SEP Conference, Making Soy Milk, Daniel Starts Piano

Whew, I am glad to say we survived another SEP conference (parent teachers). Josh's were on Monday and he's doing great. Matthew's were yesterday and well....Aaron survived it. I went to Matthew's SEP in October and ended up crying for a few days afterward because of it. This time I made Aaron go (while I stayed home with the rest of the kids) because I have lost some of my "fight" and Matthew's teacher, which has been the same this year and last year, isn't one of my favorites. Matthew's teacher usually starts out the SEP with a list of complaints about Matthew. I have a hard time not taking this as a personal attack on my parenting skills. However, Aaron found a better approach to the complaints. For every complaint she had Aaron suggested making it a goal on Matthew's IEP (Individualized Education Plan). Seeing as this would make a lot more work for her she backed off on the complaints. I am so glad Aaron went. He did a better job in working with Matthew's teacher than I would have. I have worked and fought for Matthew for so many years it is nice to have Aaron start working with me on this. I have always been the vocal one voicing my opinion so Aaron didn't ever have to say much. Lately, though, I have been feeling beaten down and not too confident so I am glad Aaron stepped up to the challenge! Matthew is doing well considering his autism. We really can't compare him to his typical peers because that really isn't fair to anyone. Matthew is just Matthew and we need to focus on his abilities and not his disabilities. Taking that into account we have our work cut out for us in the education department. He does excellent in Math and reading. As for Science and Social Studies, that is a different story, but we are working on them. Matthew does excellent at memorizing things. So to help him out in Social Studies I am going to pick up a county map of Utah as well as a list of the Utah state flower, bird, resources, etc. and hang them up in his room. He really looks at these things whenever he is in time out, quiet time, or going to bed and he has memorized so many things this way. I wish I could memorize things that easily!!

In other things Daniel started piano lessons yesterday. He was so excited to go. He even came home and showed me what he learned. Even though he can't read yet, he can tell what he should be doing. He has already learned the difference between half notes and quarter notes and knows how to play a song. Yes the song only involves two notes in different patterns, but he knows how to play it.Noah is teething. His two bottom teeth and his two top teeth have poked through, but he has two more top teeth and two more bottom teeth coming in. In rolling all around the floor yesterday, he found my phone charger cord and used it as a teething toy. Thanks, Buddy. At least it still works even if it is chewed up.In finding that the Silk Soymilk has changed up their ingredients I attempted to make my own soy milk yesterday just to try it out. I found some bulk dry soybeans in the bulk bins at Winco. I started soaking them Wednesday night. They about doubled in size:

I grabbed two cups of the soaked soybeans and blended it up with 6 cups of water.

I actually was able to find some vanilla beans to use in flavoring it.

To use the vanilla bean you have to slice it down the middle and scrape out the innards to get the most flavor from it.

I then added everything including the sliced vanilla beans and their innards to a pot to boil for twenty minutes.

Afterward I strained it all through some cheese cloth to get out the soy bean chunks. The leftover soy bean chunk's official name is okara. I know there is lots of stuff you can make with it, but I didn't want to try it out yesterday so they ended up being tossed out.Here's the okara:

Here's the final product. Soy milk is naturally creamy in color not white like cow's milk.

Sarah loved it.

Daniel of course was not a fan. A little aggravating since he's the whole reason why attempted all this in the first place. Oh well I guess you can't win them all. I can't get too mad because it had a more "beany" flavor then that of the store bought kind. It would take some getting used to before you could drink it straight.

Making soy milk was easier than I thought, but it sure does leave the sink full of dirty dishes. Thank goodness for dishwashers!! It took running the dishwasher two different time to get through all the dishes I used in making the soy milk. However, it was heckuva lot cheaper making it than buying it. Buying soymilk usually runs around $6 a gallon. Making it was only around $2 a gallon and I know and pronounce everything that goes into it. As for making it again I think it is worth it "beany" flavor and all.

