Where the boy is.....

This week was Javy's Spring Break.  I'm still lame so we had to be kind of creative with new things to do.  We played with his iPad, we danced to Pandora, did yard work, mostly playing with the hose and his grandma bought him a new toy.

I'm not sure what it's called but he loves it.  The only problem is that it rubbed the skin on his feet raw, even with socks on.  Its a great way to get him on the floor without having to worry about getting him back up.

One blessing that has come out of me not being able to just pick him up, is that we've been able to transition him without picking him up.  It takes some patience, but he will bear his weight and stand up when we need him to.  We only lost him a couple of times to the floor when he decided to let his knees give.  It's tough but I just leave him there, until he decides to get up on his knees and try, again.  Tonight, I got him into his big wheelchair, alone, without picking him up.  My plan is that we will no longer pick him up, even after the doctor releases me from any weight restrictions and I can pick him up.

One of my greatest personal fears is that people will underestimate him.  I didn't realize how potent this fear was, until I was talking to his doctor at his 11 year old check-up.  I asked the doctor if there was any way to test his brain and its understanding.  IQ tests are insufficient and I don't think any value should be placed on them.  He's going to start middle school next year and I don't want to make the same mistakes that I've made in the past when I expected other people to just discover on their own what he is actually able to do.  So the wise Dr. Raelson asked me if I had ever considered getting him a power wheelchair and I'm like, okay, this is off topic.  But I told him no, he couldn't do a power wheelchair with it's little controller.  His hands are too spastic.  Besides he can push his wheelchair, just fine.  Dr. Raelson got all contemplative and said so you're tell me, he'll push his wheelchair, deliberately, from Point A to Point B.   Yeah, if he wants something.  Then why can't he utilize a power chair and if he can use a power chair then he can expand his world to all the technology that comes with a power chair.  Then he'll have more capabilities to show that he can understand.  Oh crap, I was underestimating Javy.  That conversation kind of gave me a jolt.  The iPad is great for giving him an outlet and I've stared looking at it as a way to open up his thinking that communication is the way to express to himself.   But if he can pick up one small piece of Kix cereal off the table, which I've seen him do, then he can do more with his fine motor skills.

Javy's week ended on a most excellent high note.  He got to go surf with his buddy, Kevin.  The weather had been pretty crappy but it cleared up long enough for us to enjoy the north shore.  I don't Kevin will mind if I tell this story, but I probably can't tell it as well as he did.  The turtles, who normally scatter when the surfers come, did not scatter when Javy came.  They just poked their heads out of the water to get a good look at him. Javy is very peaceful and they saw no threat in Javy.  To quote Kevin, "He is one special boy." This time, Kevin was along for the ride.

Javy and Kevin

Dirty blonde ambition!

Just want to give a quick update and share a couple of great recipes I found.  First of all, Javy had his 11 year old check up.  Everything is good and he's all healthy.  But he only gained 2 pounds.  They weren't too concerned about it.  He did grow in height, quite a bit, almost a foot.  He's doing good on his seizure meds.

Life is kind of crazy, in this moment of our life.  I just started a new position at work so my nice safe routine life is a bit in limbo.  And its Spring Break for Javy.  So on my one day off, Saturday, mom was saying that we needed food and easy food that Javy would eat, since she would be at home all week with him.  Not wanting to go all the way to Costco, I got a little overly ambitious and pretty much cooked all day, using what we had left in the house.  (I did have to make one trip to the Big Save.)

The first thing I made, just for Javy, is Ranch Style Beans.  If your from Texas then you know what these are and you know its actually a brand of canned beans.  These are a staple of Javy's.  I have actually seen them in the stores here, but not lately.  But if I read the label, I probably wouldn't buy them now.  But I found this great blog, The Homesick Texan and I actually think her recipe is better than the canned ones.  Here's the link:  http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2010/03/ranch-style-beans-recipe.html  Check out her blog, she even has King Ranch Chicken.  I doubled the recipe and then I put portions in the small Ziploc's to freeze.

