My Thoughts - Buffet Style

The idea of a buffet is definitely quantity, not quality.  There are plenty of places in the valley to get great seafood, an excellent stake, delicious pizza.  But if what you're in the mood for is a little and (shrimp AND mashed potatoes AND cornbread AND ice cream AND jello AND cottage cheese with pineapple), the buffet is the perfect place to go.  Here's my a la carte jumble of thoughts from our recent buffet trip:

• We paid for two child meals and two adults.  I'm pretty sure Kirk and I ate enough to make the kids prices worth it.  Alex ate enough to justify one adult meal.  Adam ate enough to justify the entire tab.
• When Dylan eats free, I guess there's no reason why he shouldn't have three servings of ice cream.
• The trip can be considered a success if you take your kids home looking like you dipped them in the chocolate fountain.
• There are a lot of old people at the buffet.  Thankfully, they seemed to think my chocolate-dipped children were adorable.
• There are also a lot of seriously overweight people at the buffet.  It kind of made me wonder which came first, the chicken or the egg.
• To a first-grader who recently completed a science unit on coral reefs, the signage at Golden Corral is easily mistaken as Golden Coral.
• The dinner rolls are amazing.  But you kind of have to stalk the bakery to get one, because they go really fast.
• The idea of seemingly self-cleaning plates really appeals to me.  Just leave your dirty ones on the table, and they magically disappear while you're off dirtying another one.  It's possibly the kids didn't notice the phenomenon.

After eating plenty of dessert, the kids were in various states of contentment.

Alex, having eaten more than his stomach could comfortably hold, opted to lie down at the base of the table for awhile.

Dylan, figuring there was little space left on his face for more chocolate, sat contentedly at the table.

And Adam went back for more spaghetti.

nin-JA-go

It's no wonder my kids are so argumentative.

Kirk and I have been having an ongoing debate about the pronunciation of a new household fascination ever since Adam spotted a certain book at the book fair.

I looked at the series title.  NINJAGO.  I mentioned it to Kirk.  "Adam really wants a nin-JA-go book," I said.

It's "NIN-ja-go," he corrected me, plenty of condescension included.

"Really?  I don't know why, but I really thought it would be said nin-JA-go."  But I shrugged it off when he explained that they're NINjas.  And legos.  NIN-ja-go.

The next day at the book fair, I asked one of the parent volunteers, "Are you all sold out of the NIN-ja-go books?"

"Oh, you mean the nin-JA-go books?  Yeah, we sold out yesterday."

I triumphantly lorded my new discovery over Kirk.  Try saying this one out loud dripping with sass and attitude.  "The moms at school all say it's nin-JA-go.  And their kids have been reading the books longer, so I think they're right."  Yeah... all the moms.  'Cause I totally checked.

But he stuck to his guns.  "Nope.  They're wrong.  It's all based on a cartoon series.  About NINjas that are made out of legos.  It's NIN-ja-go."

I actually let it drop and forgot about it.  [I don't know how this happened?!]  Until Alex's birthday party when I overheard my nephew Mason talking to Alex.  Somewhere in his sentence I clearly heard him reference a nin-JA-go.  Petty as I truly am, I hurried upstairs to share my newfound knowledge with Kirk.  Ya know... just to educate him.  I wouldn't want him to embarrass himself walking around saying NIN-ja-go.  So in the name of philanthropy, I pointed out his error.

Fed up, as I often get, with my inability to force him to admit he's wrong, I turned to the solver-of-all-our-disputes.  The internet.  I found a commercial in which the announcer clearly used the pronunciation of nin-JA-go.  And Kirk said, "Hm."

And we moved on.

The moral of the story here, is that I was right...  thankfully our kids don't always argue like we do.

Alex received a Ninjago toy for his birthday, which he and Adam worked on together for two solid hours without argument, reminding me of the beauty of teamwork.

For our part, Kirk and I did our best to keep the redheaded destroyer out of the way.