Valentine's Spirit and Father/Son Bonding Time

With Josh being in Junior Jazz basketball he got two tickets to an actual Jazz basketball game. He wanted to go with Aaron. Earlier that day Josh had his parent teacher conference and he got a coupon for a free meal at a local restaurant so Aaron took Josh out to eat with his coupon and then on to the game. They also went with Josh's Jr. Jazz friend and her dad, too. I didn't think Josh would be too interested in the basketball game, but much to my and Aaron's surprise he was. He watched most of the game and loved it. He even wore his Jr. Jazz jersey to show his Jazz spirit! It was some nice father/son time. I am happy to say my kids are finally healthy again--for the most part. Daniel was giving me a pretty good scare Monday night, though. I had put the kids to bed and was getting ready to take a bath when Daniel came in to see me saying he was all itchy. Taking a look at his face--oh his face was one whole hive!! He was also wheezing a bit which is never good. His back was covered in one huge hive, too. I gave him some Benadryl and kept a close eye on him. It never got any worse, thank goodness, but still rather scary. I made sure I knew where his Epi pen was just in case! That is the strangest reaction to any infection I have ever seen--that's for sure! I am just glad that everyone is now healthy again. Daniel will be excited to go back to preschool tomorrow since he hasn't been in the last week!

Josh and Daniel didn't feel we had enough Valentine's Day decorations so they took it upon themselves to make their own. I am just glad they found the tape to hang them with instead of using glue like they tried last time. There are random pictures taped to the walls throughout the house. Now we are feeling the Valentine's spirit.

For the most part I let the kids pick out their own clothes and usually there is not too much of a problem. A few mornings they do have to change a shirt or a pair of pants because what they picked out didn't fit them, but other than that they do pretty well in the pants and shirt department. However, socks are a different story. These are the socks Daniel put on yesterday morning. Not only do they NOT match, the one on the right is Noah's sock that Daniel stretched out enough to stretch over his foot. Nice! No wonder I can't ever find socks for Noah because the boys beat me to them--or at least one of them.

AHHH, I Have a Mullet!!!

After I had Noah a lot of my hair fell out. It is finally now growing back in, but it is leaving fly aways all over that are about two inches long all over my head especially around my face. I also have really thin, fine hair so I needed some volume put in it. I told the stylist all this so she came up with a plan. This is the same stylist I have gone to for a few years now so she knows me. She tried to blend in my fly aways by giving me bangs. She then gave me layers to give my hair volume. It was good in theory, however, when I came home Aaron told me it looks like a mullet. Unfortunately, I agree with him somewhat. Now I am trying to decide what to do. Should I patiently grow out my bangs and layers so the mullet will eventually go away, Do I cut the rest of my hair off and donate it to Locks of Love and try to salvage what I have, or do I move to San Fransisco and join the other redneck/mullet lover women? Oh decisions, decisions...It makes me sad because I wanted to grow out my hair all the way--not just the back part of it--dang hair dresser!! Daniel's Pink Eye has finally cleared up, however he has had the flu with a high fever all weekend long. I thought he had the same flu bug as Sarah, Noah, Josh and Matthew had, but it can never be that easy can it? He was up all night last night coughing and feeling pretty crummy. He finally fell asleep about 5:30 am and slept in until 8:30 am when he came down stairs saying he felt itchy all over. I took his shirt off to find him covered in hives from head to toe. He hadn't eaten anything since Sunday at lunch so I didn't think it was an allergic reaction. I had to take Noah in to the pediatrician this morning to get his RSV shot so I called and they were able to squeeze Daniel in with Noah's appointment. The hives were Daniel's body's reaction to the flu bug which is not too common, but something that can happen. Weird!! So Daniel is getting a cocktail of Tylenol, ibuprofen and benadryl around the clock until he gets over this flu bug. I always know when it is time to remedicate him because his whininess increases by at least 100 fold!!I did have to take Noah in this morning for his 3rd round of Synagis (RSV) shots this morning. He is up to 18. 4 pounds. In doing the check up the doctor discovered he had a raging ear infection in his left ear--poor kid. So he is now on an antibiotic and hopefully he starts feeling better soon. He has been getting up at night pretty frequently the last two weeks and I am becoming a zombie. I just thought it was because he is getting four new teeth in at once right now, but it was probably because his ears were hurting. Poor kid from all fronts--ears and mouth!

