by Sarah | Aug 15, 2011 | All About Kennedy, All About Learning, Crap
[flickr id=”6047528569″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]Tonight was meet the Kindergarten teacher night. I was really excited. Tomorrow I’ll have all kids in school. This was supposed to be a night of relief and excitement for us all.
It became a night of frustration and tears.
First, the school was ill-prepared for teachers (as I learned on Friday) and ended up having to hire two more…ON.FRIDAY. School starts….tomorrow. Soooo, we got Angel’s teachers name when we walked up to her door tonight.
THEN, thanks to poor communication both AM & PM kindergarten parents showed up to what was supposed to be just the AM KG meeting…leaving the room insanely over crowded and confusing.
After the teacher’s (exceptionally short) schpeal about the day’s schedule…I had to wait over 30 minutes to meet her face to face…
And when I told her about Angel’s #CF…I got “Did you talk to the nurse…because she gives me a list of all the kids w/ special medical needs and Angel wasn’t on it.”
I literally had to stop myself and tell the teacher I couldn’t say anything else without getting nasty.
I called in APRIL.
THREE departments to ask what I had to do.
All I got was “nothing. Nothing. No, there’s nothing you need to do.”
And now this?
Once again I’m underwhelmed.
Annoyed.
by Sarah | Aug 11, 2011 | All About Denver, All About Family, All About Home, All About Kennedy, All About Molly, Random
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(L – top to bottom. Cheese cutouts, Peanut Butter w/ banana strips. R – top to bottom. Peanut butter w/ orange marmalade folds, PB & grape jelly rolls, Nutella rolls.
Even my teen will make his own version of this for himself. Riley, the pickiest eater of them all, cleans her plate when I make this kid-friendly sushi. Since it was requested on twitter…I thought I’d post how I make them. And it’s super simple…and to be honest I got the idea from Pinterest and ran with it.
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First, the supplies. Bread (1 slice makes 4 mini-rolls), a rolling pin, whatever fillings/toppings you want.
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Cut off the crust (I keep mine to feed the birds) and roll the bread flat, or cut into strips.
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Get your toppings on your bread. For fun I used a mini cookie cutter to cut the banana for some of the strips, and for others I just cut it in half and length-wise. I used my leftovers for a bowl of cereal 😉
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Roll them. I rolled some in spirals. I’ve read that you should roll these tight, but w/ the jelly I actually roll loose otherwise all of the jelly is squished out. For the orange marmalade I rolled in both sides and then folded to the middle (securing with a small strip of peanut butter between the two edges).
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Last but not least for a little extra fun I used some little cutters I had lying around to cut out shapes in cheese (I nibbled on the scraps).
Usually I make less sushi and include some small strips of carrots for a well rounded meal. My kids totally scarf these down faster than you can blink.
Some other ideas I have yet to try, but plan to…
- Butter & cucumbers rolled
- Jam w/ sweetened whipped cream cheese strips or folds
- Herbed whipped cream cheese with cucumbers strips
- Carrot peel & herbed whipped cream cheese rolls
- Nutella and Strawberry strips or rolls
- Whipped cream cheese (sweetened) w/ blueberries
These do not take me a ton of time (Well, this one did but I was taking pics and making more than I usually do)…and the kids love them. They are SO worth a shot!! Try them!!
by Sarah | Aug 10, 2011 | All About Me, All of Us
[flickr id=”6030468849″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”] “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” ~Henry David Thoreau
Last night on twitter I dared someone to give me a topic to blog about. Knowing how much I’ve been reading lately, Emily suggested I do a post on books. “Like a 10 best reads,” was her suggestion. I’m not good at narrowing…I like to talk WAY too much…but it seemed like a good challenge. So this won’t be my 10 best reads, per se…we’ll see what I make of it.
First I’ll start with books I’ve read this year (I challenged myself to read 50. I’m half done. See me on Goodreads 😉 ). Non-series books that really made me sit up and take notice.
- Still Missing – Chevy Stevens. The story of a woman that was abducted and what her life and relationships became afterwards, not to mention how she lived with and handled the abduction itself. It’s told through sessions with her therapist in first person. Very wrenching, thought provoking with a satisfying ending.
- Thirteen Reasons Why – Jay Asher. A girl commits suicide and leaves behind cassette tapes detailing thirteen reasons (and people) that led to her suicide. It grabbed me by the throat and held me fast, wrecking me emotionally after (I had to switch and read a few light & fluffy books to come down). I could relate to the girl and what she went through. Told from the point of view of the 10th person on the tapes as he listens to them.
- Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson. Another book about a teen dealing with an emotional event. While I figured out what the event was early in the book – before it was really said or pointed out – it was still an emotional read. The girl deals with an ostracizing event by closing down. She gets to the point where she pretty much never talks. While it didn’t rip me open as much as 13 Reasons did…it was still an emotional read.
- Confessions of a Prairie Bitch – Alison Arngrim. My husband calls me un-American because I didn’t watch the Little House TV series. I never watched it because I loved the books and the show didn’t stay true enough. BUT, I felt completely compelled to read this book. I’m so glad I did. Alison details life on and off the set, before, during and after Little House. With a bit of sarcasm, wit and a certain amount of fire, she tells about great pains and joys. I came out liking Alison and admiring her.