And don't let Kirk convince you that this was one of those times he was just opposing me to watch me get all riled up.  I'm fairly certain it wasn't.  :)

#9: Learn More About Autism

I'm not crossing this one off the 40-by-Forty list yet, but it's a task I've decided it's time to tackle.  According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, approximately 6 out of 1000 children will have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

I'm not sure if the average individual has the opportunity to meet 1000 children in his or her lifetime.  But, quickly tallying students at school and in theater programs, I know that over the last 10 years, I've easily already met that number.  And I find it interesting that, reflecting on those same groups of students, my personal experiences support the 6-in-1000 statistic.

I figure that in the next 10 years, I'm likely to have the opportunity to teach, direct, and befriend at least another six children on the autism spectrum.  I'm determined this time around to at least be armed with a bit more knowledge so my impact can be as positive as possible.

So I looked up a list of books on autism, and the first to be available at my local library was Nobody Nowhere.  This book is incredibly unique in that it is actually written by a woman who was able to learn to operate outside her autistic tendencies.  Apparently, the ability even to recognize one's own autism is far from the norm, and to be able to write a novel about it is that much more remarkable.

But in addition to autism, Donna Williams' childhood was filled with abuse and food allergies which make some of her experiences difficult to attribute to any particular factor.  The book was very interesting, but not the eye-opener I'd hoped for.  In fact, it wasn't until the afterword that I felt I "learned" some things that I could use.

So, for my future reference, a few ideas gleaned from my first novel regarding autism:

• Difficulties in expressive communication may actually happen because the autistic person has to distance himself or herself from emotions.  It is really hard to communicate without emotion.
• I want to try keeping my voice as even and soothing as possible, but stressing the most important words.  Williams suggests that for her, there had to be a balance between soothing (which she would tune out) and accented (which would make her nervous) if she was going to understand anything.
• It's not that people with autism have no language skills.  It's just that their language is not my language.  If I want to communicate, maybe I should try learning the child's language rather than expecting him to learn mine.

My quest for knowledge is far from over, so if you have any recommended readings (or personal advice) feel free to comment!

Hooker Boots

Call them what you want to, but in our house, boots to the knee are commonly referred to as hooker boots.  I won't go into what we call the person in the boots.

Lately, Dylan has combined his just-like-mommy obsession with his longstanding love of everyone else's shoes.  The result is something I'm sure I'll use as blackmail when he brings a pretty girl home.

Maybe we need to start encouraging just-like-Daddy.

Butterfingers

You know how in Emperor's New Groove, the first thing you see is a llama in the rain?  Well, here's this story's llama-in-the-rain:

And just like Kuzko's story had a beginning, so did this one.

It was kind of a princess-and-the-pea day where despite the number of mattresses I stacked, I could still feel the pea.  And sadly for Kirk, it seemed that he'd unintentionally placed every pea I'd felt.  The poor guy spent all morning as Head Pea Exterminator and did so with little complaint.  As such, I think he was more than eager to run an errand while I started baking the cake for Alex's birthday party.  This cake, while easy to frost, required the careful placement of 7 different colors of batter - which I managed to do while letting Adam and Alex help me... a feat in and of itself.  I finished the final layer of batter just as Kirk walked in the door.  I put the cake in to bake for 45 minutes and found that with one less major hurdle to jump that day, my mood was much improved.  In fact, I couldn't feel a single pea!

I enjoyed making the pretzel ladder and then headed off for a 23 minute bath, knowing I'd want to be out when the cake was done.  Out with 2 minutes to spare, I entered the kitchen, ready to tackle the next steps.  I leveled the cake's dome.  I pondered how to flip it onto the cake plate.  I gratefully accepted Kirk's offer of help.  We discussed our concerns that it might stick to the pan, and I promised not to freak out if it did.

And Kirk flipped the cake.

The cake pan slid on the plate surface and in mere seconds, cake was everywhere.

As promised, I did not freak out.  At least not on the surface.

