Stuff To Keep Him Busy

Just a short post about my most recent attempt to keep Leo busy.  Colored Rice!

Cars love it!

Superman is a fan!

.....and at least sweeping the kitchen is more colorful.

Public Humiliation

Anytime we go out in public, it is a given that one of my children, usually Leo, will do or say something that ends in my public humiliation.  Many years ago before Tripp was medicated he took his favorite toy to the store.  It happened to be a plush toy from the movie Toy Story and its name happened to be Woody.  Tripp also had a hard plastic toy of the same character.  He distinguished between the two toys by calling the plush toy, "wiggly Woody", and the plastic toy, "hard Woody."  Anyway, we were walking through the grocery store and Tripp starts running off with his toy.  I start yelling, "Tripp, Tripp, Tripp!" and then received the normal disgusted looks of other shoppers who assume that I'm such a bad mother that instead of trying to stop my running child, I merely cheer for him to fall.  About this time Tripp rounds the corner to the next aisle and Leo, who was about a year old, figures out how to stand up in the cart.  Fearful that Leo will fall out of the cart and hurt himself, I decide that for the time being I have to let Tripp go and attend to Leo.  I get Leo all strapped back into the cart and we went looking for Tripp.  We found him in the next aisle over chasing down a nice elderly woman frantically waving his toy at her yelling, "do you want to see my wiggly Woody?! Wanna seen my wiggly Woody?!"  And the looks of disgust from the other shoppers turn into looks of horror as they expect to see a 5 year old flasher.  (Or so I imagine, I'm too ashamed to look at anyone's face at the store.)

This was Leo at the grocery store today.  He was a dog.  It required crawling around and barking.  I noticed that this particular store had a nice floor.  I looked at it a lot as I was avoiding eye contact with everyone else in the store.  But, Leo wasn't the major humiliation of the day, it was Sarah.  My father recommended we try watching this British show "Black Mirror" on Netflix.  It is very interesting.  Kind of like a Twilight Zone for technological savy times.  The episode last night had an English princess being kidnapped and the ransom was for the Prime Minister to have intercourse with a pig on live TV and then the show revolved around whether or not he was going to do it and if anyone would watch.  At no time did they show a person having intercourse with a pig.  But as our supper guests were getting ready to leave the house tonight, my daughter says, "are you going to watch that show where rich people have sex with pigs again?"-----by the way......my guests.......were church missionaries.

Update on Meals They Will Eat

Well, they ate all of the meals with some tweaks here and there.  Abby didn't want to eat tacos, but said she loves walking tacos so I made that minor change and all went well.  The missionaries had supper with us on bacon, eggs, and rice night so we made it a bit fancier by adding a nice fruit salad and donuts for a "breakfast for supper feast.  Everyone seemed to love it.  We did have a night that we didn't feel like cooking and we ate 50 cent frozen burritos which made everyone but Abby happy.  She had ramen and was thrilled.  It was so successful that I think I will always keep frozen burritos and ramen on hand for what I will call "junky convenience food night".  We also had a night where we were out at appointments and running errands until 7pm so we bought a large bag of pizza rolls and all stood around the table snarfing it down as we had gotten too hungry to be civilized.  It's amazing how long we can spend on a couple of errands and how quickly we can become ravenous.  Maybe I should keep a bag of those around as well for similar occasions.  I have appointments 30 miles away 4 days next week.  Odds are it will happen again.

Here are my attempts for kid friendly meals next week:

1.  Corn flake breaded baked chicken legs

2.  Spaghetti and meatballs with an emphasis on the meatballs

3.  Costco sausages and roasted potatoes 

4.  Pesto ranch chicken over noodles

???  Guess I'll have to check Pinterest for more ideas.

This is not something that the kids are this week.  It is charred broccoli and red onions on quinoa and it was so good that I ate 3x this week.  One of my former students is studying to be a nutritionist and likes vegan cooking.  Apparently her honey got her a cookbook called Thug Kitchen for Christmas and she has been posting the most healthy and delicious meals from it on Facebook.  I have been copying them to the best of my ability but if anyone wants to buy me a present, I would love to get my hands on that cookbook. 

