By the look of Sara’s smile, you might think this picture is a display of gifts brought by the Tooth Fairy.  Not the case, but a logical assumption.  Nope, this represents a few supplies Sara collected for her Science Fair Project.  She’s comparing the efficacy of toothpastes, complete with Petri dishes and a microscope (which is in the “optional” column right now).  Kelly finished “How A Mirror Works” today, which is good, because she also has 100′s Day this week.  And a Field Trip.  Going to need to get a head start on the Valentines. And I’m the Art Assistant…you can see where I’m going with this…

I’ll also be blogging the Daisy Scout PJ Party I lead last week, and then we’ll move onwards to a Dinosaur Report, which could never be complete without a diorama!

So if posting is light in the next week or two, it’s because life is heavy.  Heavy busy with so many good things.  Let’s just pray I remember to keep the camera with me…

When she quit working, she assumed their room would look like this all the time.  EVERY DAY, YES!  The beds will always have fresh sheets, and she would regularly sweep under the beds.  Emptied boxes of Kleenexes, random socks, the lost Barbie that nearly necessitated a call to the FBI to report its “missingness”, countless notes Sara writes to her friends, inviting them to imaginary birthday parties (one in particular on the 51st of August)…those items and the dust bunnies won’t hide under there for long.  Unemployment will be spotless-awesome!

About a bajillion volunteer hours later, she realized she could add this vision to her mile long list of pipe dreams.  Once a month she allows herself to exhale, and take in this vision of a perfect room.  What a silly idea…to spend her life making beds when there are so many more interesting ways to spend a day. As she looks around her “new version” of housekeeping, she regrets not a single second of the past 3.5 years.  NOT EVEN ONE.

It’s lovely.  It’s wonderful.  It even smells like Snuggle.  Once a month is enough.  More than enough.

The following post are my thoughts on medicating Sara for ADHD.  While I was assigned to this very compound for many years, I was in no way paid for this writing.  I USED to get paid to research Strattera (I never worked in Sales), but I haven’t been an employee of Eli Lilly for many years.  I own zero.zero Lilly stock.  In fact, I pay full sticker price for Sara’s meds, silently bemoaning the fact that if I were still working, she could take it for free.  Medicating children is a very sensitive topic; a topic so hair-raising, it has incited riots.  I’ve seen them from my office windows.  I was once chased around a medical meeting in Atlanta by Michael Moore’s team while he was filming “Sicko”.  Trust me…I understand better than most the ground I’m about to tread upon.

If you aren’t up for it, don’t click the “read more” button.  If you are interested in what years of research and working with the best and the brightest in Child Psychiatry has taught me, continue on.  A portion of my career was spent in the field, answering questions of University-based Researchers, so many of my opinions were shaped outside of the Pharma Industry.  I answered medical questions from Texas all the way to the Southeastern Seaboard, and 99% of the time in person. I learned more than I thought my addled brain could hold.  Little did I know God was preparing me for a specific assignment.  How was I to know the largest unanswered medical question of my career would be my own child?…

[Read more →]

Much to Sara’s dismay, Kelly attempts to imitate her in every way possible.  And so a great biological truth continues as it has since before Shakespeare penned his great “Taming Of The Shrew”.  As I cook dinner, Sara often reads to me as part of her Language Arts homework.  I try to entertain Kelly with cooking tasks, but some nights, there simply aren’t enough jobs to keep her hands busy.

As was the case last week, when Sara, refusing to wear her glasses (ugh…per her usual…you can see their cute little pink and white case in the right side of the picture), worked her way through “Duck On A Bike”, and Kelly, not be left out, put on my sunglasses and “read” her way through an entire Great Courses catalog.  While Sara told the tale of a duck borrowing a bike and showing off for the barnyard animals, Kelly flipped through college courses covering everything from Physics to History.  Oddly, that night, the Great Courses offerings sounded a lot like “Duck On A Bike”.  I’ve never been so tempted to order a CD set, because in all honesty, I liked reading “Duck On A Bike” a lot more than I liked Statistics 101.  There aren’t nearly enough stories about ducks in college coursework, if you ask me.

