Edda’s good appetite and growth has been a blessing, we have not had to struggle very much with one of the hallmarks of Rett Syndrome, poor growth. She is fast approaching 60 pounds this year and this is the first year that I’ve noticed that I’m really having trouble lifting her in the car, up the stairs and out of the bath. Finally, after years of thinking about it, we finally have a minivan in the family with a mobility seat installed.
Month: January 2011
Welcome Denise!
Happy birthday Ruby!
Lien Jian (Connecting River), Quang Dong, China
Macao (A Special Admin Zone), Quang Dong, China
Chinese motherhood!
I was with a hilarious, enthused and happy Edda at Occupational Therapy yesterday – happy that she was happy at swinging, knocking wind chimes and spinners with her hands when Deb, our OT asked me if I had read Amy Chua’s excerpt from her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It makes for interesting reading about the “Chinese” approach to parenting, basically yelling at your kids for not being the best at academics and piano and/or violin. Of course, my parents were not this extreme, and I’m really way, way not like this – I am your standard Western coddling mother in which I say “Good job!” to everything my children do because they are already brilliant and perfectly behaved in all situations (except when you need to use a fork, because neither child really knows how to use a fork).
Waiting for the bus.
I’m sitting on the stairs waiting for Edda’s bus. The kids have a 2 hour delay this morning because of the 1.5 inches of snow that fell last night. We have a case of the grumps this morning – Ruby puked up a pencil (she’s relearning her puppy antics from Maxi, it has been YEARS since she’s chewed anything), Maxi may have peed on top of the puke, Maxi chewed up my Xmas slippers right in front of Vince who did nothing to stop it (I count him as an accomplice), Edda spit up her seizure meds, Jeremy shoveled the walk and changed out the car’s snow tires. And I tried to work through all this chaos.
Here’s a pic of Maxi pooping in the snow and the subsequent poop bags.
King’s cake.
Vince, at the urging of his grandfather, insisted that the Christmas tree not be taken down until the Three King’s Day – which is something I kind of sort of had heard of before and when I researched it, I started understanding the connection of the Twelve Days of Christmas, Twelfth Night, etc. etc. I know, I know, I’m a little religiously-impaired, but I’m making up for it now.
Anyways, Three King’s Day, or Epiphany (which is a name that I love) marks the beginning of Carnival season and to celebrate, I make a King’s Cake in which I hid a baby Jesus. (OK, it wasn’t really baby Jesus, it was a quarter, but next year, it will be a baby Jesus when I have a little more prep time). If you get the slice with the baby Jesus, you will be king for a day! Unfortunately, I made the cake out of bread flour instead of all-purpose, so it turned out a little chewer than expected, but I’ll fix it for next year.
Wrapping paper.
I went a little crazy this Christmas and bought myself a bulk roll of silver wrapping paper. I did not realize it would be very heavy. I did not realize that it would be made even heavier by my husband making me a wooden silver wrapping paper dispenser with a scotch tape dispenser screwed into the base (so you never have to go looking for the tape!). I am questioning if this was a wise move because I think I’m saving money per square foot of wrapping paper, but now it no longer fits into any sort of reasonable size storage area. I am hoping to never buy wrapping paper again.
QuangZhou, China
Last Friday, we took the CRH (China Railway Harmony at 250 miles/hr, but not high speed train) train from Hong Kong to QuangZhou, China where Rena spent 6 months as senior consultant there. The city just finished hosting Asian Games. Its dramatic transformation is everywhere.