Fred also enjoyed this but would like to see the following changes for next time:

1.  Trade brown rice for the quinoa.  He doesn't like quinoa.

2.  Add shrimp or chicken and bell peppers.

How To Kidnap My Children

The Daredevil I Can't Control (and neither could you)

Today Leo is a ninja!

Leo is 3 1/2 and a daredevil.  Of all my kids, he is most likely to end up in the emergency room.  I'm grateful for the trips to the ER and urgent care, because the alternative would be my worst fear.  We can't keep Leo from being a daredevil and getting hurt but we do our best.  Leo has ADHD but is too young to be medicated for it, but he also has sensory issues.  He is "sensory seeking"  here is a list of symptoms found on Brain Balance Center's website: 

Hyposensitivities to sensory input may include:

• A constant need to touch people or textures, even when it’s inappropriate to do so

• Doesn’t understand personal space even when same-age peers are old enough to understand it

This is Leo right now telling me, "watch, watch, watch, watch mom!"  He's totally in my face.

• Clumsy and uncoordinated movements

• An extremely high tolerance for or indifference to pain

• Often harms other children and/or pets when playing, i.e. doesn’t understand his or her own strength

• May be very fidgety and unable to sit still, enjoys movement-based play like spinning, jumping, etc.

• Seems to be a “thrill seeker” and can be dangerous at times

I don't think Leo is more clumsy than other 3 year old children, but he definitely exhibits all of the rest of the symptoms.  Leo has gotten staples in the top of his head after falling off the arm of our Lazyboy recliner and hitting his head on the heat register, had surgery for getting an infection where he had his hand smashed in our car door, and we are watching him now to see if we need to take him to the ER for a possible broken foot.  Last night he was standing on one of our kitchen chairs (the tall kind) facing backwards with his feet pointing down through the bottom rung.  He leaned over too far and tipped the chair over.  It looked like he landed directly on the tops of his feet which were smashed under the weight of both him and the chair.

This is the chair

I really expected to see bones coming out of the tops of his feet from the looks of the fall.  He was screaming very loudly and rolling round.  I could tell his feet were in extreme pain.  We live 40 minutes from urgent care and it was snowing and the roads were 100% covered in our area.  I watched his feet for a while.  There was light swelling on one of his feet but no bruising and he was able to bear weight on the other foot.  I decided not to risk the roads to take him to a doctor last night.  This morning, I'm wondering again if I should take him.  He needed ibuprofen for the pain last night as he could not sleep.  This morning he is telling us that it hurts, but it isn't slowing him down much.  He is limping, but is definitely a ninja.  After a quick Facebook poll, I have wrapped his foot in an Ace bandage and given him more pain reliever.  He is happy to be a ninja right now and I'm happy to not expose him to dangerous flu germs at the doctor's office.  I hope I'm making the right decision.  

Leo waiting for emergency surgery after the cut on his hand got infected.  Daddy was TIRED (and scared)!

Leo getting help from a wonderful big sister after surgery.  

Leo is such a danger to himself that as I typed this, his daddy removed both a knife and an extremely sharp cheese grater from Leo.  Tripp already experienced a cut from the same grater.  It was suggested to us by a psychologist (a wonderful one that I love) that Leo should be medicated as soon as possible for his own safety.  Unfortunately, we have to wait 4 more months until he is old enough to take the medications.  Pray for us to help him stay alive until then.  Our biggest problem now is that he gets overwhelmed at stores and will jump out of moving carts and run in to the parking lots.  He is fast and has outrun 4 adults trying to catch him in a busy parking lot once.  He runs unpredictably darting here and there.  I imagine his head exploding like one of Gallagher's watermelons when he is eventually hit by a car and it terrifies me so much, I have decided to not take him to stores until he can be medicated.  After watching a video about sensory overload and stores, I understand why he runs from them.  Here is the video I saw.  It affects at least 1/2 my family including my husband who breaks out in a cold sweat seeing just seconds of it.  