This week is parent teacher conferences. I have mixed feelings about them. Josh's parent teacher conference was today. As always he is doing fabulous. There are a few areas he could use some extra practice, but overall pretty good in everything. He got to show me a variety of projects he has been working on. One of the projects they got to write down some questions for Martin Luther King, Jr. Here's Josh's questions:

"In Heaven do you marry girls? Are there wars up there?..." The rest I can't quite decipher, but still an interesting tid bit of what things actually go through his mind. When we got home from the doctor's office and pharmacy we had some lunch. During lunch Sarah was just watching Daniel. She absolutely loves him. Everything Daniel did she would copy. Daniel was holding his hands behind his head and she had to copy--funny girl.

Cast Off

I took Daniel in to get his cast off on Friday. I did it partly because I was tired of Daniel not being able to shower and partly because his pink eye was proving to be quite stubborn. I started him on the first antibiotic eye drops on Wednesday, but by Friday there was no improvement. Since I would need to make another appointment to be seen for his pink eye again, I might as well kill two birds with one stone and get his cast off, too. When we got to the pediatrician's office Daniel was a little apprehensive when he saw the cast saw sitting on the patient bed. The doctor came in and explained to Daniel what would happen, but he still seemed quite nervous. (And yes he insisted on wearing his moon boot on his left foot even though all the snow is now melted--crazy kid!) He was even more nervous when he heard how loud the saw was when they first turned it on. I am thankful that my sense of smell isn't that great. I didn't have to smell the stinkiness after they got the cast off.After they got the cast off I carried Daniel down to get an X-ray to make sure the bones had healed up properly. I had to carry him until we made sure his foot looked ok. Good thing he is a little guy! Daniel liked X-ray the best because he got a sucker. The cast is off, but Daniel is supposed to wear the cast shoe for another week to prevent the arch of his foot from bending to make sure the bones are all good and healed. That is nice because Daniel has misplaced all of his right sided shoes since he hasn't had to wear them for over a month. I guess we will have to start rounding up all his right shoes again...As for the pink eye, the doctor gave me a sample antibiotic drop which has done wonders. We started it yesterday and his eye looks great today. I am thankful he gave me a sample because it made it so I didn't have to make an extra trip to the pharmacy--again.

Saturday morning Aaron gave me a break. He scheduled an appointment for me to get my hair cut and also for me to get a pedicure. He felt bad for making me be a single parent for the two weeks he was gone on his business trip. It was a great two hours of being pampered. It was even better when I came home because while I was gone, Aaron picked up the house and cleaned all the bathrooms for me. That made my day!! I love wonderful surprises like that!!

Keeping in with the tradition of sick kids, Daniel woke up with a raging fever this morning. Matthew, who was fine this morning, came home from church this afternoon with a fever, too. I have a dream...that some day everyone will all be healthy in our house all at the same time. Holy cow I am sick of having sick kids!!! At least Aaron will be in town this week to help me. He was supposed to go on a another business trip this week, but it has been postponed and possibly canceled. Phew!

