Don't Eat Anything that Doesn't Rot

That's the food rule that keeps repeating itself in my head.  I was looking at ingredients lists on flour tortillas yesterday at Cub and they all contain preservatives, every single brand.  I didn't go through the "natural foods" aisle though, there may have been some in there.  I think about it walking through the produce section.  I think about it walking through the rest of the store.  I figure just about everything down every aisle probably has preservatives in it.  How on earth does one avoid them?  I'm not prepared to shop at Valley Natural Foods for everything.  Well, as Oprah said, it's not something you need to do 100% right away, you can kind of "lean into it."

I remember a movie from the early 80's called The Incredible Shrinking Woman, starring Lily Tomlin and Charles Grodin.  The premise was Lily Tomlin began shrinking, due to all the products with dangerous chemicals that she came into contact with.  Ordinary things that every woman uses -- hairspray, perfume, lotion, soap, all this stuff she ingested or otherwise aborbed caused a condition where she started shrinking.  Scientists were fascinated and kidnapped her and kept her in a cage so they could study her.  Anyway all this talk about avoiding artificial ingredients made me think of it.  That movie probably wouldn't be able to be made today, because it's too close to the theory (maybe it's more than a theory, I haven't read that much about it) that processed foods and products may cause cancer.  It would be tough to sell that as a comedy, today.

Okay so anyway, about the spaghetti sauce -- it wasn't great.  It wasn't terrible.  It was just blah.  It was too thin for one thing.  I'll definitely try again.  This is a learning process and the family will just have to suffer through it.  But I did make these great tortilla chips -- don't they look wonderful?

And they are so good, Mark and Aliza even think so.

And as long as I'm looking at pictures, here's the new organizational section of my kitchen.  I have hated my kitchen ever since we moved in here, but between the blue tiles and now these shelves, we are inching our way toward having a decent kitchen.  Heck, if I'm going to cook more and investigate healthy eating habits, I need to be in the kitchen more, so it needs to be a nice place to be!  Here's what used to be a huge mess, now neatly sorted and piled:

Lily is also impressed with the shelves, as you can see.

Okay gotta go, time to figure out what to feed Zack for lunch.

Food Rules

So last night at book club, where we were discussing "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", by the way, the topic that overtook the book was food.  I happened to watch Oprah yesterday and the topic there was a book called "Food Rules" that just came out, that is all about eating healthy and naturally.  I was intrigued.  A couple of us at book club had seen the show, so we were discussing it and it came out that I was pretty much the only one there who had never made my own spaghett sauce.  I don't know why that shocked me so much.  But tonight, I'm doing something about it -- yep, you guessed it --I'm making my own spaghetti sauce.  I also plan to sneak a little spinach in it.  I snuck (is that a word?) spinach in tator tot hotdish once, and it had a very suspicious green hue to it, and tasted just a bit off as well.  Maybe I overdid it, and maybe that wasn't the best thing to try to hide vegetables in.  At least not green vegetables.  They tell me you can hide just about anything in spaghetti sauce though, so tonight I try it.  I'll report back in tomorrow on how things went over with the fam.  Mark is worried.

Aliza's Birthday

We are now the proud parents of a 7-year-old!

One of the birthday presents she got was one of those little square weaving looms that makes potholders.  At least we used them for potholders when I made them as a kid.  I think they are too small and I wouldn't use them now.  I didn't know if she'd be into it, I almost didn't get it, because I figured "I used to do this when I was a kid" probably wasn't a tremendous selling point.  Might just make it sound old-fashioned.  Apparently she doesn't think that, because she loved it.  Aliza says it's a blanket for her American Girl dolls.

Other presents she received:  a little MP3 player; an art case with a ton of crayons, markers, paints, and colored pencils; Bendy Stix; and a Password Journal.  She entered a password and then proceeded to tell all of us, including Ellie, the little girl next door, that her password is "ellie".  So I guess either there are no big secrets in there, or she doesn't get the concept and purpose of a password.

Her birthday party is Sunday, so that'll take over the weekend with cleaning and preparation.

I thought yesterday I should have had the boys "pick out" a present for their sister for her birthday.  But she's old enough now that she would have known I orchestrated the whole thing.  I do think she will pick out presents for them, though, for their birthday next month.

And, no research study

Well, as it turns out they don't have enough language yet to participate in this research study after all.  One of the assistants called and asked me a bunch of questions about how the boys communicate, and she thought we should wait a few months and see if their verbal language takes off.  She's going to call back closer to summer and check in.
It's disappointing I think because I felt like this was the boys' chance to do something special and important.  There is so much they can't do.  I was excited for them to have this experience and be treated like they are special and wonderful.  Hopefully they'll be talking more this summer and we'll be able to go.

My Solo Trip to the Zoo

Today at the zoo, I walked, stopped and looked at things, I pondered life.  I did not run, scream, cry, or demand a lollipop bigger than my head.  I did not try to throw myself into the stingray pool.  I did not climb on every bench, wall, or metal animal structure I came across.  I did not touch other people as I walked by them.  I did not leave a trail of Cookie Crisp behind me.

