Mountains of Molehills: A Journey Through Asperger's Parenthood

Gluten-Free Key Lime Pie

2013-04-15T13:10:00.000-04:00

Gluten trials and the pie it made

Several months ago we put kiddo back on gluten-full foods to be able to run blood panels and do a

behavioral check list. We needed a solid 6-8 weeks, after 2 weeks I was ready to commit MYSELF.

Kiddo on the other hand was pleased as punch to be able to eat any old thing. Unfortunately it really made a years worth of effort getting him mentally in the right gluten-free frame of mind worthless.

Just about every facet of life was effected by the return of gluten. Medically, kiddo's reflux returned and was much worse than it had been in years. He was now waking in the night, sleep walking even. His appetite was decreased and sensory integration off the charts. In school his behavior and grades were steadily declining. At his annual appointment I was concerned about his wieght and behavior and the pedaitrician and I agreed it was time to move back to the arena of the Develpomental Pediatrician but we did head over to have all the blood panels ordered.

The following week kiddo had been sick and we were back in the pediatric office, he was down another 2 pounds. I emailed with his teacher at school to see his feelings about the grades and behavior declination and the diet change timeframe. He agreed, things really did change considerably when kiddo's diet changed. That was it, gluten was done.

Two weeks back on gluten and a weight check in with the pediatrician and kiddo is back up over a pound in weight. Behavior will take longer to see, but I am pretty sure that we will see the changes there soon as well.

The complaints came back too of course "mom you can't make everything I love gluten-free!"
Me: "Try me."
Kiddo: "Hmm... I have to think what I want more than anything in the world. Oh I know!!! Key Lime Pie! You can't make gluten-free Key Lime pie!"

Psh, kid.. give me something hard.

I knew I wanted to go with a graham cracker crust for this Key Lime pie, and wouldn't you know last week when the kiddos had been out of school I had gone to the ends of the Earth (ok... it was the ends of our county.. but honestly it was at least FIVE grocery stores!!!) to find some gluten-free graham style crackers for S'mores on our new fire pit. I did find one box... but then I nearly choked on my tongue and peed my pants simutaneously when I saw the $7.50 price tag. No thanks. I finally found Kinnikinnick's S'moreables and grabbed two boxes that day so I was sure I had enough left to make a pie crust.

Next was the limes. I happen to be a purist when it comes to Key Lime Pie. I really think Key Lime Pie needs to be made with... Key Limes, makes sense, no? What is that you say... you live no where near Key West? Neither do I. My best friend has this citrus tree and grew Key Limes for a while...
though I think possibly she may have killed that wee little Key Lime tree. Either way, I never profited a Key Lime from my Floridian friend. I do however buy them when I see them in the produce aisle and freeze the suckers. BUT and here is the but... squeezing the juice from those little guys is arduous work, take my advice here and supplement if you can with a little help! Believe me, its worth it in the end and you will have all the wonderful Key Lime tartness you want, with a little less effort.

Despite whether you do or do not use the bottled Key Lime juice, I do however reccomend that you have at least a handfull of Key Limes to be able to get some rind which adds an amazing depth to your pie! I use my trusty microplane to grate the Key Lime skin (JUST the very surface of it) into tiny bits that will go into the actually pie filling. Any extra that you have makes a wonderful garnish at the end as well.

Now, if you have been following the blog, you may have seen the last post here about my, err, incident. So, I highly recommend using a food processor to do your crust work, I actually bought one shortly after the... umm, ER visit.

The one thing that I have noticed after making a few of these graham cracker crusts is that some of them rise a bit and decrease the depth of the actual pie cavity. I am not sure about you, but I like a nice deep pie. (Somehow that sounds dirtier than I intended) So, to correct this problem, I have created a slight method that I call "pie shell nesting." When you pull the pre-baked crust out of the

Terrible pic, and not parchment, but just
to give you the idea

oven, if the crust looks a little shallower and want to correct it, first grab a square of parchment and press it into the cavity.Then grab a second 9" pie plate and press it firmly and EVENLY into the pie plate/crust that you just pulled from the oven. Allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes before removing the nested pie plate. When you removed it, twist it from side to side and it should slide free pretty easily. Then you have a nice deep pie shell to be able to pour your filling into!

Gluten-Free Key Lime Pie

The GF star of the Key Lime Pie!

Crust:

20 Gluten-free Graham Crackers (Kinnikinnick S'moreables)
1/4 C Brown Sugar
6 Tbs unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

1 1/2 Tbs. Key Lime Lemon Rind, grated
3/4 C Key Lime juice
3 large egg yolks
1 3/4 C condensed milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In the bowl of a food processor, blend the crackers until they are finely ground. (Alternately you could use a ziploc bag to crush them, but please for the love of Pete stay away from sharp objects! :) )
3. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add sugar and butter and mix until everything is well blended and looks wet.
4. Evenly press the mixture into a 9" pie plate.
5. Bake the crust in the pre-heated oven for about 8 minutes. If your crust has risen a bit too much, use the "pie shell nesting" method to give yourself a deep crust cavity. (see picture above)

6. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the lime rind, juice, yolks and milk.
7. Mix on medium-high speed for about a minute.
8. Pour the contents into the prepared pie plate.
9. Bake pie for 15-20 minutes, until the filling no longer moves.

Enjoy!

IEP Burnout

2013-04-10T11:35:00.000-04:00

It sat there on the counter, ready, waiting. It's metal gleaming, the cord still tightly wound from the night before. I wanted so much to snatch it up and use it like any other morning. Yes... a smoothie. It's about 75 degrees this morning a smoothie would be wonderful. But it sits there, staring at me. It knows what it did and my finger throbs in confirmation of its crime. I divert my eyes, busy myself. It's an object after all, it has no control over me! I grab the bananas and some frozen fruits from the freezer, some chia seeds, honey, my protein powder and probiotics, yes an excellent start for the day. I look at the bounty that will be my smoothie on the counter and smile. But I can feel the glare of the machine behind me.

Somewhere in the wee traces of my mind I want to believe that it was a total manifestation of Stephen King's Maximum Over Drive and this Hand Mixer, my and MacLeod's previously adored Boom Stick (see here where eggs are no match for it) was possessed, but I know with the rest of my fully functional brain (mostly) that that is not the case.

The truth is it's been a very rough few months in Special Needs world for us with therapy and school and with kiddo's IEP, which has seemed to take the latter part of eternity to work out this year, I think I am a little strung out. I spent last weekend pouring over 16 IEP's from Pre-school through 4th grade, numerous diagnostic studies, follow-up clinics, feeding clinics, report after report and study. I filed until my eyes burned. Then I cried till my eyes swelled shut. Looking at so many years of reports and studies you can see patterns and things that you don't see otherwise, things I wish I had seen. I have never been in denial about his need for help, never. But I have never seen the full picture either and looking at everything, I do. I think I have spent so much time in the daily grind pushing for services and pushing for services I haven't sat back and studied the results enough. The people who are providing the services have not paid enough attention to the results because otherwise the services would have been provided in a manner different than they have been. In many cases the recommendations in many of these reports have been clearly ignored. I feel that I have failed to advocate strong enough for him.

So how does that get me back to that evil Hand Mixer? Well, yesterday kiddo was evaluating with a new occupational therapist. In addition to that it was his regularly scheduled OT and Speech Therapy day. SO getting home he had a good amount of homework. The rule of thumb, because we have BIG meltdown issues with homework, is that he is to complete a minimum of a solid 30 minutes of work. If I can get him to work 30 minutes and he does well, I try to reward him and ask him to go longer. If it is not going well I don't push. Last night it was bad. Meltdowns, throwing things, hitting himself, tears and talking about how he would rather be dead, etc. Grandma was here trying to help, but he was in a really bad place. I was desperately trying to throw something together for dinner as well, queue Hand Mixer. They were on the deck and I was in the kitchen. I was popping in and out trying to redirect him and puree meat with the Hand Mixer. Now... before you say... "Mom, why were you pureeing meat with a Hand Mixer anyway"... I know, I know it was not a smart move already. Hindsight, folks, hindsight.

MacLeod walks in the door about 30 minutes from work early. Queue distraction number 3. (I love you hon' but my brain was a mile a minute) "What can I do... what can I do..." Me: "ummm...."

*ZZZZZRRRRMM... pop*

(that is about the sound the mixer made as the blade caught my finger as I tried to move meat out from being stuck in the blade)

*Shreik maybe heard by dogs and dolphins*....Oh my God, Oh my God....."

McLeod: "Come here, get it under water." (So calm! He was a Boy Scout, ya know.)

Grandma: "Holy *#$%, what did you do!? Towel, pressure, get it up!!!!" (not as calm.)

So I am not one of those wusses who flees to the ER often, but by the looks of the blood flow and such, I though perhaps it warranted a trip. We packed up the foods, thank goodness no blood got in my chicken and headed to the ER.

Evidently that nail will fall out, ew.

Three hours and that many stitches later and I was back home with my painful finger and remaining feelings of idiocy. Grandma stayed with the kiddos and they were tucked away when I got home. I was greeted in bed by a note from Lil Sis that said that she hoped my finger felt better. She has such a good heart.

I, of course do not blame anyone for my distraction and being dumb enough to get my finger caught in the blade of a moving mixer. Not kiddo or McLeod. I think the culmination of everything has left me just not really that present or maybe trying to be everywhere all the time, and I can't. I feel like I need to slow down and speed up all at the same time to keep it all together.

The one thing I do know is that now, after seeing all I have seen in all kiddos IEP's and with his upcoming meeting, things will be better for him, that I will make certain.

So, in the end I did make my smoothie. I have to admit that when I first hit the button and the thing spun and whorled the first time after whipping around my finger last night, my stomach flipped a little. Damn you Stephen King.

New Beginnings Part 2: We Party!

2013-04-09T12:06:00.000-04:00

MacLeod, the kids and I had been living together for about six months in our home before he officially asked me to marry him. Because kiddo is on the spectrum it is something we have discussed in great length for a very long time, much like we discussed long before we all moved in together. For a long time after the divorce the kiddos had a really hard time accepting the fact that their father and I would not be getting back together again. So when we talked about the possibility that we may get married, we asked kiddo very gingerly what he thought. He was elated, his sister wanted to start planning the party. From then on it was a lot of fun getting their perspective on details for the wedding.