Pink Eye and the Gang

Yesterday Daniel woke up with a very red and crusty eye. I HATE Pink Eye!! It is such a pain because you have to get a prescription in order to clear it up. That means I have to take not only Daniel, but Sarah and Noah in to the pediatrician with me. Not fun! I nicknamed them Mr. Pink Eye and the Gang. After the visit to the doctor it means yet another trip over to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription. That basically blew my whole day. However, I was able to request a refill on the prescription so if anyone else gets it I won't need another doctor's visit. Friday I did some grocery shopping and I splurged. The grocery store had their chocolate milk on sale so I bought two gallons. Unfortunately, Daniel can't drink cows milk of any kind so he was a little miffed he didn't get any chocolate milk. However, we did find out that Hershey's Chocolate Syrup contains no dairy, nuts or eggs in it so we picked up some of that. That way Daniel could make his own chocolate milk with the Soy milk. Daniel never quite got the hang of mixing chocolate syrup in with the soy milk. He thought he needed to fill the glass up with chocolate syrup until it looked chocolaty without even mixing it up. Needless to say the whole large bottle of chocolate syrup only lasted 5 days before it was gone--the chocolate cow's milk only lasted about two days, too. My family must love chocolate milk! Anyway, I could tell when Daniel made his own chocolate milk because of all the unmixed leftover syrup coating the sides and bottom of the glass. Have a side of milk with all that syrup! No wonder the large bottle of chocolate syrup only lasted five days! We have been trying to get Daniel to drink more milk so he won't get so many broken bones. However, this last week after breakfast he kept rubbing his eyes, sneezing and breaking out with hives on his face. I looked at everything he had been eating and found nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't until I checked the Silk Soy Milk container to see that it now may contain almonds or coconuts. It must actually contain them because Daniel was really reacting to something! That must be the reason he was having an allergic reaction every morning this week. The soy milk I bought a couple weeks ago didn't contain this warning on the box because I still had an old container I doubled checked with. I hate it when tried and true brands start changing their ingredients or allergens!! Now next time I go to the store I will be on the hunt for a brand of soy milk that won't have any allergens contained within them!!
Yesterday morning Josh woke up complaining of a headache. With Josh you never know if he is just saying that or he really does have a headache. I felt his head and he felt fine so I gave him some ibuprofen and sent him to school. When I picked him up from school he got to the car and said his back and stomach hurt and that he still had a headache. I felt his head and he was burning up. His temperature was 103 degrees to be exact. Poor Josh. I guess he has now caught the flu that Sarah and Noah had. I need to restock my Tylenol and Ibuprofen since my stock is getting depleted with so many kids getting sick. However, there is a bright side. Aaron was supposed to go out of town for another week long business trip next week. It looks like he won't have to go next week. Yay!! At least I will have some extra help in dealing with sick kids next week. I can't wait until cold and flu season is over!!!

It's About Time!!

A year and a half ago when Matthew turned 8 we were excited he could finally participate in the Special Olympics. We contacted the person who was in charge of our local chapter and was told the team was full, but they would put us on a waiting list. Well we waited and waited. During this wait we tried to contact them again through phone calls and emails, but none of them were ever returned. We were about to give up until one day my mom got a phone call. It was a telemarketer trying to raise funds for Special Olympics. My mom said, "Why should I give any money to the Special Olympics if my autistic grandson can't even participate?" The telemarketer was quiet for a minute and then gave her the phone number for the Utah CEO of Special Olympics. My mom passed that number on to us and we called--not expecting to see much come from it. We were wrong. The CEO returned our phone call the next day and said he would look into it. Well it took about a month, but Matthew finally got to start yesterday with bowling. He was pretty excited. However, they actually made him bowl the ball instead of just throwing it down the lane like he usually does. He also had to go without the bumpers, but he did pretty well. After bowling comes track in field. I think he will do really well with that since he can run pretty fast--especially when he sees the automatic sliding doors and any store. He runs to open those doors so fast I can't even keep up. Maybe if we tell him there are the sliding doors at the finish line he would beat anybody he was racing against! Anyway, we are glad to get him going with the Special Olympics. It really is a neat program. He was so excited after every turn. He would jump up and down. The Special Olympics organizer said to me that he had lots of energy. I just thought--you have no idea! Yesterday in the mail we got Daniel's EOB (explanation of benefits) letter from our insurance. I was shocked to see the pediatrician's office billed the casting Daniel's foot as a surgery. This quadrupled our copay. We called the pediatrician's office stating our concern, but that is what the billing code says. It says a casting of foot without setting the bone and without stitches is still considered surgery even if it didn't require any cutting into the skin of any kind. The billing people thought that was pretty stupid since putting a cast on is not a surgery. In turn they did knock off 10% off our copay. However, putting a cast on is in no way surgery!!! Stupid billing codes!

