown Alaskan Governor who is now running mate with John McCain and, maybe, soon even Vice President of the USA has been awarded the 2008 Rubber Dodo Award.

It is the Center for Biological Diversity that this year gives their unflattering Dodo Award to Sarah Palin. Why? Because she “has sought to remove endangered species act protection for the polar bear, suppressed and lied about state global warming studies, and denied that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee.”

“All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different,” said Suckling. “To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science.”

“Palin’s insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain’ is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff,” said Suckling. “It’s hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical.”

You can read more about the award and why the Center for Biological Diversity gave the award to Sarah Palin here.

The Guardian has even more shocking news about Sarah Palin and her fight against polar bears. They reveal that Sarah Palin got help from known climate change deniers and the oil company ExxonMobil “to back efforts to stop polar bears being protected as an endangered species.”

“In official submissions to the US government’s consultation on the status of the polar bear, Palin and her team referred to at least six scientists who have questioned either the existence of warming as a largely man-made phenomenon or its severity. One paper was partly funded by the US oil company ExxonMobil.”

Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace US, says that this “shows that she is completely out of touch with the urgency of the climate crisis.”

Tonight is Sarah Palin’s big debate night against the Democratic Vice President candidate Joe Biden. If you want to know more about the two candidates’s stances when it comes to the environment we got all you need to know: Sarah Palin’s awful environmental record and why the League of Conservation Voters Hails Joe Biden.

By Simon Leufstedt