Lil sis went dress shopping with me and one of my bridesmaids and had the time of her life. Kiddo on the other hand hates shopping within an inch of his life. He had very specific input on what the cake should taste like and what shade of blue the photo booth actually should be. MacLeod's children, living in Tennessee with their mother, couldn't be a part of things, but did get to talk about some of our plans when they visited for the holidays.

So to give a good understanding of the mechanics of the reception, sort of like how the script and all worked for the game in the ceremony, you have to know some of the background work that went into the reception. To begin with we had an amazing wedding coordinator, one of the only ways were able to juggle the mess really into place. But again, I am jumping ahead, let me start at the beginning.

So, about six months ago I contact a friend of mine from my old neighborhood up north who's husband is the lead singer of an awesome rock cover band called Say Something. I asked if she thought they might play our wedding, but had a special request. I actually was trying to play two songs in the wedding myself. I knew it sounded like a total Bridezilla request, but was hoping they would entertain the thought. So we started chatting via email and eventually I got together with them for band practice. Thing was I was actually LEARNING to play the guitar at the same time. WHAAAA?! Yeah. Me? Crazy? Yes. So there it was, I was taking guitar lessons, voice lessons (to be on the safe side... who wants a singer's voice to crack at the wedding!?) and doing band practices all under the nose of my unsuspecting groom. Oh and then I was planning the rest of the wedding too.

If you remember from the previous post, when we first decided to get married we knew that the first thing that we wanted to have at our wedding was a photo booth and that that photo booth would be a TARDIS from Doctor Who. So MacLeod decided that he would construct the photo booth himself and had started to look at numerous tutorials online and created blue prints. He had plans on top of plans for this thing, it was impressive.

I was way over my head with the number of things that I was trying to do. No one would call me back for food for the wedding. I had a photographer but she repeatedly canceled our appointments so we really didn't have a photographer. The kids had what seemed to be five million things going on at school. My hair was standing on end.

To make matters worse MacLeod was slacking on actually starting the TARDIS. I was freaking out. I mean I was about to get Matt Smith on the phone and see if he could pull some strings for me. When I mean things were getting to the wire, I mean that paint was going on that sucker on February 22...we were married on the 23rd people.

So the TARDIS wasn't exactly being built to MY timeline, I was doing a million and one things, I couldn't get a caterer to commit to food for the wedding to save my life. We did have a venue and alcohol, so we thought worst case scenario we all come together grab some chips and drink? That was it, I called in the big guns(Becca Bee Events of Fredericksburg, Va). I found a great wedding coordinator to work with who led me to some great people and the best possible thing she could have done was take the entire load of the day of planning off of my shoulders. I am not sure if she grasped the concept at the time of what that would entail given the complexity of our wedding, but she did an amazing job.

So with my coordinator in my corner I was breathing again and back to work. I had a caterer, a wonderful local BBQ company AND an ice cream sundae bar! We discussed at length the need to make the foods gluten-free and he did clear with me that he in fact used not one marinade that contained gluten. I would NOT spend the days after my wedding in bed.

One of my best friends had secured a wonderful bartender for us, so that was done and the band was set, live music with a DJ on the side! We had a projector to play slides of all our silly photos that we have taken over the last few years (we have some very, very silly photos) for the entertainment of our guests.

Because of the gluten issues, I didn't want to mess around with the cake, I ran a bakery for years and I know, I know... "make your own wedding cake?!" Yes, I did. Again, I didn't want to sit in bed for days after my wedding. So I decided to make my own wedding cake, plus, kiddo had some specifics about flavor, as did MacLeod. So there, I made the wedding cake. Judge if you will, it was delicious.
You may wonder..."what the heck is it?" Well friends, you have figured out by this point, we are nerds. So we decided that our friend G1(Generation 1) Devestator would be attacking our wedding cake. I made Devestator out for white chocolate over about a week and a half, a labor of... umm, love (you could call it that.) Notice the background for the cake is the original poster for Transformers animated movie (you know you just sang the title in your head... I know you did) released in 1986.

So there it was the day of the wedding. Much to my oober stressful dismay, the TARDIS was NOT complete and MacLeod was still working on it whence I arrived back home from running errands with my mom on Friday afternoon (when said TARDIS was supposed to be AT the reception location). So, instead of simply delivering the wedding cake the morning of the wedding.... we were delivering the TARDIS, all its photo booth components AND the wedding cake. HOLY MOSES.

Then there was the issue of getting my guitar secretly to the reception site or with the wedding coordinator in time to give it to the band without MacLeod seeing.

I could have killed him.

Alas the TARDIS was indeed assembled and worked perfectly. Wow, did it ever work perfectly. There was a sign inside the blue box to help guests know how to use the iPad's app which airprinted to the Welcome Table. We had put a bin inside with costume wears for all the guests to be able to use, including a Hannibal Lector mask... who knew people would use that one the most? Huh, lol. At the Welcome Table was the Guest Book, each guest was to leave one strip for the book (one per page) and sign the page as their entry. The finished product was absolutely perfect!

So while we were getting the photos done at the church after the reception, all the guests arrived at the reception and used the photo booth and got to snack on little boxes of popcorn (for the crazy movie theme) tour the A. Smith Bowman Distillery and enjoy the cocktail hour.

When we arrived everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time, which made us feel like we did really pull it off. The reception then went on and the "wedding stuff" went under way, speeches and dances. We went over the ceremony game and awarded the prizes to the guests, first second and third places. Then I was called up by the band to give my groom my "wedding gift." All the months of preparation and sneaking around and the time was up. I sang and played "Head Over Feet" by Alanis Morrisette first, a love song, something I thought maybe people might expect from me... though honestly I don't think anyone expected me to perform. Then we went into "Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes, so much fun, I loved it. I think MacLeod was surprised, he certainly had no idea that I was going to be doing that for him. I told him that he trusts me entirely too much, well with all the "appointments" I had around town for the last few months.

The rest of the night I could finally breathed easy and we danced and enjoyed our family and friends. It was the happiest day that either of us have had in a long time.

Spring and New Beginnings Part 1: We Wed!

2013-04-05T11:27:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe it's been over a month already, I guess time flies in paradise? Eh... yeah, sure that's it. I think we just jumped right back into the day to day (not to mention an IEP month) hustle and bustle and then BAM... suddenly it's been a month!

Though our blog is about our lives living as parents in an Asperger's world and eating gluten-free, we would be remiss to not share something so momentous as our wedding, especially because it was something that we planned as a family. The kiddos were as much a part of all the silly plans as MacLeod and I were, so we want to share it with you. Believe me, it's something of a fun read... it certainly was something interesting to live through. We are breaking it into two posts, because, well... the reception was TOO much fun to not tell about it too! Plus, I, Mom worked on a rocking wedding gift for MacLeod and he worked on well...something big too!

DISCLAIMER

I apologize in advance if I offend you by making fun of things that you have in fact had in your wedding... these are simply things that we do not like because we are odd people and fancy an unusual type of humor, ya see?

I always thought it was somewhat silly when people had those darn cocktail napkins that said "Today I Marry My Best Friend" or jam jars that were labeled "Spread the Love".... eh, gag. Oh I think the worst was probably a box of mints labeled "Mint to Be." Wow.

MacLeod and I definitely were out of the box thinkers when we started talking about our wedding plans and honestly it really had little to do with wedding and more to do with a big party. Sure we knew we had to do the ceremony stuff and some of the traditional things like favors, but we had some big ideas that we wanted to have come to fruition. For the most part I think we really pulled it all together even though close to the end we both were pretty sure it was all going to fall apart.

Mom's 6th grade yearbook signature to MacLeod

MacLeod and I first met when we were in middle school and lived in the same neighborhood throughout our childhoods. We were in the same First Communion class at our Catholic Church (now both converted Baptists) and attended the same high school. He met his wife in high school, I met my husband during my service in the United States Marine Corps and that's where things went awry. Everything happens for a reason they say, right? We talk a lot about what things would have been like had we actually started our relationship in high school and not fifteen years later. Would we have been the same people? Of course not. Who knows what it would have been or not been. But at the end of the day we both know that we definitely are supposed to and were always meant to be together. It just took a little longer for us to find each other... the scenic route, if you will.

The things that made us realize that it was always one another were the things we talked about in our all night conversations and even things we still discover about each other. My first car a classic 1969 Ford Fairlane 500, he owned a 1953 Ford F100. We loved the same music and ridiculous humor and best of all got each other's terrible references to obscure movies and shows.

We were dating for about six months when we started to plan our wedding. It took us (MacLeod!) a year to get engaged (ahem) and then the actually wedding planning began. The first thing that we knew that we wanted to have was a photo booth and we knew that we wanted our photo booth to be none other than the TARDIS of the famed Doctor Who. We felt this was extremely befitting because 1. we love Doctor Who, not just MacLeod and I, but the kiddos too (see Power of Three Crepes) 2. It is the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. How can that not be a good omen, am I right? Our marriage is bound to last the test of time (And Relative Dimensions in Space....eh?) For a while we just reveled in how awesome that would be.

One day we went to a bbq festival and came across a distillery in our area, they directed us to tours they were just starting. A few days later we toured the facility and met the kindest master distiller known to man, Truman Cox. He said "someday" they were planning on having weddings in the distillery and quoted us a price. I don't think he planned on entertaining us so soon, but that is when everything came together.

Everything came together, yes...well, it was chaos, and insanity. But that was the start. We had out venue for sure. Two months later, we called the distillery back and talked to Truman and he agreed to rent the space to us, ever so skeptically given the crazy theme of our wedding. See my friends we decided that our wedding was indeed a theme wedding after all. Because MacLeod and I had been through hell and back with our previous marriages, custody issues and continued problems. Before we did the fancy party, the standard walk down the aisle, the cute little "mint for each other" crap. So our theme was "It's All Been Done Before", and we would walk down the aisle to THAT track by The Barenaked Ladies.

But that is jumping ahead a bit. Let me back up.