In all seriousness, being a little sister once myself, I wish Sara would be nicer about Kelly’s “copying”, but, having now seen myself in action in the form of a tiny blonde girl, it IS somewhat irritating.  I’ll will concede on this point to my own big sister…I mean SARA.  And to Jenny, who has put up with me for nearly 4 decades, can I borrow a sweater for school tomorrow?  The Benetton one?  Your favorite?  PLEASE?!

A favorite activity in our house is having a Cousin Avery Day.  I love how everything changes when she’s here.  There is an energy between cousins that defies explanation.  I recorded her last visit from Aunt Orly’s perspective (her name for me…you should have seen her face the day she realized my real name is Lori; I told her if she stopped calling me Orly, I wouldn’t respond).  My first clue a Cousin Avery day has begun is my coffee cup.  I rarely have time to drink more than this. No matter, I’ll keep reheating it all day, amazed at how the cup travels around with me for hours with no drinking actually occurring.

There is usually an immediate request for lemonade, and 6 little hands to “help” with the squeezing:

Whatever you do, don’t go down there.  No parents allowed:

I love the ad hoc craft sessions that pop up here and there.  I find their projects for at least a week after.  Are there items more precious than the artifacts of childhood?:

Every room in the house serves a purpose.  Even my closet becomes a destination.  The bathroom is always a beauty shop, where so much beautifying occurs:

As is the way with children, there is a lot of this:

We’re always sad to see Avery Days come to an end.  We usually try to keep her by all means possible:

With Avery now on a school schedule almost mirroring ours, it’s been such a wonderful treat to share our break days with Miss A.  We love you Sweetheart.

Is there anything more fun than a noodle press?  Momma has the best toys.

As an update to our “right now”, Greg has hung up his Math Tutoring shoes, after we came to the stark realization Sara’s processing disorders would need to be addressed by a professional.  After much wringing of hands, I embarked on the sleepless journey of finding an Elementary Math Tutor who specializes in Learning Disorders, is comfortable working with a Gifted Kid with ADHD, and willing to work with her school’s Singapore Math Program.  And what was the chance that someone like this would have an opening?  As it so happens, she works a few blocks from the school, and had only 2 odd openings in her day that perfectly matched free periods in Sara’s day.  She is an extremely special, precious person, and I am convinced God plopped her into my life after a night I crawled out of bed while the house slept, and prayed on my knees that he’d deliver the person no one really thought existed. To quote Greg’s Grandmother, for whom Sara is named, and watches over us from heaven, “God has been so good to me”.

Sara: Mommy, I really like that girl at school today.

Mommy: What girl?

Sara: The new one!

Mommy: The one I brought?

Sara: Yes!  She was…really, really fun and nice.

Mommy: Your new math tutor.

Sara: Yes.

Mommy: I really, really like her too.  Because you know what?  When I learn something new, my brain goes vroop-vroop-vroop (motioning from the center of my forehead to mid-left, and then centric back left and right).  Yours goes vroop-vroop-vroop-vroop (motioning mid-left, way to over her right ear, back to the back left, and then to the back center, somewhat right of center). [Please don't take these directions literally...I was only illustrating learning in motion, not trying to give her a lesson in developmental neuroanatomy. 2 of my best friends have degrees in Neurobiology, and I'm going to get schooled at lunch tomorrow.]  Ms. K. went to college to teach kids whose brains follow your exact pattern.  When SHE says math stuff, she’ll speak it in YOUR language.  It will start to make sense.