I played photographer.  I walked around outside, since it's a balmy 22 degrees today, I figured I could handle it.  The outside animals were so funny, they all looked at me like they hadn't seen humans in quite awhile.  I guess the outdoor trails don't see a lot of action in January.  Here's a few of the better shots:

Kindergarten Orientation ...

So yesterday was kindergarten orientation here in district 191. I know the boys won't go to our neighborhood school, the school Aliza and all the kids on our street go to. Two schools in our district have autism programs, so they will have to attend one of them. One is only about 8 blocks from our house, the other is more like 8 miles. Obviously I'd prefer the closer one. Sarah, the boys ECSE teacher, said I should attend the orientation at the school I hope they'll go to. When I called over there though, the secretary said she didn't think I should come to their orientation, she thought I should register the boys at our neighborhood school, the one they would normally have gone to, and then when they figure out which school they'll actually
be attending, the paperwork will be transferred.

The secretary at our neighborhood school disagreed with that. She felt that it would be pointless to register the boys and for me to attend their orientation when we know for certain the boys won't be going to school there. She said if I go to the orientation at the hoped-for school, at least I could possibly meet the kindergarten teachers and the principal, maybe even get a tour of the school. Then she says, they must be on the list she has, of expected kindergarteners from our neighborhood......so she looked them up on the computerized list and sure enough, there they were, two Kormans in a row in a list of future kindergarteners. Then she wrote next to their names, in parentheses, "Special Ed". And something in me fell apart as I watched her do that. I'm quite proud that I didn't complete collapse though until I left her office. It's funny how you can spend days, months, even years dealing with the special needs of your children on a daily basis, so you might think you are used to it and nothing will faze you again, and then a punch comes from out of nowhere to knock you down. This transition to kindergarten is going to be hard on all of us, I think.

Anyway, I agreed with her so I attended the orientation at the school we hope they'll attend. It wasn't a total waste of time, I did get to meet one of the kindergarten teachers and talk to her for a few minutes. She was very nice and thought there was a good chance she could end up with them in her class.  Most of it was information that won't pertain to my boys though.  I don't need to hear the pros and cons of full-day kindergarten vs. half-day.  I don't need to hear about why kindergarteners still need a "rest time" during the day.  And I don't need details on the curriculum.  I don't need to hear about the math and science my children will know, I don't need to be told how great it'll be when they start coming home and showing me how they can read a few words.

Then I went to my Mothers of Multiples meeting, where we had a speaker who talked about Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships. And clearly I had no idea how great my mother-in-law was, until I heard some of the stories last night. It made me miss her. If there is one problem we don't have, it's family relationships. We are so lucky in that respect, we have wonderful, supportive, loving family around us. I think both Mark and I have great in-laws. *smile*

Research Study

I just talked to someone at the university in Madison, WI about the boys participating in a research study there.  It's about language learning skills and how Fragile X and autism affect that.  It sounds really interesting and I'm excited to do it.  They would reimburse us all our travelling expenses.  The only little difficulty might be that the parent needs to be there to participate in some of it as well, and they probably wouldn't test both boys at the same time in the same room, so if I brought them there by myself, that would be tough to arrange.  We could just choose one of them to participate.  We could also do one, and then the other later, making it two trips. Sure would be nice if we could get them both done in one trip though.  Maybe a grandma or grandpa or both could come along and help, or maybe Mark will still be job-hunting at the time and he'll be free.  We'll figure something out.

Oh as usual, when I mentioned they are identical twins, I got the old "wow, you must have your hands full" and I said what I usually say......"yep, sure do!"

Sunday afternoon

We went to the zoo today after church, it's a good place to go let the kids run around and wear themselves out, and happily our zoo has a great deal of stuff to see and do indoors, since it's so cold.  Unfortunately our kids do run through everything, they are not much for quiet contemplation while gazing at the dolphins....so we do a lot of running, yelling, pointing, and more yelling.  And we see everything in a blur in about a hour and 15 minutes.  But, it's all in good fun.
But we got there and I realized I didn't have my new camera along.  I might have to make a solo trip to the zoo one day this week after the kids are all off to school so I can do the quiet contemplation thing, with my camera.
I'm working also on invitations to Aliza's karaoke birthday party, which is two weeks from today so I guess I better hop to it!  I had made these great CDs of songs the kids can sing and dance to, and then I realized I wasn't careful, and some of the songs were the originals, not the sanitized Kidz Bop versions.  So I have to redo them, because you can't just take a song off a CD -- once they are burned on there, there's no changing it!  I don't want moms calling me, yelling at me for giving their kid a CD with suggestive lyrics.....yikes.

Another Day, Another Snowstorm

Usually I don't bother commenting on the snow or the weather at all, because it seems like everybody else does.  But I can say this; being a stay at home mom, I don't mind the snowstorms nearly as much, because I don't usually have to drive through them.  I can sit here, look out the window, and appreciate the beauty of how snow rests on the pine trees and balances precariously in a little 3 inch tower on the fence.  Makes me want to run outside with my camera, and get that prize winning shot.