So the theme was "It's All Been Done Before." Our guests had lots of warning that this was not a "normal" wedding. We sent out the Save the Date which told them first what to expect a bit and directed them to our Facebook page for additional details if they were Facebook savy. Then the invitation came. The invitation included the actual invitation which on its own was the invite to the event and reception. Then there was a second explanation of our unusual wedding plan which went like this;

Dear friends and loved ones,

As you also probably know, both of us have been through this all before so we decided that we were not going to ever do it all the same again. In doing so, our invitation to be a guest at our wedding requires a little explanation.
Our ceremony will be something of a game, when you arrive you will receive a sheet and a pencil with spaces to fill in your answers. During the ceremony there will be some obvious, some not so obvious reference to movies that we love. You may see a guest or member of the wedding party dressed like a person from a movie or you may hear lines spoken
directly from some amazing flicks. You have to keep your eyes peeled and ears perked as you try to find all the answers to fill your sheet. To help you do this we are including a list of movies you should really consider familiarizing yourself with before the wedding- and don’t be a schmuck, join in!

When you arrive to the reception, your sheets will be collected from your tables and scored up and winners will be chosen! Yes, there will be a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize basket for our insane wedding game.
Is this a strange way to have a wedding? Yes! Will all of you agree with it or participate? Of course not! But “it’s all been done before…” so we are making this exactly the way we want it to be and we hope that you can have as much fun as we will.

Then it included the movie list that they were to "study" to be familiar with for the insane wedding game. It definitely was an unconventional way to have a wedding, but we wanted to have a good time, and we did the stuffy church bells already.

So the idea was that our wedding ceremony was to be completely scripted sort of like a movie, MacLeod, myself, our pastor and some members of the audience or wedding guests had parts to play in this script to make the wedding work. The guests however did not actually know their parts until they arrived because otherwise they would not have been able to participate in the game. We wanted everyone to be able to play the game if they could. So the only people that could not play the game were those who attended the rehearsal.

I created the script, and our pastor was amazing and great to work with. He was hilarious and we talked a lot before the wedding and a lot of it was pretty fluid and easy to sort of ad lib. There were some parts that we talked about before that we wanted to include after the shenanigans. Of course, we wanted to have our ceremony in our church because we wanted to honor our faith and our God, therefore we wanted our pastor to talk about our Holy union and the seriousness about it as well.

The ceremony begun with the guests seating. While the parents were seating a video to the theme music of Star Wars played with a tale of woe of Princess Mom and MacLeod Skywalker and their battles to escape their evil captors to find one another and ultimately eternal happiness. It played in a Star Wars crawl... this set the nerd theme of the entire wedding.

When the Star Wars crawl played out the Barenaked Ladies "It's All Been Done Before" started up, the bridal party started their way to the altar. The final pair in Monty Python style, one with coconuts, ala Patsy and the other galloping "on horseback." Finally the little ladies with the flowers headed down and then it was time for me and the kiddo, timing was everything so we had to wait for the music to do it and then ...."As you run down the aisle... wooo hooo hooo!!!" And we ran down the aisle, me and my little man, and he gave me away, my dad took my hand and then the ceremony proceeded into the script.

The first prize part, which was my dad's part that he proudly took was from The Godfather, MacLeod had to bend down and kiss his big ringed finger, it was hilarious. Then my father handed me over to MacLeod and took his seat.

This is already a marathon of a blog post so I won't write the entire ceremony out, but it was a great deal of fun, even the few parts we forgot from the original script, weren't missed. I think all said and done my favorite part, aside of the best ever last line of a wedding ever and yes, I have to actually write for you my dear friends:

Pastor: "Well.... I'm not great at farewells, so, uh, that'll do, pig" (Zombieland)

Mom:"That's the worst goodbye [we've] ever heard and you stole it from a movie." (Zombieland)

MacLeod Kisses Mom

Mom and MacLeod Exit to: Nine Inch Nails, We're In This Together

Gluten-Free, Casein-free Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas!!!

2013-03-04T12:59:00.000-05:00

So it's taken me a little bit to get this last cookie to you. Best for last? Yes.

I also had a wedding to finish planning and... well get married and all. More to come on that I promise! Then it will be back to business as usually, and I hope well much more than that. I have so much exciting things that will be popping up this year! But for right now, let me get back to the business of the Girl Scout Cookie, because we are still, in our house, in GSC high gear.

Since I already had my base cookie (remember the cookie used for the Tagalong here?) for the Samoa I didn't even need to think about that. But the topping, that was something to think about and I had been. A casein-free caramel-like topping. Back in my professional baking days I had a German chocolate cupcake that I used to topped with a vegan coconut pecan cream topping. So I got to thinking about it and thought that minus the pecans if I did it just right that it might work out nicely for the Samoas. So I got to experimenting with the sauce that I had used which is a base of brown sugar and coconut milk. Rather than boil it together I decided to cook the sugar first like you would cook caramel and that was the secret ticket because viola'! I made caramel sauce completely casein-free and it was absolutely amazing. MacLeod got home and I sampled some to him and he asked me where in the world I got casein-free caramel sauce because he knew I had been looking for some (I had this ice cream thing several weeks back and no safe toppings which made me angry) and I told him that I made it he was shocked!

(Since I have made this caramel sauce, I have been using it an SO many things... it's my new favorite thing!)

So then there is the final result of course which of course the kiddos need to try, the real critics. Well, they take the cookies in their lunch boxes to school and wave them in their classmates faces very obnoxiously and say "my moooom made these for me!" (I actually saw it one day, had I not had warm fuzzies about it I would have scolded them about it) So I think I have gotten the gold seal of approval from them. Additionally, I have shared them with others who are certified Girl Scout Cookie eaters and they say "omg, these are amazing," at least that is what it sounds like through the mouthful of cookies.

Gluten-Free, Casein-free Samoas

Shortbread Cookie:

1/2 C Spectrum Shortening

1 1/4 C Gluten-free Flour Blend

1/3 C sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Coconut Caramel Topping:

2 C Organic Raw Coconut

1 C Brown Sugar

3/4 C Coconut Milk

1/4 C rice milk

1 Tbs tapioca flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze:

10 Oz. Gluten-free, Casein-free chocolate

2 Tbs vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Blend together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.

3. In a stand mixer add shortening and sugar and blend on medium-high until creamy. Add extract and egg.

4. 1/2 C at a time, add flour mixture to mixer and blend after addition until all the flour has been added. The dough will begin to lump together which is what you want to happen.

5. Turn the dough back into the medium sized bowl and press it together and work it with your hands a bit just to get a uniform ball.

6. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, even over night is fine.

7. Cut two pieces of parchment paper, place one on your work space. Cut the dough in half (its easiest to work with a portion of the dough at one time)and flatten the dough just slightly and press the second piece of parchment on top of it.

8. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/4" thick. I actually put a ruler to it to measure this because I wanted to get a really nice thickness for the shortbread. A thin shortbread is too crisp. Try your hardest to keep a uniform thickness in the dough.

9. With a cutter (1.5" round) cut round circles (OR if you have a cutter with the center cut out )then cut out small circles out of the center of the circles (I used a pastry tip, the bottom opening)and place on parchment paper on a baking sheet.

10. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/4" thick. I actually put a ruler to it to measure this because I wanted to get a really nice thickness for the shortbread. A thin shortbread is too crisp. Try your hardest to keep a uniform thickness in the dough.

11. Bake for 10-12 mins. at 350 degrees.

12. Allow cookies to cool. Once they are cool from the oven, place the cookies into the freezer.

13. While the cookies are cooling start the sauce. In a small bowl combine the Coconut milk, rice milk and tapioca flour.

14. in a small sauce pan over med-high heat add brown sugar. Heat the brown sugar until it actually melts and starts to bubble. It's a tricky place because you don't want to burn it, but want to slightly caramelize it. So let it just start to boil.

15. Once the bubbling starts, add the milk and tapioca mixture and reduce the heat immediately to a simmer. Continue to stir vigorously until the temperature comes down and the boiling stops.

16. Heat a skillet to medium-high heat. Add the coconut and sauté it until you just start to smell the coconut and see it slightly browned. Remove it quickly so it doesn't burn.

17. Add vanilla and the coconut to the sauce and let it sit to cool.

18. Once the coconut topping has completely cooled removed frozen samoa bases from the freezer about 4 at a time.

19. Fill your icing bag, fit with a Ateco #806 tip or something comparable (in a pinch a Ziploc Freezer bag with a corner cut off can work) with the coconut filling.

20. Pipe the filling around the edge of the cookie one at a time. After each filling has been added, replace the cookie to the freezer to set.

21. In a bowl, melt your coating chocolate at 30 second intervals being careful not to burn the chocolate. Add the oil to make the mixture viscous.

22. Once all the cookies are frozen (this is really important or your topping is going to just fall into your glazing chocolate) pull out about four cookies at a time.

23. With a dipping device (they sell these do-dads in culinary stores... I just use a carving fork, as you can see) dip the cookie into the coating chocolate by simply placing it on top of the chocolate and lifting it out and letting it drip.

24. Place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with all the cookies until they are all done.

25. With a smaller icing bag, or again, Ziploc bag with the corner cut, drizzle some of the remaining chocolate across the cookies.

26. Place the cookies in the refrigerator to set for about an hour.

27. Enjoy!

Gluten-free and Casein-free Girl Scout Cookies: Tagalongs!

2013-02-07T11:06:00.000-05:00

Holy Virginian Peanuts Batman!

Ok... maybe that sounded better in my head than it actually looks on paper, but man do I love myself some peanuts and wouldn't ya know if Virginia, my home state, is known for peanuts. MacLeod on the other hand, though he loves peanuts like no other is always wary because his nephew has a deathly peanut allergy. So we tend to keep peanuts close to the cuff, not something we actually keep in the pantry all too often. But when you talk Girl Scout Cookies, you got to talk about Tagalongs.