Tip of the day - we learned the hard way from Leo's older brother Tripp, that you should not name a child Tripp if they have ADHD and tend to run from you in public.  Imagine the looks I got from strangers and other parents as I spent 2 years running after my son in public places yelling, "Tripp, Tripp, Tripp!"  They all thought I was cheering for him to fall.

Second tip of the day - never judge a mom who puts a leash on her kids and never say, "can't you control your child" to a mom.  Sometimes they can't and as much as you think that you could, you wouldn't be able to either.

Exercising the (demons) Wiggles

We are in love with Achilles!  Even Max is getting kisses (or Achilles likes the taste of baby snot.  If so, he should be in heaven because it is pouring out of Max's nose like the chocolate in one of those fancy party fountains......I have a story about one of those too - another time)

I was educating myself on husky dog ownership on youtube (and getting sidetracked by videos of people popping gross zits and finding bot flies in their head) and there were several videos of huskies getting bored and eating their owners' couches.  All the videos highly recommended walking and walking and walking huskies - for the safety of furniture everywhere.  They also recommended brushing your dog.  One owner brushed out so much hair that he could me a dog hair angel (like a snow angel) in it afterward.  After seeing this guy brush that much hair off of his dog in his kitchen, I decided to do daily brushing outside after the walks.  I don't really want that much hair in my kitchen.

So, even though it was bitterly cold today, we walked.  This guy has a lot of pulling power and the 2 miles I walk don't make a dent in his energy levels.  I think I need to attach a sled to him and have him pull the kids around.  Seriously - I will be looking into this.

 After contemplating the inversely proportional relationship with husky walking to house destroying, I realized the same relationship exists between Leo walking and mommy destroying.  So I walked my Leo too.  It occurred to me on this walk that Leo doesn't have ADHD.  Leo is just a husky.  But - less brushing, more wiping.

Meals They Will Eat

I am often working hard in the kitchen to make something delicious and new, but am disappointed each night when the kids won't eat what I've made and we end up throwing a lot of food away.  It breaks my back, my heart, and my wallet.  Plus, at least 3 of our kids are very sensitive to hunger.  They don't really recognize and verbalize that they are hungry, but they really act out if they haven't eaten properly.  Also, with the kids being on ADHD medication that makes them not have an appetite, I have to get them to eat whenever I can so they don't lose too much weight.  Otherwise they will have to take a "pill holiday" until they gain weight and a "pill holiday" for them would be a nightmare for the rest of the house.  This week I am trying to keep it simple with my meals and I'm going for having 7 days of successful eating.

Day 1:  Hamburgers and Fries (all homemade) - total success!  All kids ate it and it was easy, and it was inexpensive.

Even Achilles wanted some.  

                                                   Ahhh....He found someone to share with!

Day 2:  Chicken Strips (homemade), carrots, oranges, and mashed potatoes.  All loved it.  All ate it!  Even better - I found out you can freeze mashed potatoes so they were made in advance and all I had to do was thaw them, heat them, and add a bit of instant to them to thicken them up.  I skipped eating  the potatoes and just had strips on a salad

Max was "helping" me cook

I have plans for the next 4 days so far.  The only problem I forsee is Abby not liking taco night, but everyone else loves the next four meals.

Day 3:  Tacos

Day 4:  Polynesian Pork in the crockpot

Day 5:  Homemade Pizzas (pepperoni and Canadian bacon)

Day 6:  Bacon, Eggs, and Rice  (Abby will tell me that she prefers there to be no eggs, but leaving out the eggs would make it be more expensive because I would have to add more bacon and she will eat it either way sooooooo - too bad, Abby.)

If I could get to 10 meals and eventually 30 meals that the whole family likes, I feel like I would be set.  It does seem that they really like me making traditional fast food items.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I'll let you know how it goes!