My brave Head Pea Exterminator dove into DCM (damage control mode) and asked if I was okay.  I smiled and laughed a strained laugh and replied, "Yeah.  But I'm just gonna... sit... on the floor over here for a minute."  And I lowered myself to the floor, leaned my back on the counter, and tried to breathe.

3:00.

Breath.

Birthday party at 6:00.

Breath.


A cake that takes 45 minutes just. to. bake. not to mention the time it takes to color and carefully pour the batter.

Breath.


Do-able.  Kirk rushed to the store for a new cake mix, and I re-donned (yep, it's a word now) my apron.  And my faithful Head Pea Exterminator brought me a peace offering, even though it really wasn't his fault.

Together, we mixed, colored, greased, poured, laughed, joked, and got the darn cake ready.  He made the frosting and dinner.  I frosted, decorated, and teased him endlessly about having thrown the cake on the floor.

Dinner, dishes, and cake were all done with multiple minutes to spare, and I'd say our Leprachaun Trap was well worth the effort!

Still, Kirk will never live down "that time when you threw the cake on the floor..."

A Special Bond

As I type this, I am listening to Alex yell at Dylan, "No, Dyl.  Bad Dylan.  Bad baby," despite my frequent reminders not to yell at his brother.  I suppose there's the occasional moment when they actually like each other, but for the most part, those two are like water and oil.

So it's a good thing that Dylan and Adam seem to have a special bond.  Sure, Adam hovers incessantly, and Dylan screams at him multiple times each day.  Sure, I often hear Adam screaming, "Mom!  Dylan won't get off me!"  But those times are [thankfully] balanced by these times:

I imagine allegiances will probably shift as they grow up, and there will be plenty of two-against-one combinations, but right now, I am loving the Adam/Dylan dynamic!

March 14, 2008

I don't know how this happened.  Apparently, on March 14, 2008, Lindy Ross must have been at my house and must have asked to use my computer and must have opened Blogger to post to her blog, not realizing it was signed in to mine.  She must have started a post and not finished it, and she was probably frustrated when she got home and found it missing from her drafts.  I just found it in mine.


This wouldn't be a big deal at all, except that in May 2010, Lindy Ross died in a tragic accident while on her way from her home in Colorado to go stay with her family in Idaho and help out at the Starlight Mountain Theatre.  She was driving with her three young children, thankfully unharmed, whose ages mirror mine almost exactly.  She was younger than me, but not by much, and though we'd only met a handful of times, our lives were too similar to not feel some sort of connection.


When I got the news of her death, I literally collapsed onto the couch.  I bawled.  I called my sister, whose husband is Lindy's brother.  I talked to Skye.  I drove to Idaho to help pull off the fundraiser that was scheduled for that weekend and still had to happen despite the family needing to plan a funeral.  The trade-off was that I had to miss the funeral, because I could only manage one shotgun trip to Boise.  


I can't even really say that I knew Lindy.  I'd met Lindy.  I'd looked forward to getting to know Lindy that summer since our stays in Garden Valley were scheduled to overlap.  But in that brief acquaintance, Lindy impacted me.  I was impressed by her confidence, her beauty, her talent.  Her quick smile and open honesty.  Lindy and I would have been friends.  I just know it.


So here it is, the surprise I found stored on my blog.  A little, neglected bit of Lindy Ross, posted on 3/14, just as she intended it, just a few years late.

Favorite pair of shoes: I have a really cute pair of off-white shoes that are New Years Resolution: oh I `have many, but one is to have a years suppy of food storage.What are you listening to right now: Zayden and Kaleah watching Enchanted and Kyler on the phone.If you had $200.00 to spend on yourself what would you buy: A really good massage! and some new shoes, Dinner and maybe mini golf with Kyler!Random Thought: I'm really hungry!Favorite place to go in the city you live in: I love taking the kids for walk to the park. not a whole lot here in boise.....Book you are reading: oh if only I had time to read grown up books!

Lindy, you are missed.