I knew going into it that with this cookie the challenge was going to be the "shortbread" or "butter" cookie part of it. Additionally I knew that it was going to be the base for my final cookie as well, the Samoa, so I had to get it right. My friends, there are literally hundreds of recipes for these "shortbread" cookies on the interwebs out there and I tried TWELVE of them. I kid you not, I tried TWELVE. What was that you ask? Did the first few turn out like rocks? Indeed they did. Were some of them not even edible? Nope they certainly were not. Oh yes, indeed the gluten-free flours are expensive all get out! UGH! But I was on a mission I needed to get these darn cookies right. To my surprise I did manage to come up with one batch of cookies that I have slotted into my cookie recipe bank as "Danish 'butter' Cookies"... you know those ones that come in those blue tins with the coarse sugar on them?? OH so GOOD! Yes, I made some that taste just like that, but not shortbread.

Anyway, thirteenth time's a charm and I finally got my crumbly delicious shortbread cookie that I wanted. And they were ah-mazing, biting into them you would never be able to tell that these cookies were absent of any butter, its craziness! From there it was all about chilling, cutting and assembly.

Shortbread Cookie:

1/2 C Spectrum Shortening

1 1/4 C Gluten-free Flour Blend

1/3 C sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Peanut Butter Filling:

2 C Natural Creamy Peanut Butter

3/4 C confectioners sugar (this is to thicken and sweeten, if you want to forgo the sweetener all together)

Glaze:

10 oz. Casein-free Chocolate chips

2 Tbs vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Blend together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.

3. In a stand mixer add shortening and sugar and blend on medium-high until creamy. Add extract and egg.

4. 1/2 C at a time, add flour mixture to mixer and blend after addition until all the flour has been added. The dough will begin to lump together which is what you want to happen.

5. Turn the dough back into the medium sized bowl and press it together and work it with your hands a bit just to get a uniform ball. It may be a little sticky, that is fine when it is chilled it will come together.

6. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, even over night is fine.

7. Cut two pieces of parchment paper, place one on your work space. Cut the dough in quarters(its easiest to work with a portion of the dough at one time)and flatten the dough just slightly and press the second piece of parchment on top of it.

9. With a cutter (1.5" round) cut round circles and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

10. Bake for 10-12 mins. at 350 degrees. As soon as you pull the cookies out of the oven with a spoon or ladle (as I used) push a small indentation into the cookie to create a little more of a space for your peanut butter filling.

11. While the cookies are cooling, combine the peanut butter and sugar and blend vigorously, you can do it in a stand mixer, but by fork does just fine, just be sure to blend it well enough to get all the lumps out and get a smooth consistency. When you first add the sugar it will lump together but as you continue to break it back up and mix it will thin back out and become smooth again.

12. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large round tip (a Ateco 802 or similar) OR you can use a freezer bag with the corner cut off with an ok result as well. (the piping bag is just a little neater and cleaner, but improvisation works and makes for a budget friendly kitchen!) With bag filled, hold bag upright over cookies, and squeeze enough peanut butter to spread to the edge of the cookie. With on offset spatula or knife, spread the peanut butter to the edge of the cookie. If you don't like how the shape of the peanut butter looks (because that is what the shape is going to look like after they are chocolate coated) you can reshape a little after they are refrigerated).

13. Repeat with each cookie and place completed sheet of peanut buttered cookies in freezer (the freezer, kids, is a must. When these peanut butter cookies get dipped in the hot chocolate they NEED to be cold, do not skip this step) for at least 30 minutes.

14. Towards the end of the chilling, melt your coating chocolate at 30 second intervals being careful not to burn the chocolate.

15. If you want to reshape any peanut butter mounts, do so now or forever hold your peace. I am a perfectionist and can't help but reshape them.

Before the After the Chilling Chilling

(and

reshaping!)

16. When the cookies have chilled, using a fork place the cookies in the chocolate and immerse them in the chocolate then with the top of the cookie facing up, scoop the fork under the cookie and gently tap the cookie's side at the edge of the bowl to let any extra chocolate drip off.

17. Place cookies onto a parchment lines cookie sheet to set. Once all the cookies are on the sheet, refrigerate to help set the chocolate.

18. (Again.. unnecessary step, but I do it for looks)If you want the looks to look nice, you can simply take a paring knife to the edge to cut off any excess chocolate that puddle when you placed them after the chocolate dredge. But it's up to you, the taste great just the same!

19. Add a moderate amount of milk... or in my case a dairy-free substitute and enjoy!

Gluten-Free and Casein-Free Girl Scout Cookies! : Thin Mints

2013-02-04T11:23:00.000-05:00

In the far reaches of my mind I remember a very short period of time when I was a Brownie. Yes folks... I was a Brownie. I know, you think... why is that I shocker? Well my friends, your snarky host here these days is so incredibly anti-.... umm, well, everything. (slight overstatement... but let's just say I am not the model Girl Scout mom or PTA Volunteer of the month) I don't think that there was ever a time though however that I ever had the opportunity to manipulate adults in such a way that only a Girl Scouts can each year with mass amounts of cookies. I think my Brownie days lasted maybe 6 months at the most when our troop leader lost a girl or two at the camp out that my mom didn't allow me to attend and my career in the scouts came to an abrupt end. I moved on to sports. My kiddos however both love the scouts, so here we are.

So then we get to cookie sales. Well to backtrack a little, a few months ago kiddo had popcorn sales with the Boy Scouts. It was a HUGE deal for him because for him to go and do cold sales... well do I need to explain? HE HAS ASPERGERS! So we wrote up a script. We practiced said script. We worked on eye contact. We worked on body language. We worked on knocking on doors. We worked and worked and worked. Then we went out and started to do sales. He did so well and was so pleased with himself. I think I cried every time he got a sale, it was a little pathetic and the people buying the popcorn thought I was insane. I took pictures.... and they thought I was insane. It was such a huge moment for him and though we did have some times where he needed help, for the most part he did such an amazing job.

So the popcorn wasn't a gluten issue, we bought popcorn and ate it. But I knew when the time came for Lil sis to sell cookies we would be in trouble because Kiddo was going to ape about it. I made Lil Sis promise that she could eat Girl Scout cookies, but NOT at home. Then I had an idea, why not make some of my own and just have them ready to go so when those cookies were, as he says "taunting" him, I could pull out our own gluten and casein-free versions and say "POW, here you go!"

Before I embark on making any new thing in the kitchen, cake, cookie or whatever it may be- I start with some research online. I look to see what everyone else has done because honestly there is no sense in reinventing the wheel. So starting off by knowing what ratios of gluten-free flours to the eggs and fats have worked best for other bakers is a good way to start and its usually how I start. That being said, there just aren't that many bakers out there that are baking both gluten AND casein-free. So it's a little more challenging to find copycat recipes like Girl Scout cookies that are GFCF which is why I worked so incredibly hard at trying to perfect these.

Because the components of these cookies are rather intricate and the steps pretty long, I am not including them all on one post, which I had originally intended to. Rather, I am breaking them up into three posts, the first being Thin Mints, Second Tagalongs and the last Samoas. Thin Mints are pretty straight forward, but the Tagalongs and Samoas are going to be chock full of descriptions and lots and lots of pictures for your viewing pleasures. Again, I was writing up these recipes and while I had the intent of just posting the recipes and shooting them out to you, I realized that it wouldn't serve you to well if you couldn't actually technically make them. So I decided to make them AGAIN and take lots of pictures to be able to offer you a visual, something that I know would help me. I have been teasing my Facebook friends for weeks now with pictures of these cookies, and my greatest apologies that the recopies have been less than quick to release, but I assure you that I only want to offer you my best!

So without further adieu... Thin Mints....

Thin Mints were the first and by far the easiest, the fats took very easily and the dough was very easy to manipulate and change to substitute out butter for palm oil instead. I didn't use coconut oil, which is usually my first choice in baking because during the holidays I did get a number of people ask if I had coconut in my cookies, which is fine, but I don't want to have a coconutty flavor in the thin mint. I attempted the dough twice for the Thin Mint and felt pretty happy with it. I did adapt my recipe from Nicole Hunn at Gluten Free on a Shoe String, a great blogger and author in the gluten-free world.

Thin Mints

adapted from Nicole Hunn @Glutenfree on a Shoestring

5 Tbs Spectrum Shortening

1/2 sugar

1/2 C casein-free semi-sweet chocolate chips (We use Enjoy Life)

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

1 C Gluten-free flour blend

1/2 C cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Glaze:

10 oz. Casein-free Semi-sweet chocolate

3 Tbs. palm oil

1 tsp Peppermint Extract

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Blend together flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a medium sized bowl.

3. In a stand mixer add shortening and sugar and blend on medium-high until creamy. Add extract.

4. 1/2 C at a time, add flour mixture to mixer and blend after addition until all the flour has been added. The dough will begin to lump together which is what you want to happen.

5. Turn the dough back into the medium sized bowl and press it together and work it with your hands a bit just to get a uniform ball.

6. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, even over night is fine.

8. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thickness. No thicker though or you won't have the crispness you want for the "thin" part of the Thin Mints. Try your hardest to keep a uniform thickness in the dough.

9. With a cutter (1.5" round) cut round circles and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

10. Bake for 10-12 mins. at 300 degrees.

11. While cookies are cooling, melt chocolate in a bowl. When using the microwave just be sure to only melt at 30 second intervals and then blend. If you go longer the chocolate will burn. Start with 30 second, mix until the heat has come down and if there are still bits unmelted, heat another 30 seconds and blend again until the heat has come down again. Add the oil and extract to this the mixture to be able to dip the cookies.

12. When the cookies have chilled, using a fork place the cookies in the chocolate and immerse them in the chocolate then with the top of the cookie facing up, scoop the fork under the cookie and gently tap the cookie's side at the edge of the bowl to let any extra chocolate drip off.

13. Place cookies onto a parchment lines cookie sheet to set. Once all the cookies are on the sheet, refrigerate to help set the chocolate.

14. (a unnecessary step, but I do it for looks)If you want the looks to look nice, you can simply take a paring knife to the edge to cut off any excess chocolate that puddle when you placed them after the chocolate dredge. But it's up to you, the taste great just the same!

Power of Three Crepes, Gluten-Free and Casein-Free

2013-01-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

One Year is Almost Upon Us!

We are coming ever so close to our one year Bloggaversary! Wow, an entire year since we started this blog. I think for me it calls for a number of things.