Yesterday it snowed quite a bit. Daniel also had preschool. As he was getting ready for preschool he insisted he needed to wear his snow boots. With his cast on his right foot he could only wear the snow boot on his left foot. He still went out and played in the snow even with his bare toes sticking out of the cast. At least his left foot stayed warm and dry. However, he never complained about his toes being cold on his cast foot. We were talking to Matthew and Josh's piano teacher Monday. Daniel stepped in and basically told her he needed to sign up piano lessons with her. I was taken aback, but she actually found a time for him and he will be starting next month. He is not shy in any way is all I can say!!

I have finally figured out why all my silverware has started disappearing. I told the kids to clean up their dinner mess the other day. Daniel grabbed everything and just chucked it in the trash--silverware and all. I have had to get some extra forks a few months ago and now we are running low on spoons. Now I know why--dang kids!! We had a talk that not all plates, cups and silverware are not disposable. They are only disposable if it is plastic--not glass or metal. Hopefully they listen to me and I won't have to get extra spoons, forks or knives again.

Recycled Kleenex and Petrified Quesadillas

Sarah is back to 100% after being really sick with the flu for about 5 days. You know how I can tell? She somehow found a pencil while I was in the shower and went to town on the bathroom door. When I walked out of the bathroom I saw the scribbles and asked Daniel what happened. He just pointed to Sarah and said, "She did it!!"However, he failed to mention he had a part in it, too. Later on I found Daniel's name and part of Matthew's name spelled out on the door as well. I couldn't find the pencil so I don't know who started it or who finished it. Dang kids!!Saturday Sarah had a quesadilla for lunch. I thought she ate the whole thing because there was no quesadilla when lunch got cleaned up. I was wrong. She just stuffed it in a toy pan and hid it inside her toy kitchen. Daniel found it this morning. It was pretty petrified. Yummy. I don't think quesadillas get better with age unlike wine. Sorry to be wasteful, but it got thrown out.Although Sarah is feeling better, now Noah has gotten the flu. He also has two top teeth and two bottom teeth coming in as well. So between the 103 degree fever and the teething he's pretty miserable. If you look close you can see his two top teeth just barely poking through his gums. Daniel threw the bracelet on him as I took the picture.Although Sarah's fever has broken she still has the lingering runny nose. Daniel caught her this morning grabbing a Kleenex, using it and then returning it back to the Kleenex box. Mmmm recycled Kleenex. However, at least she used a Kleenex this time. Most time she just wipes her nose on her sleeve so she ends up with green racing stripes. I don't know which is better green racing stripes or recycled Kleenex--they're both pretty gross! Although she does have a third alternative. She likes to crawl up in my lap to get loves--or so I thought. When she gets up in my lap she ends up wiping her nose on my shoulder giving me green racing stripes on my shirt. I guess there is also a fourth alternative, too, but.....gross!It's no wonder how Noah got sick is it?!! Gotta love kids!

Since Noah has been sick he has not been sleeping through the night. Unfortunately I am the only one who can appease him since he only wants to nurse at night. After a baby starts consistently sleeping through the night you get out of the every 2-3 hour habit of getting up. So if they ever get up in the night it seems it is much harder than it was when they were little. Last night he decided to get up every 3 hours. The first time was at 1 am and the second was at 4:30 am. It also takes me a long time to fall back to sleep once I am awakened. As I was finally drifting off back to sleep after the 4:30 am feeding, I was snapped back to reality when my cell phone started ringing. Knowing that if the phone rings at that crazy hour it is never good news. I jumped out of bed to answer it. I was not too happy to hear Aaron's voice saying he locked himself out of the house and he needed me to come and unlock the door so he could come back inside to pick up his work computer. So much for getting back to sleep. About this time the boys were awake downstairs and once they're awake let the fighting and screaming begin! Who needs sleep anyway?! I hope this crazy Monday isn't a sign of how the rest of the week will go...