Sara: (Quietly at first, almost to herself) I knew it.  (Then to me) I KNEW IT!  (Followed by a triumphant pump of the hand, a kiss for Momma, and one little girl finishing homework almost entirely on her own, for the first time ever, albeit not math homework, but baby steps…baby steps…)

P.S. This interaction, while true, happened after a massive meltdown, a time of cool down on her bed, many minutes of Mommy trying to calm herself down, a small lecture, and a 2nd attempt at homework…lest any of you think this house is happy-happy joy-ville all the time, which I GUARANTEE you…it is not.  These last 2 weeks have nearly done me in, to be quite honest.  I have almost total laryngitis, and losing my cool over homework is like stabbing knives into my throat. But, even as I write, I hear the battle cry from my fellow Mother Warriors…if nothing else, we persevere.  Godspeed, my friends.

Per your specific request ma’ lady, tomorrow you will be taking large, PLAIN chocolate chip cookies to school for your half-birthday.  Not a single bell or whistle.  I had everyone taste test them tonight with a unanimous agreement that they taste like regular ‘ole chocolate chip cookies.  According to Greg, they were delicious, as all plain, regular chocolate chip cookies should be, but as I am allergic to chocolate, I have never eaten one. Sara announced there was just the right amount of chocolate chips…per Sara Math, there were “a ton”.  No one screamed.  No one declared today National Best Cookie In The World Day.  I didn’t open a single sprinkle container.  You seemed terribly pleased with the size and color, for which you had much commentary.  I wasn’t aware you had deep thoughts regarding the hue of golden-y brown they should be, so thank God I accidentally got it right.  What with me having COOKED A FEW THINGS BEFORE, and all.

Happy 4.5 Half Birthday Boo Boo Chicken.  You are now, and forever have been, a joy beyond all describable joys.  I love ya’ love ya’ love ya’.

If anyone is interested in the nothing-terribly-special-or-extraordinary, yet delicious, recipe I used, it’s below:

Gourmet’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Listen to the MUSN’Ts child

Listen to the DON’Ts

Listen to the SHOULDN’Ts

The IMPOSSIBLEs, the WON’Ts

Listen to the NEVER HAVEs

Then listen close to me-

Anything can happen child

ANYTHING can be.

-Shel Silverstein

I’ve seen rainbow cakes all over crafty blogs for months, and have been dying to make one (or two?).  What better opportunity than the school Carnival Cake Walk?  It was easy peasy lemon squeezy, I promise.  A huge thanks to Kristin, who’s daughter won 1 of the cakes. I asked her send me a picture of the cake after it was cut.  It’s hard to blog a tutorial without a finished product picture!  I couldn’t cut my finished cakes and THEN deliver them, but I was tempted.

I used 2 white box cakes (I wouldn’t recommend vanilla; the base color has a bit of yellow in it), which I divided into 6 small bowls.  I used Wilton food coloring, because honestly, I think if you used the drop liquid-y cheap stuff, you’ll be disappointed with your colors.  I did a Roy G. Biv over 6 bowls, and baked them separately in 6″ (or 8″…I didn’t measure as per my religious convictions…too much math in crafting ruins everything) round cake pans.  Here’s the thing: this cake takes A LOT of icing, so the bigger you make those rounds, the more icing you’ll need.  And eventually, with 6 layers, you’ll need supports.  It gets complicated, so smaller is better.

One of the handiest tools of cake baking is a cake leveler.  It’s a thin, adjustable wire, stretched between two posts with a handle on top.  That thin wire will saw through the moistest cake without destroying it.  Once the cakes are cooled (and you can see that they all look kind of brown and icky on the edges…no worry, that will be covered with icing), I sawed off the rounded tops.  How do round cakes look so…perfectly flat on top and round?  Cake levelers.  When I stack cakes, I place the exposed tops together, meaning the bottom of the cake is now the top.  It’s perfectly flat, just like the bottom of the pan.  The night I learned this trick in cake class, I nearly fell out of my chair.

Knowing I would never see the inside of the cake, I made this little stack so I could pseudo-visualize the final stack.  These are true to life colors…oh Wilton.  I’m sure you are far from organic, but you never disappoint in wow-factor.  After I took off the tops, I used my cake leveler and cut every cake in half.  Voila!  I had enough to make 2 full cakes.  With 6 layers of cake, I was sure a full cake would end up far too tall.  Less of a cake, and more of a cake tower.  For once, Lori Math was spot on correct.