Facelift! Well not for me... but for the blog. I need to dive in an d give her a little attention that she so deperately needs. Its been a rough year for us and through all the changes in our home, we have been a bit neglectful. So its facelift time MofM!
Well... we must more than anything else actually write more frequently! We have stores and stores of recipes that haven't made it to your hot little hands yet! (well hot... eyes?... screens?, whatever)
Link to Facebook! We have so much good stuff going on over at our Facebook page and followers on our Facebook page who don't follow the blog and vice versa! Link time folks! We are gonna make that happen.
FIX TIME! I have looked back on some of my recipes and thought, hmm.. Mom, what in the piggies name were you thinking when you posted that? I have a few that have grammar errors some that are just missing ingredients, not because I didn't use them when cooking, but I just didn't post it!! AH! So I need to run a fine tooth comb over the recipe box.

So coming back to the recipes, we have been cooking up a storm lately. The funny thing is that we have these tried and true recipes in our home kitchen that every time I make them I think that I have already posted them... then I look at the blog and realize that I haven't. I think that there may have been one teeny aspect that I may have not been happy with and wanted to try again or something along those lines. I am if nothing else, MacLeod can attest to this, my absolute worst critic. But if I don't think something is FATASTIC, I just won't let it leave my kitchen and certainly won't share the recipe.

One recipe I have been using for a long while now that I have altered here and there and come back to a lovely heart warming delicious and AH-mazing result is this crepe recipe. To me crepes always seemed like something extra special, like going out for a special brunch with mimosa kinda special. Years ago when MacLeod and I were first dating, pre-gluten-free days, we ran into this food cart in our local farmer's market, a crepe food cart! I was head over heels in love with them. From that day on I knew I needed to learn how to make crepes.

Then gluten went bye bye and so did crepes... or did they? I tried lots of recipes on the interwebs that claimed the fame of "super easy and delicous" and "3 ingredient" which were so blech. Really what you have to go back to are the mechanics of the crepe as it is done in the gluten-full way... only... gluten-FREE. I took the methods learned via The Gluten Free Girl, a gluten-free all-star and my previous crepe making expereince which served me well.

Because we are working towards a completely gluten-free AND casien-free kitchen, these crepes are made with no gluten and no dairy products at all and I got to tell you the resulting crepe is amazing. I don't think you miss the butter, but that is just my humble opinion. (While writing this entry I was amused to find that MacLeod was actually disappointed to discover that I "deceived" him with the absense of butter in the crepes) I recently have had a love affair with amaranth and millet for all thier amazing nuttiness and deliciousness they add not to mention nutritional greatness. So in this recipe I have added amarnth flour to the crepes and just love them. for a little extra about this wonderful flour....

Generally harvested from seeds, amaranth is an excellent source of protein, unlike many other grains. Like other grains it provides essential amino acids but the seeds of the Amaranthus species specifically can provide 30% more protein than rice, sorghum and rye making it a protein powerhouse in the grain department. Wiki That, and of course it tastes wonderful in baking!

Power of Three Crepes (as kiddos called them... via Doctor Who, Season 7)

Gluten-free, Casein-Free Crepes

1 Cup Gluten-free flour blend
1/2 C amarnth flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 3/4 C water
Cooking Spray

1. Combine flours and salt.
2. In a small beat the eggs lightly, then add to the flour blend and begin to combine.
3. Slowly start to add water to the flour mixture and blend. The mixture will be thin, which is what a crepe mixture needs to be.
4. With a mesh strainer, strain the mixture into another bowl to strain all the lumps out of the mix.
5. Let the crepe mix sit for 10-15 minutes while you finish preparing all the fillings that you want to use.
6. Heat your pan on medium-high heat and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
7. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter on the pan and swirl the batter over the pan to coat it thinly. (if you have trouble figuring out how to do this, there are a few tutorials on youtube that can help you out with a visual). Allow the crepe to cook for just a few minutes and with a spatual just lift the side slightly to check that its browned a bit.
8. You can either use your spatula to flip your crepe or you can use the handle of your pan to move your pan to flip your crepe over (if your really, really brave!... again, I recommend youtube for tutorials if you don't know already... because you can learn ANYTHING on youtube!)
9. Allow the other side to cook just another 30 second more or so and viola, crepe is done. Move to a plate and keep in a warm oven. Pile the crepes onto the plate in a warm oven while you complete them, until assembly.
10. To assembly, you can be creative about how you want to fill them. Below we have included some of our favorites!

Fillings:

Blueberry Filling:

1 C frozen wild blueberries (we use Wyman's Frozen Blueberries)
1/4 coconut palm sugar
1 Tbs water
1 tsp tapioca flour

Simmer blueberries and sugar for approximately 25 minutes or until the berries are cooked down and the liquid is dark in color. The liquid should still be thin. Add tapica flour to water and mix to combine then add to simmering berries. Allow to simmer for another 5 minutes to thicken. Remove from heat.

Strawberry Delights:

2 C Fresh Strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 banana, sliced
1/2 C full fat coconut milk (canned, refrigerated)
1/4 C confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 C dark chocolate, dairy-free (we use Enjoy Life), melted

In a stand mixer, with a whisk attachment, whisk together chilled coconut milk, confectioners sugar and vanilla. If the mixture is too thin, add more sugar by the tablespoon to thicken to your desired consistency. Spoon about half the mixture into a bowl and add the melted chocolate and blend well.The remaining amount will be used to garnish and use as whipped cream.

Piggies in a Blanket:

Any combination of breakfast meats, diced
Non-dairy cheese

Toss the meats and cheese together in a bowl prior to crepe assembly.

Busy Days and Catching Up

2013-01-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

Its been a while since I have been back and McLeod owes an entry here, he swears that he will be visiting soon for the long awaited BAAACON Pancakes, the new breakfast favorite in our house. If it's not a bacon pancake, it's a boring pancake.

I digress....

We are in the midst of an extraordinarily busy and hectic time in our lives right now which has left us slightly neglectful, but not purposefully. McLeod and I, as we have mentioned before are finally getting married at the end of February. So we are in the final month of intense wedding planning, which is... complicated. Its been a while since the first foray into wedding planning and maybe I wasn't that "into" it when I married the first time... perhaps it was the person? I dunno, but this has been something of an ordeal to get planned. Maybe its just weddings in general are insane to plan... why on earth do people do this to themselves? I liken it to water torture... slow and very painful. But I think that is just part of me... I don't really like to go shopping, I dislike showers of any king unless it entails cleaning of the body.

Then there is the fact that kiddo has somewhat, well hit a wall in therapy and such. We are in the process of finding help help stabilize him. But even there we have been running into problem after problem with practices refusing care because he has Medicaid as a secondary insurance, even though they do accept our private insurance. Its ever maddening and pushing me closer to snapping in one of these offices when I can't get my kiddo the help he needs to feel better.

We are in the process of reworking his IEP at school, currently awaiting the evals for a number of specials to see what we can do to get services going at school to help him. Socially, school is an increasing challenge for him, each day seems like another horrible story about some interaction he has had with a kid he hates. We hope that we can get some support for social skills at school for him as well with the IEP revamp.

He has been so moody and difficult, but we have really been trying our hardest. Fore instances, we thought the Pinewood Derby would be a great time, tons of family fun! Yes! .... or no. Well, he had been talking about it for about a month and then we started to work on the car and he quickly lost interest. McLeod and I finished the car and we were ready to go by race time. In the morning we were ready to go and kiddo was excited. But when the races started and he didn't win each race he started to fall apart, meltdown time started up and by the time we left he was full blown meltdown. It was bad. I really wanted to not be angry about it all, but the car was really nice even if it didn't win all the races. All the other boys, wether they won or lost were having a great time and I was trying my hardest to remind myself that kiddo is not like each and every one of those boys, he is kiddo.

To just keep things interesting, and keep Mom on her toes, kiddo's feeding tube was removed- YAY!!!! It had been 8 years in the making! I will be writing up a more detailed entry about eating and diet about how we got here, but about this week- complications? Yes, the hole, 80% of the time heals up right on its own within 24-48 hours. Wouldn't ya know that kiddo would fall into the 20%. So we are now on a wait to get him scheduled for surgery to have the hole closed, UGH! He is miserably unhappy about it and in the meantime the hole leaks every time he eats or drinks. It sucks.

So that is what is going on!

Tomorrow.... CREPES!!!

....then... yes, Girl Scout Cookie copycats!!!

In Memorium; Missed Chances

2013-01-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

It's 12:35am and I realize that there is nothing that is getting me to sleep, so I should go ahead and write.

My service uniform is pressed and ready for the morning, I am not. I realized as I lay staring at the ceiling that the person that I am going to say goodbye to for the last time was a friend that I have crossed paths half a dozen times over the last very hard years of my life. The first was when I thought that someone was trying to break into the house that I was renting when I first separated from my now ex-husband and called the police. The very calm and kind dispatcher directed me to take both my children into one bedroom and wait for the officers to arrive. I did so with a baseball bat in hand. She remained on the phone with me and let me know when the rap at the door was them. To my surprise when I pulled open the door the first serious faced officer quickly cleared into a very familiar smile, one very unmistakable one that I remembered very well, and I said "Sgt. Yung?" and he said "Paz?" We both laughed and he said "well, it's Officer Yung now." He went on to continue the job at hand and found no actual disturbance, though I am certain there had been at some point. We both agreed that maybe it was best if my shepherd took up residence in my backyard from then on, which he did and I had no issues from then on. He left me his phone number to call him and meet up with him and his wife again, which we had hung out together in our Marine Corps days years before and I said I would. He went on his way and I said goodnight.

I didn't call him, I was embarrassed at where I was in my life, my problems, my drama. I hated talking about it to people. If I didn't have to run into people and explain how terrible things were, I didn't. So I didn't call him back.

A year later I was back in court dealing with more court issues with my ex, custody or visitation or some issue related to it. The hearing time had been delayed so I had to wait. As I waited, I walked towards the bathrooms and saw all the county police corralled waiting for court to begin. And who did I see, but my old friend again Officer Yung! I jabbed at him and asked what trouble he was getting himself into and we chatted about why I was there, more ex-husband issues and how his family was doing. Three children now and his wife had joined the force! Just then he was called into court and that ended our chat.