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs. Okay, I may have cheated putting this here…but since there’s been no formal announcement of this turning into a series I can. This book was very interesting. Told by integrating old pictures, it’s a surprisingly different read. A 16 year old boy has learned to dismiss his grandfather’s fanciful stories until his grandfather is murdered by a monster straight out of them – that only the boy can see. From there he ventures into a world he never expects.
- A Reliable Wife – Robert Goolrick. Another cheat – I read this in 2010, but I have to include it on this part of the list. It’s a gothic romance. Much darker than what I’d read in the past – and definitely stirring. It had an ending I definitely didn’t expect, and ended up being very satisfied with. I won’t say more – except to read it.
There are a couple of series I recommend…and in these you’ll see my bent toward the paranormal/urban fantasy type of story. In previous years I would have recommended the Sookie Stackhouse stories by Charlaine Harris. Now? Not so much. She’s lost a lot of my love…and I would NEVER recommend the sparkly books…they make me hurl (them across the room).
- A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness. Only 1 book published so far and it’s this one. And I’m chomping at the bit for book 2. In this book we meet a descendant of Bridget Bishop (look up Salem Witch Trials if you don’t know who she is and if you don’t I have no hope for you :P)…in a world where magic/witches and vampires are living among us. It’s a six hundred page book that I read in 2 days. It’s that good.
- Mercy Thompson – Patricia Briggs. Starting with Moon Called this series stars a half-Native American “Walker” (shapeshifter that takes the shape of a coyote), her nearby Werewolf pack, her “friendly” neighborhood vampire, her fae ex-boss, and a cast of other preternatural creatures. Like my formerly loved Sookie series, each book has a mystery of sorts, and the heroine is a kick-ass non-whiny heroine. I really like Mercy, she’s exceedingly intelligent – and takes step to learn what she doesn’t know especially when she realizes it’s necessary. Love the pack politics and learning about the creatures in that universe.
- Fever – Karen Marie Moning. I’ve heard that these go downhill after a couple of books…but I’ve only read one (Darkfever) and really enjoyed it. In this series there are Fairies, but they aren’t cute and cuddly. Definitely a page turner.
- House of Night ~ P.C. Cast. These are also starting to go downhill, but I don’t hate them yet (except for a plot point in the last book and the one due out soon). BUT, this is yet another vampire series that’s written for YA, but it contains much more mature content than the stupid sparkly books. I love these for the different take on vampire lore and they are quick and easy reads.
Well what do you know that’s a combined list of 10 (sort of). I’m sure I’ll have more read very soon (considering I have 6 unread books sitting in my kitchen, and 1 I’m 1/4 of the way through sitting next to me right now, not to mention the 5 unread books on my Nook).
Tomorrow – a post about the PB&J sushi fun lunches that I make for my girls…that actually gets them eating. 😀
by Sarah | Aug 9, 2011 | All About Denver, All About Kennedy, All About Me, Crap, Cystic Fibrosis, Special Needs
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Tomorrow we have an appointment for CF Clinic.
I don’t want to go.
I don’t want to hear what she has decided for my kids this time.
After the ‘new’ and ‘definitive’ test.
After the genetics counselor.
After so much hell.
I’m tired.
Of doctors.
Of tests.
Of changing diagnoses.
After the last appointment (w/ genetics) I declared I was done. I never wanted to take any of them to a doctor again.
But I will.
I will find that strength again.
I will listen again.
And make sense of their decision.
And put trust in her because she is their doctor.
But I will still be tired.
by Sarah | Aug 5, 2011 | All of Us, Crap, Random
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In winter it was the ice storm that froze everything inches deep.
That led into the spring so wet it rained almost every day and flooded out our yard, the park, and everything in between.
To now. Record making and breaking stretches of intense heat so bad you can’t sit outside without breaking a sweat.
A few average days would be nice.
Maybe the kids would stop killing each other.
Everyone would relax.
School starts in a week.
I feel like we’ve had no summer. No vacation.
Pent up in this house for so long.
Cabin fever has been building incessantly.
by Sarah | Jul 30, 2011 | All About Kennedy, All About Molly, Autism, WTF?
[flickr id=”5885702740″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]She poked her in the eye.
I know you’ve all heard the story in snippets on twitter, but oy.
Yesterday morning a LOUD scream echoed out from the girls room. The one that said “True pain” not “drama queen” like Angel’s usual screams.
When I ran in she said that Riley had poked her in the eye. I thought, at first, it was a typical brief poking, no real damage and she’d be fine. Calmed down the situation and it seemed okay…but then it wasn’t.
Angel kept crying in pain every thirty minutes or so, moving up to ear splitting screams. So I took her to the pediatrician.
A large scratch (like a cm wide, 1/2 cm thick) right over her pupil.
It was intentional.
The poking, if not the depth of the result.
Angel spent the night in bed w/ me, Archie slept on the couch. I got to hear the heart melting words “Mama can I snuggle with you?” in my Angel’s darling cute little voice.
Today things are better…Angel isn’t shrieking in pain every 20-30 minutes…the ointment they gave her appears to be helping…and she’s rocking the eye patch. The girls are getting along again, even though Angel is telling her sister not to hurt her on a more frequent basis.
I don’t know where we go from here, but I know we need help. Riley needs help. I’m certain she needs more than the school can provide, but the school is where we’ll start, while I schedule an appointment w/ the developmental pediatrician and wait until we can get in (likely to be a few months).