The next trick is icing.  Layering takes quite a bit of icing, but took all of 15 minutes.  I stuck the leveled sides together as much as possible, but because the cakes were cut in half, I ended up with a raw top on a red cake.  Yikes.  Box cakes are insane to ice…unless you like rock-sized crumbs in your icing.  The next technique I used is called icing a “crumb layer”.  I always put a thin layer of icing on my cakes and let it harden for about 20 minutes.  It will be a crumby mess, as you can see on the left cake.  Then I put a fresh layer of icing on top of the entire cake, which won’t pull up the crumbs, now suspended in hardened icing.  The cake on the right is after a final layering to demonstrate the difference.  Another nice trick, which I didn’t have the time to do this round, is to wait another 20 minutes, and gently rub wax paper all over your cake.  It will smooth out those ridges. These cakes took 5 and a half jars of commercial icing.

Greg is famous for eating my sawed cake tops, but he’s swearing off sugar during the week.  Yikes!  I’m pretty sure if I tried this stunt…I’d die immediately.  I cut the tops into stars, layered them with dots of icing, and put them in the girls’ lunch boxes the next day.  I think they were confused…or pleased.  It’s hard to say.

I used a 2D tip and a freezer bag to put little stars around the bottoms.  Ai ye ye…jar icing.  You can’t shape that stuff to save your life, but hey, it’s fast.  In a perfect world, I would have made a huge batch of buttercream icing, but at last check, I have given up “perfect” in exchange for AWESOME.  Moving on.  I was OK with boring white cakes, knowing no one would pick them until the end, and then thinking they got a lousy cake, would have gotten home and realized they got THE COOLEST CAKE EVER!  Because that’s how awesome works.  It jumps out and surprises you, just when you thought your ticket to Disappointment City has been punched.  But, with that being said, my Daisy Scout Troop wanted a fighting chance at winning the cakes (I spilled the beans…no judging…they are terribly cute and very persuasive).  So to mark them in a noticeable way, I hot glued a pennant banner of rainbow leaves on bamboo skewers on the tops of the cakes. The skewers acted as supports, which were probably a prudent decision. Did you know heavily-layered cakes are filled with sticks to hold them up?  I might have learned this lesson the hard way, circa July 2001.  Some cake disasters you just never forget.  I wanted traditional triangle pennants, but with an hour to the deadline, I realized I didn’t have a Cricut cartridge with a triangle. WHAT?  Again, moving on.  I did have this odd 1970-ish leaf…OK, in a pinch, that will work.  To make them, I cut fishing line, taped one end to the counter, held up the other end, and hot glued the back of the leaf, which I VERY GENTLY laid upon the fishing line.  This was tricky.  Thank heaven’s hot glue dries quickly.  Then I put a tiny dot of hot glue on top of the skewers and laid the end of the fishing line into it.  Trim and DONE.  I delivered these cakes on a windy and very cold afternoon with the leaves just flying in the wind, but nothing moved.  I could rule the world with 1 miniature hot glue gun. Tell me I’m wrong.

And there you have it: Rainbow Cakes.  No one picked them, thinking they were plain white cakes, and then 2 Daisy Scouts nabbed them during the last rounds of the Cake Walk, and sent me the sweetest pictures from their sleepover, chowing down on the most colorful cake I’ve ever seen.  You don’t get cuter than 1st graders eating cake, what with their partially toothless grins and wiry hair.  It’s hallmark childhood, that’s what it is. Ha ha ha…I love it!  Never judge a cake by its cover!

After a ridiculously difficult couple of weeks, I am reminded that all is not lost.  Our challenges are just that…challenges.  Not tragedies.  (Mantra I’ll be repeating over and over until Sara’s next mountain is climbed…)

(“This moment” posts are inspired by Soulemama, who encourages her readers to savor a singular moment from the week.)