The following year I ran into Officer Yung, Chris, again at court... as you can see my life is riddled with court, and we chatted again. I never did call him though he did tell me to. I think I just had always assumed that I would just see him again the next time I was there, I mean I am always there.

There are times when I think God gives a sign to stop and look at people who are there and in our lives because there are few opportunities that you are given and once they are gone, they are gone. I cannot look back and say with regret I should have called him back and made those connections because that time has passed. I am thankful that I was able to serve under him in the United States Marine Corps and as a friend got to experience what an incredible person he was. Chris served our country in the United States Marine Corps, he was an Officer serving our local commity proudly, a father of three beautiful children, a devoted husband, a brother and friend to countless people. He will be missed. Rest In peace.

Meltdowns, Rages and Moving Forward

2013-01-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

The meltdown. Its something that no parent of a child on the spectrum is alien to and we certainly are not immune to them. Kiddo has a number of meltdown triggers, social triggers like kids bugging him or calling him names or having to do a presentation in front of the class or sensory triggers like the seams of his socks or a particularly thick emblem on a shirt. His biggest meltdown trigger by far is transitions. Since the holiday season is chock full of changes in schedules, visits to and from family that otherwise don't usually happen and many other changes, we seem to live in a state of holiday meltdown chaos.

Lately, and I feel like it shouldn't surprise me, but it still does, I have been noticing the after effect of the meltdown. I have heard from other parents of kids on the spectrum and read things to the same effect so I know it's not just so weird kiddo thing. He rages during his meltdown and says pretty horrendous things. Sometimes I try to reason with him because he is ten now and very intelligent and knows what, for the most part, he is saying, what it means and how impacts a person. Sometimes those things are directed towards the person who triggered the meltdown if there is a social component and its in the realm of "I hope they get hit by a car...etc." it goes on from there and can get pretty dark and graphic. I am used to it, but in mixed company it can be shocking and even frightening to hear a young boy say such things. Sometimes he tries and succeeds breaking things all in his rage. I don't excuse the behavior but do try to get him somewhere else where he is isolated and can't hurt anyone or anything including himself. At home he has his room in other settings it can be a little more challenging.

Such was the occasion during the holidays and some family got to really hear some of the more "colorful" things that he has to say about people when he is in full meltdown. I get really nervous about allowing him to be around others when I know he isn't calm and in control of him emotions and is just letting things fly. I get so nervous that I will be judged because other than his behavior he appears to be a normal child and so many people still see this "on the spectrum" stuff as speculative. I know in my bubble that we all know that kiddo has high functioning autism and that is the reason for all this, but if you just walk in off the street and see this kid he just seems like an angry child who is gonna grow up to mow down college kids on some university campus.

I guess that's the whole thing about parenting though, typical or special needs, at some point weather with your own family or outsiders, you will be judged. I think what surprised me this time around was that ten years down the line I just assumed that my skin was thick enough to not care anymore, guess not.

So after the meltdown subsided and the party who was present to the meltdown and shocked by the things kiddo had to say and do was standing by, I told kiddo " maybe you should go say your sorry for saying all those horrible things in front of him, huh?" Kiddos response was "what? What things? When, I don't remember saying bad things." I pressed a little more but then let it go. It came back to me, kiddo blacks out when he is raging. He remembers nothing that he says or does. It's not unique to him, I have heard other kids on the spectrum do the same.

Later we did discuss the incident again and I addressed it like this:

"Kiddo, remember when you were riding in the car into the city with the family and you were really angry?"
"No"
"Ok, lets go back a little. Do you remember being back at Grandma's house?"
"Yes."
"Good. Remember how we were talking about how you were feeling so mad about being with MacLeod's kids and you didn't want to go anywhere?"
"Yes."
"Great, you remember when you put your jacket on and we walked outside and got into the car with Grandma?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember driving up to the city after that?"
"No."

This is the progression that I use to see where he loses things and goes into overload. This particular incident I wasn't physically with him, which I really regret because I couldn't really monitor him and see where he lost it. I felt completely comfortable with him being in the hands of my mother, I know she knows how to talk to him and he responds to her. But he was so amped up about this situation that he completely blacked out in his rage and hate to have him in a situation like that without me present. After we had our discussion and figured out exactly where he blacked out, I went on to discuss with him about how we are going to be moving on with some new therapy and testing to help him work through these rage moments so that he doesn't get to the point that he is blacking out during his meltdowns and maybe and hopefully minimizing the meltdowns altogether. He agreed that he was angry a great deal of the time and he wasn't happy about how he felt.

So the holiday time was a big eye opener for us not just in a watchful eye of others on us, but also in getting us to move towards a place where we need to be to get to the right people for kiddo. I think we have resisted because we have known that it was a lot for him to take on, but its time to get him the help he needs now.

Holiday Scheduling and Special Needs

2012-12-29T14:29:00.000-05:00

Hap-happiest Time of the Year!

It had been a very long time coming, Christmastime. It was inevitable. The time of year where everything becomes haywire, like the summer, schedules fly out the windows and through your very best intentions nothing goes according to anything close to what you had planned.

This year MacLeod's kiddos would be coming for Christmas for the first time ever to stay with us. Last year when we both talked about it we smiled and thought how amazing it would be to have our family complete, one whole unite. Somewhere along the along the line... I think it was the memorable summer vacation trip we all took together and the various new versions of kiddo's Apsie meltdowns I was party to, the magical feelings wore off.

For me, the holidays are by far my favorite time of the year and it starts with our absolutely bizarre obsession with Halloween and rolls right into Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year it doesn't end ringing in the New Year because we are finally celebrating our actual wedding in February! We are super excited and it gives us the opportunity to extend the, err, magic of the holidays.

Well, except they have been a little less than magical.

I also don't want you to think that this was all an issue of MacLeod's kids, because it wasn't, it was EVERYTHING. See, MacLeod, my dear, my love, is not a planner. So he sort of fails to tell me what certain things are going on when it has to do with when things are going on and where people are going to be and when. My family on the other hand... well, my family plans things out very carefully especially since we had family visiting from overseas. I think my favorite (and I use that with ever so much sarcasm) line of the Christmas Eve car ride was "I was pretty sure I told you about it." Umm, no.

So...Kiddo, wow. Well, this blog is about us living with Asperger's... but wait can it still be that since Asperger's no longer exists? What? That is a discussion for another blog entry and I know I am behind the ball on that one, alas... another day. So, kiddo and the holidays. We have had to do hoards of prep work to get him ready for the holidays which is why I could have KILLED MacLeod when he sprung things on me or changed things around at the last minute. Kiddo has a very hard time dealing with MacLeod's kiddo in his living space because of past events. For starters they are simply said, polar opposites, we say that my kiddo is fire and MacLeod's is the fuel. Additionally during previous visits his toys, legos (he peseverates deeply on his legos) and other personal items have been broken or gone missing or damaged. This is a huge problem for him. So in therapy the few weeks leading up to the visit from MacLeod's kids, mind you his therapist was sitting awake at night worried as much as I was, we made plans to deadbolt his bedroom closet and put all his toys in there and anything that was broken or lost or damaged I promised would be replaced. It only made him feel slightly better and some may think that is a ridiculous way to approach it but the amount of anxiety that he had about the coming visit was so high, I just didn't know what else to do. MacLeod said one day in response to the locking of the closet "can't we put it on the top of a shelf where they can't reach?" Umm, hon' they aren't toddlers anymore, that will not work.

We had a few moments with all the kiddos together a particular book light that was broken and the meltdown that followed which I did remind him loudly twice that it would be replaced and it quelled the fury. The next day and a half was filled with "when will we get a new book light?" until the book light was indeed replaced, but it was the only casualty of the actual trip.

The one thing that supremely surprised me and something that I will attribute to work with his amazing therapist was Christmas Day. Leading up to Christmas Day, his interactions, just hours at a time with MacLeod's kids had been at best "ok", at worst of extreme meltdown property. On Christmas morning kiddo walked up to me as I was getting my breakfast casserole put together to get into the oven before MacLeod got back with his kiddos (who were staying up north about 30 minutes from out of state) and before MacLeod's parents arrived. He sat down on the stool by the counter and said "mom, (*big sigh*)remember in therapy we said if I did really good with [MacLeod's kiddo] that I could get Angry Bird's Star War's on the iPad?" I said "yes, I do, but it hasn't been so great, has it?" He said "yeah, I know. But maybe if I am good today, do you think maybe I could still get it?" He looked at me and smiled. Well, geez, who can resist that? Of course I said yes. "If you can work really well with him today and not fight or be really mean or nasty, then yes, I think I can do that, ok?" He nodded and walked off with that little smirk on his face like he just got one over on me.

He sat on the floor for the next 30 minutes starting his new Lego set and I heard him actually say "Maybe [MacLeod's kiddo] can help me with this set when he gets here!" What?! Is this the twilight zone? Nope, when MacLeod arrived, Kiddo actually started to engage with MacLeod's kiddos and was nice! It didn't last the entire day, but he was actually trying very hard. I mean its only so long that Fire and Ice can interact properly, but it went really well. I could not have been prouder of him.

As it turned out in the end, all of our preparations were for not, because complications on the other end of the spectrum (ha! very punny!) meaning MacLeod's ex, made it so that his kiddo's only ever step foot in our home once. We did have lovely beds for them set up and all and made TONS of preparations for them to stay with us, but for kiddo it was a sigh of relief.

We still have New Years to go... as my friend said the other day it's been a December to remember, to which I replied... or forget :)

Merry Christmas... and a Happy New Year!!!

A Triumpant Return? Yes!

2012-12-17T11:42:00.000-05:00

Over the last several months things have been increasingly hectic and I have meddled with the thought of just shutting down this blog all together. We have had so much going on with the kids and at home that I didn't think that I could possibly give as much to the blog as I really should to keep it going the way it ought to.

A few weeks ago I was at church and my wonderful pastor was doing a sermon about time and managing your time and money. It doesn't sound so much like a sermon, but it was great. See, you only are going to put your time and your money in places that are ever so important to you and you are going to stretch it as far as it needs to go if it is that important to you.

Like the church and making tithes and offerings, you will make a commitment to give to the church because what you have is only what the Lord allows you to have, the time I have is what God gives me and I do feel like this blog is something that I can give back to others. So, with that, we will continue to blog as best as we can and we do love to do it! I hope that wasn't too preachy... if it was, well my friend, find another blog, lol!