The kids enjoy a fresh snowfall, as well.  It hadn't snowed since the weekend of Christmas, and that snow is old and crusty now, no fun at all.  Nothing like a fresh layer of snow to stomp around in!

A Late Christmas Update
Christmas is not always fun here, because I spend a lot of time trying to get the boys to care when they'd rather just sit in the basement and watch their same videos day in and day out.  And of course by "sit",  I mean jump and run around.  But this year, at least AJ got into the opening of presents. Once we got him going, he was tearing stuff up. He wouldn't always show a lot of interest in what he had opened, but he sort of got into it. When he opened the DVD The Wonder Pets Save the Reindeer, he and Zack both got pretty excited and wanted me to put it in right away, which was unusual for them, to actually like something new. Normally we have to warm up to new things for several days.... have to admit to getting a little teary a couple of times.  It's always so thrilling to see them do something an ordinary 4 year old would do!

Kindergarten

I'm filling out the boys kindergarten forms today.  I'm not excited for kindergarten, I'm pretty nervous. Preschool has been so great, I wish we could stay there until they are 18!


Both boys are up right now and AJ just said "hi" to Zack, which kind of bowled me over because I don't think I've ever heard him talk to his brother like that!  Yesterday when I brought his sandwich up to him while he was in therapy, he said "hi" to me, and then Britney prompted him to say sandwich, and he said "san".  Then when I left he said "bye" to me.  A whole conversation!

Lately Aliza challenges me in different ways, I can't decide if she's naughty or if I'm not giving her enough attention.  I think she'll be grounded for a few days so I can punish her and give her more attention both at the same time. ;-)

Update, Recap, and some more of the same old, same old

Starting 2010 with a new blog and a new initiative to write in it often!  Actually as you may notice from the archives, this is an old blog that I ignored for a few years, and picked back up when I couldn't revise and change around my wordpress.com blog as much as I wanted to.  The wordpress one is http://www.bonnieandco.wordpress.com/.

For those who are new, here's the scoop.  Our two boys, AJ & Zack, have Fragile X Syndrome.  That is about all you need to know, in order to know what rules our lives.  To find out more about how they were diagnosed, tune in to http://www.kormanonline.com/.  To find out just what Fragile X is, tune in to http://www.fraxa.org/.  If all that clicking is just too much effort for right now, I understand, and I won't pressure you or give you a hard time.

Right now the boys have a pretty strict schedule of ABA therapy, lunch, school, ABA therapy, dinner, and bed.  On Fridays they get a bit of free time as they don't have school.  But otherwise, 6 days a week, they work pretty hard learning how to sit down and gather some study and life skills.  They are nonverbal, but are slowing gaining words and sounds.  AJ speaks just a bit more than Zack does.  AJ says "fish", "hi", "bye", "d'oh" for no, and simple things like that.  Zack says "up" clearly, that is about it.  He used to sort of say a drawn out "by--eee" but he doesn't now, he just waves  Talking seems harder for him, it seems to be a lot of effort for him to get a defined sound out.

Currently their favorite activity is watching Dora the Explorer or The Wonder Pets or The Wiggles, from a high vantage point like the top of the bookshelves that are on top of our upright piano.  Heads bumping on the ceiling.  So we are working to curb that habit, because sometimes they don't climb all the way up, they just stand on the keys and jump, which is hard on the piano and my ears.  Gerber oatmeal is one of the 6 things AJ will eat, and he thinks he needs it every meal for every day.  Zack is my little hero because while he is nearly as picky as his brother, he'll eat almost any breaded chicken nugget.  AJ refuses any chicken that is not a McDonald's chicken mcnugget.  I've tried saving the McDonald's chicken boxes and putting other chicken nuggets in there, and he knows.  He studies them carefully, turns them over and over in his fingers, and puts them back.

Aliza is a 1st grader and she's the tallest one in the whole grade.  She's going to be 7 in less than 3 weeks now, and I'm thinking of having a karaoke party.  Sounds fun for a gang of 7 year olds, right?  I'll rent or borrow a karaoke machine (is it ka-ro-kee or kare-a-o-kee?), and find some music online hopefully, and have all the girls take turns singing their favorite Disney, Hannah Montana, and whatever else I can find.  I found a neat craft idea where they could make microphones, which I'm thinking, will come in handy when they dance around and pretend to sing.

Mark labels himself as "job challenged" at the moment, he's hunting for work.  We expect that 2010 will be better for him in that regard.  2009 was not a good time, for the most part.  2008 wasn't that great either, come to think of it.  We are past due for a great year.

I am working on finishing up my 2nd term as Newsletter Editor for the Mothers of Multiples club, and am volunteering with ARC on their committee to plan the Dakota County Parent Retreat.  Mark and I love that retreat, we've been to it twice, and can't wait for the next one.

One more thing we anxiously anticipating is the International Fragile X Conference, in Detroit in July 2010!  Isn't it funny how in July 2008 when we first started hearing about this one in 2010, that 2010 seemed so far away?  Why does two short years from now sound so infinitely far away?

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