The second thing I made was a homemade chicken pot pie.  The filling of my pie, I pretty much just made up.  boiled some chicken with a bay leaf and garlic in the water.  Then boiled the vegetables in the chicken broth, adding salt and thyme and added the chicken back when it was all cooked.  But the pie crust was from a recipe I found on Pinterest.  And it was pretty damn good.  The secret ingredient is vodka and yes, I keep a vodka on hand, you know, just in case.  Here's the link for the recipe: http://www.littlebcooks.blogspot.com/2012/08/perfect-pie-dough.html

And one last thing, the pie crust is not calorie friendly.  I calculated that one serving of just crust was about 361 calories.

Hope y'all have a good Spring Break!

Hey, Good Lookin!

I'm not sure if I'm the only person who has gone through this.  I certainly don't presume to be, but I found myself going back to my old hobbies and loves.  For whatever reason, when I reached adulthood, I kind of put certain things aside.  Like old movies, I was always an old movie buff, ever since I was a teenager.  I went through an independent movie phase and then once Javy was born, a no movie phase (except the latest Pixar or Disney movie).  Now I'm returning to my original love of black and white flicks, even broadening my horizons into the 60's an 70's classics.

The same goes for cooking.  I started cooking when I was in my early teens when it was just me and mom, living in a tiny studio apartment in Manassas, VA.  I always had a warm meal waiting for her, after her two hour commute home.  I used to love making grand, over the top meals for the rest of my family, served on the best china, of course.  I lost interest somewhere in my twenties, only busting out anything experimental, occasionally.  

Over the last year, I've returned to this passion.  I started baking Javy's snacks for school, instead of buying the variety packs from Costco.  I even began baking our own breads and I've experimented, a little, with homemade cakes.  Honestly, this was a little bit out of necessity.  One big bag of flour is about $8 at Costco.  I'm only on my second bag, since September 2012.  Also, it's really not that hard to bake homemade cookies and I can control what I put in them.  I don't put all those unknown things that you read on the ingredients list of a pack of cookies.  

So I've come to love Pinterest and food blogs, love food blogs.  The good thing about food blogs are that you get good writing, I mean, the whole story about how they cooked this fantastic meal.  And there's also feedback, some little comment about how a reader tried the recipe and tweaked it, this way or that.  You can also ask the writer questions about the recipe.  I'm going to try and share some of the gems that I find with my readers.

So far every search has resulted in a yummy recipe.  For example, I found a recipe for oatmeal carrot cookies.  It all came about when I had plenty of oatmeal and plenty of carrots so I searched oatmeal carrot cookies.  And there it was, from a food blogger, "Nutrition Nut on the Run".  http://www.nutritionnutontherun.com/recipes-2/recipage/?recipe_id=6011462#.UTf6MKViitc

So as far as the taste, I thought they were awesome.  They have two of my favorite things: real maple syrup (Canadian, of course, worth the splurge) and fresh ginger.   I plugged the recipe into the Myfitnesspal app and it's about 176 calories per cookie and yields about 12 cookies.  A little high for a snack for me, but I think it would make an excellent high energy snack for hikes.  As for Javy, well, he'll get used to it.

Javy eyeing me suspiciously as he tries the "new" snack!

But as wonderful as all this new technology is, I don't think I'll ever replace books- good solid books that you can hold in your hand.  And today, my friends, I scored big time at the local bookstore.  I found a copy of my favorite cookbook, the one that taught me how to cook.  Now I will master the art of baking cakes.  A couple of weeks ago, I baked a cake,  using a box cake.  I was so riddled with guilt that I went into the backyard, right around sunset.  I groveled on the ground until I found some radishes.  I held them up into the air and I swore, "As God as my witness, I will never bake a box cake, again."  (I'll bake a cake for the first person who gets that classic reference).  My guilt comes from the fact that I made the mistake/right decision to read the ingredients on the box.  I mean, it has Yellow 5 for God's sake.  Hopefully, I will have time to blog about my future endeavors.

Awesome Talk Story Bookstore Finds!