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Bundt Swirl

2012-10-30T15:55:00.000-04:00

October often brings surprises in weather in our area. One week it could be 80 degrees, the next it plummets down to the 30's. This past weekend we got the word that hurricane Sandy was going to be hitting the coast. So the hunkering down began which for us simply meant that we just made sure that we had toilet paper. Other than that, we are usually well stocked. So a favorite pastime for us is to take a trip to the local store to watch the frantic shoppers scour for bottled water and generators. Its mad and a little funny. You'd think there was an impending apocalypse. Its a behavior that can be observed whenever the weatherman predicts a wind gust over 60 miles per hour or a accumulation of snow over 5 inches in our area. So far, only one or two such occasions have actually proved to cause anything remotely close to a panic-like scenario in the last ten years and we pulled through just fine with our stock pile of toilet paper.

In my area we are also guilty of huge overreactions to the predicted weather. So with the hurricane coming everyone, government, school systems, EVERYTHING was closed prematurely. Better safe than sorry, and I don't wish harm on anyone nor do I tempt fate. I pray that things continue to remain calm (because as we sit it is smooth sailing) and pray that those who are closer to harms way stay safe. So while the kiddos and I are at home it gives us the opportunity to do something that I love to do in the fall- bake!

I have been thinking long and hard about what I want to do with the lovely little pie pumpkins that have been sitting patiently on my bookshelf for the last week. I bought them at the farmers market and sat them there waiting to see what inspiration would come to me. I made apple pies and thought, hmm, maybe pumpkin pie? I kind of wait until November for pumpkin pie, a strange but normal fall behavior for me. So I started poking around on Facebook and saw a picture of a Bundt pan! Yes, that is it!!! I will make a pumpkin Bundt cake! So while I was still on Facebook I posted a status to some friends about baking in prep for this now coined "Frankenstorm" and a friend suggested doing something with chocolate chips or a chocolate swirl. Oh my, yes... did that ever get my mind and my taste buds working. Then it occurred to me that I had a half bowl of unused non-dairy chocolate ganache in the fridge! (you can't let that go to waste!) Oh.. that was it, it was on!

This cake is super moist and delish, kiddo who hates anything pumpkin gobbled it up (I haven't told him it has pumpkin in it yet). Its great for dessert or with some coffee and also perfect for wrapping up for the bake sale or to thank people for giving MacLeod a ride to work last week. Ha! (Yes.. his co-workers love it too)

So, today we will move on to.... homemade Twinkies! (kiddo has been harassing me for months!!!) So... maybe tomorrow folks... we will see how they come out!

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Ganche Bundt Swirl

Cake

2 C Gluten-free Flour Blend

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 ground cinnamon

1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves

3 Large Eggs

1 1/2 C Coconut Palm Sugar

1/2 Coconut Oil

2 C cooked pumpkin (preferably fresh)

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Chocolate Swirl

1 C 60% Dark Ghirardelli Baking Chips

3/4 C soy milk (or other non dairy milk)

1. Place chocolate chips in a small glass or other heat proof bowl. In a small sauce pan heat the milk until it is hot but before it reaches a boil. Pour milk over the chocolate chips and stir to blend until the chips completely melt. The mixture will continue to thicken as the chocolate cools and sets.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. Spray a Bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray.

4. Sift dry ingredients (gluten-free flour blend, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves) and set aside.

5. In the bowl of a stand mixer add the eggs, with the whisk attachment beat on medium-high until foamy. Using the paddle attachment add the sugar, oil, pumpkin and vanilla and mix on medium for about a minute to a minute and a half until well blended.

6. Add the dry ingredients about a 1/2 cup at a time until it is completely incorporated. Scraped the sides of the bowl and mix on medium for another 30 seconds to be sure everything is well mixed.

7. Using an ice cream scoop or measuring cup, scoop the batter into the Bundt pan leaving half the batter remaining. Tap the pan to settle it in the pan leveling it.

8. Grab the bowl of chocolate ganache and stir it, using a spoon, drizzle a heavy layer of chocolate over the pumpkin batter you just put down. Again, tap the Bundt pan to settle it.

9. Add remaining batter to the pan evenly and again, tap to settle the pan. Lastly, add one last smaller drizzle of chocolate to the top of the pumpkin batter.

10. To create the swirl through the pumpkin Bundt, take a knife and run it through only twice around the pan in the batter. It will swirl the chocolate and pumpkin but not muddle it.

Free and Simple Apple Pie (Dairy-free and Gluten-free)

2012-10-19T08:51:00.001-04:00

New Adventures in Baking... the Fall!

This season marks almost one full year since we have gone completely gluten-free in our household and while we will do a little celebrating and such in later postings and talking about our journey so far, we do want to write about seasonal baking. Baking is a huge part of my life, having been a professional baker in my previous life, so going gluten-free this year felt somewhat like starting over in the baking world. I have learned a great deal about new ingredients and how they work or in many cases, do not work together. Fall however brings forth a number of many new recipes that I have yet to attempt and am excited to try.

I have mentioned before, I know, that Fall is my hands down, bar none, favorite time of the year. I am a North Eastern chick, Virginia to be exact- born and raised. I love everything that Virginia has to offer (I am overstating there, I despise the 100% humidity of the summer, yuck... aside of that, everything) but the fall, is the best. On the best years the fall foliage is something that people from across the country travel to this area to see. The Shenandoah Mountains and ranges, all part of the Appalachian, transform into such an amazing palette of majestic colors. Just sitting outside on my deck, I can close my eyes and listen to the breeze blow through the drying leaves and smell the crisp air for hours in absolute peace... of course if there was time for that, ha! I do make some time to enjoy this time of year, because it truly is where I think I store my Zen for the rest of the year and it is also my absolutely favorite time for activities and baking!

Years ago when my kiddos were just wee little ankle-biters, one of my best friends invited me with her parents to go apple picking, something I had never done before. The kids and I had the times of our lives and the pictures were gorgeous. I also never knew how amazing an apple was freshly pick from an apple tree! The following years, we continued the tradition, through good times and bad no matter what, I took the kiddos apple picking. Each year we came home with a bushel of apples to make special treats that filled not only our stomachs but also our hearts and eased our minds. The smells of the wonderful fall spices that filled the house just set my mind at ease even at the most challenging times. It couldn't make me happier to see the kiddos faces when they came home from school to spy a fresh apple pie sitting on the kitchen counter for them for dessert.

This year we discovered that MacLeod had never been apple picking. We aren't sure what happened last year, but we were certain that this year he would definitely be climbing trees, grabbing fruit and buying freshly caramel dipped apples and possibly be getting stung by a bee or two. And so we embarked on our apple picking and had a wonderful time, this time as a whole family, finally.

I have read a TON regarding variations on crusts and there are SO many ways you can go. There are very few options on dairy free crusts though and dairy unfortunately has become an increasing problem in my unruly gut. So I have spent the last (post-less!) few weeks experimenting with some oils without having to try to rely on the pastry standby of lard or fat. I love coconut oil and really wanted to try to see how I could use it so tried it on the first attempt and it worked well. I tried a few other variations, but came back to the coconut oil, it just gave a super nice crisp and flaky crust. I ended up springing off of a Joy of Baking basic recipe for tart crust that used confectioners for the sweetness in the crust and it really balanced well with the coconut. It comes together very easy, if it crumbles you just squish it back together again and re-roll it or even just press it into your pan to the edges. No gluten so you cannot possibly over work it. It comes together fast and it truly is easy. My family LOVES it, I hope you do too.

Free and Simple Apple Pie (Gluten-free and Dairy-free)

Filling:
8 C Granny Smith Apples (or other variety tart apple) cut into wedges
1 C Coconut palm sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2tsp Vanilla extract
1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 Tbs corn starch (potato starch works as well)
1 1/4 c flour
1/3 c conf sugar
1/2 c coconut oil
plus 1/2 C tapioca starch for dusting
Filling:
1. Over medium heat add apples and spices to a sauce pan. Cook apple wedges for about 5 minutes over medium heat until the apples are just tender enough to pierce then reduce to a simmer.
2. Remove about 1/4 cup of liquid from the pan and whisk in the corn starch. Add the corn starch mixture to the pan and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the filling has thickened.
3. Remove from heat, cover and set aside.

Crust:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Chill the coconut oil in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, just until its firm but not too solid.
3. In a mixing bowl, sift the flour and powdered sugar and whisk together.
4. Remove the coconut oil from the refrigerator and cut it into pieces. Add the pieces to the flour and sugar mixture. With a fork or pastry blender, cut the oil into the flour mixture and continue to blend until the mixture comes together. When there is no more flour left, you can start to press the mixture together with your hands.
5. With a piece of parchment paper on your rolling surface, generously sprinkle enough tapioca flour to begin to roll the dough. Coat the rolling pin with flour before you roll. Roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thickness.
6. Gently flip over the parchment paper onto the pie plate and then peel back the parchment paper. If it cracks or tears at all, simply press it back together and smooth it back out again.
7. With a fork, poke at least 6 holes in the bottom of the pie plate and around the edges.
8. Bake the pie shell for 10 minutes, unfilled and remove from the oven.

Complete:

While the pie shell is still HOT, fill the shell and return it back to the oven and continue to bake the pie for an additional 40 minutes. Remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for 30 minutes before cutting to let the filling set.

Enjoy!

Creamy Chicken Corn Chowder

2012-10-02T10:53:00.001-04:00

"I think I'll have soup today....."

We are absolute sci-fi nerds in our home from the top- MacLeod to the very bottom, Lil Sis. We all share the same obsessions for the geek fanciful worlds that we live and relive via the television. We take trips through space and time unblinking if at all possible in a spacious blue box, or sometimes hitchhiking with the aid of our trusty towels. Occasionally we board the rusty but reliable vessel that takes us on countless space cowboyish like adventures, dangerous but always save to port. We travel along with our friends made of various metals like steel and iron and even a giant who looks kinda green who could use some anger management. In our travels through space we have seen some amazing things that would boggle the mind like a giant Bob's Big Boy, a space ship shaped like a maid and a random waste allocation lift loader earth class robot with a fire extinguisher puttering through.

Life can challenging sometimes especially when you have a rather difficult past and some slightly complicated or complex medical or behavioral issues to work though. Being able to escape into a world of fantasy can make things a little easier to bear the brunt of every day life. But we always remember that even in our everyday lives there is more than meets the eye.

In our home... whenever someone mentions soup, it is inevitably said in a Vogon voice.

5:20 "I think I"ll have soup today..."

Creamy Chicken Corn Chowder (Gluten and Dairy-Free)

2 Boneless Chicken Breasts

2 Tbs olive oil
4 turkey bacon slices

1/2 C green pepper, minced
3/4 C white onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced

2 C Rice Milk

2 C Chicken Broth

2 C Frozen corn kernals

1 tsp paprika

1 1/2 tsp salt, divided

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper, divided

1/2 tsp cumin

2 TBS fresh minced parsley
2 tsp corn starch
1/2 C dairy-free cheddar cheese
1 plum tomato, diced
1/2 avocado, diced

1. In a dutch over on a stove top at medium - high heat add olive oil. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper on each side and add to pan and cook on each side for about 8 minutes until liquid runs clear or temperature reaches 160 degrees. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. When the chicken in cooled, shred into bite sized pieces. Set aside.

2. Add bacon slice to the pan and cook on each side until the bacon is browned, remove from heat and allow to cool. When it is cooled, mince and set aside.

3. With your dutch oven still on medium-high heat add green pepper, onion and garlic and saute' until lightly browned (which adds great flavor!). Once your veggies are browned add your liquids- milk and broth- which will de-glaze your pan, adding more flavor. Add the corn, paprika remaining salt, pepper and cumin. and allow to simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.

4. Remove about 1/4 cup of the spiced broth in a measuring cup and add the corn starch. Whisk together and add to the dutch oven and blend together. Add parsley reserved chicken and bacon and simmer for another 15 minutes.

5. Serve chowder with 2 tablespoons of diced tomatoes (unless your kiddo also HATES tomatoes, lol), a tablespoon of cheese sub and a tablespoon of diced avocado (again unless your kiddo will threaten your life if he seems them). Enjoy!

Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potato and Fresh Figs

2012-09-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

Apologize to my mule

Over the last year kiddo's taste in foods has expanded much to my delight. I have clung to the words of the therapists from the feeding clinics who told me that it can take 15-20 times for a kid to be exposed to a certain taste and texture before they will be accepting of it.

With that in mind, I give you sweet potatoes. I have been pushing sweet potatoes in front of kiddo for ten years. TEN YEARS people! About two months ago I made a dish that became part of our dinner menu cycle because kiddo just raved about it so much, he even asked for seconds.

Bear in mind, when I started to plate this meal I took MacLeod aside and told him that this meal was going to be rough and to expect the worst because there were about a million textures going on in this middle eastern style dish I was about to put down in front of the kids.

Fist Full of Dollars 1964, Clint Eastwood's Stranger

I put the plate down. Kiddo looked at his plate. His nose twitched, he looked up at me. He had a Lego flag post in the corner of his mouth, gnawing on it, one eye cocked slightly. Kiddo, the ever present Stranger eyed us as if we were two Mexican banditos, as we tried to maintain dinner control he sniffed the plate and took a small bite. He didn't spit it out, but finished the rest of the bite on the spoon. We sat down cautiously, he watched us settle into our chairs. We ate our food and watched as he ate each and every bite of food on his plate. When he finished he asked for more chicken, the Stranger gets what the Stranger wants.

When figs became available I modified the recipe a bit and made it pretty delectable, to the Stranger's dismay, he hates figs. Alas, the rest of the dish he loves, especially the sweet potatoes.

Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potato and Fresh Figs

3 lbs. boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into cubes

2 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

2 lbs. sweet potatoes

2 lbs. russet potatoes

1 Tbs toasted cumin

2 tsp. sea salt, divided

1 tsp. fresh ground pepper, divided

2 tsp. tumeric

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground cayenne pepper

4 C chicken stock

6-8 fresh figs, cut from stem to base in quarters

1- 14 oz. can tomato sauce (you can use whole or diced, kiddo HATES tomatoes though!)

1/2 C raisins

1. Sprinkle chicken with 1/2 tsp. of sea salt and 1/4 tsp of ground pepper.

2. In a dutch oven over medium high heat, add oil and chicken. Cook the chicken until it is golden on all sides and remove from the pan.

3. Add onion, garlic, sweet potato and potato and cook on medium heat until onions are translucent.

4. Return chicken back to the pan and add following 9 ingredients (all spices) and cook another 2 minutes.

5. Add chicken stock, fig, tomato sauce and raisins, cover and simmer for about 1 hour. Try not to open the pan while the tagine is simmering, its worth the wait!

Sensory Integration and Food: Progress

2012-09-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

I recently read a blog post from another amazing autism blogger (http://flappinessis.com/) directed towards a well meaning individual and it reminded me ever so much of so many people in my own life of parenting my kiddo especially in my food battles with Sensory Integration as I mentioned in my last post. Reading the blog and talking with a good friend about her own kiddo and his food struggles got me thinking about our own timeline and where we have been and where we are now.

It occurred to me that five years ago I was sitting with kiddo at the University of Virginia's Kluge Feeding and Rehabilitation Clinic in Charlottesville, Virginia watching as the amazing therapists worked magic to try to get kiddo to eat and respond to their wonders. I thought that within that weeks time I would go home with a kid who would eat food, real food. We went home and he was still using the feeding tube, just ever so slightly less. He was still getting sick and repeating trips to the ER and would have to go back on the feeding tube 100% and then the oral aversions would take over. It was one step forward and two steps back. I spent my nights working and days getting him to pre-school then to Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy and sometimes I even slept a little. I would beg him to eat. His diet consisted of Tyson's chicken nuggets (only Tysons, they were the right texture), frozen corn kernels heated in the microwave, hotdogs cut into disks, pancakes, goldfish crackers, saltines and canned mandarin oranges. Other than that it was pretty limited.

Last week kiddo ate a chicken drumstick. I was elated. MacLeod sat down for dinner, we had already started and he saw kiddo disassembling the drumstick and MacLeod's face started to contort like he was about to scold kiddo for his actions. I darted a look at him that said "if-you-say-a-word-I-swear-I-will-stab-you-where-you-sit!" and his face melted. When kiddo sat down in his place at the table, he didn't make a disgusted face, he didn't tell me he thought that the food looked horrible he simply said "huh." He sat and dipped his finger into the sauce that I prepared and drizzled over the chicken and said "mom, I don't think I like the sauce." I said that that was ok, but he should try the chicken. So he continued without any argument. I am not sure if he was having a good day if he had just successfully built a Lego armada in his room or if all the stars in the planets had perfectly aligned to create this moment, but he began to eat the chicken ON THE DRUMSTICK, something he has never done before in his life. Ok, on the drumstick is a stretch, he did pull it off, wipe each piece on the napkin and pull the bits of chicken fat off and place them on the napkin as well, BUT, he ate it and that is the point.

I understand that this pattern of drumstick eating wouldn't hold up in a five-star restaurant, however I don't think they generally serve drumsticks in five-star restaurants and if they did, I certainly wouldn't order one for him. While MacLeod was a little horrified at the pulling apart of the chicken ala caveman-ish style, I did explain to him later the significance of it and he said he figured it out when I glared at him like I was going to murder him.

The drumstick isn't the only huge leap that kiddo has taken in the area of food, this past year has been full of amazing strides. Kiddo now loves sweet potatoes, though he hates sweet potato fries. He also decided that while watching me eat mixing up some of the foods like rice with beans makes the foods taste so much better, which is amazing because he would have never mixed textures a year ago. We still struggle with things and he definitely has his food preferences, but he has finally begun to maintain his own weight without the need of supplementation and is trying new things pretty regularly. I know that he will always have his preferences and very strong feelings about textures, tastes, smells and temperatures, but hey, don't we all?

Sensory Integration and Food: The Beginning of The Fight

2012-09-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

When kiddo was a toddler I had no idea what a food aversion or sensativity was. Sensory Integration Dysfunction sounded like something that happened when a long lost astronaut returned from isolation in deep space for years on a Russian space station.

When he was two years old and started getting super picky with the things he would and would not eat, I was met with suggestion after suggestion which ranged from healthy little snacks to eliminating everything but the toddler standbys of chicken nuggets and hotdogs. It never occurred to me to even consider the fact that each time he refused to eat something else, it was a new texture, taste or temperature that he was eliminating from his repetoire.

When kiddo got his feeding tube, not long after his second birthday, I was completely emersed in a world of preemie support. He had been born at 25 weeks gestation and we encountered many issues related to prematurity that many typical parents could not really related to. As he began to grow so did the community of preemie support. Even though we thrived on that support, living on a feeding tube was something that we did get some ridicule for after time had passed. A few friends could not understand how hard it was to get my kid to eat foods. I would hear on a very regular basis that if he would just spend a little time with them that THEY would get some weight on him and he would get rid of that tube in no time. Then one day a good meaning friend would offer to take Kiddo for ice cream and I would skeptically agree to let him go and the friend would return baffled at the only child in the entire world who refused to eat ice cream. It was too brown or too cold, or too crunchy or too blue. There was something wrong with every type of ice cream served and my friend could not possibly understand. By then I did, it was Sensory Processing Disorder or Dyfunction.

One day my best friend was in town with her newborn and she invited us over for dinner at her dad's home. He was having massive Alaskan crab legs and I was totally game. We sat swapping joyous stories of our first few months of sleepless nights while my kiddos ran around. The house filled with the succulent aroma of the crabs steaming and tummies grumbled, all except kiddo. Kiddo ran gagging and wretching "mom, oh my... *gag*... whaaat....*wretch*.... is.... *gag*...that....*wretch*....smell....*gag*..." and he took off streaming towards the open screen of the door plastering his face to the grate sucking in the air in huge gasps like the room had just been exposed to anthrax.

The Deadliest Catch, Discover Channel King Crab Fishing

Kiddo has come a very long way with the help of MacLeod, his Boomstick (Cuisinart Smartstick), its amazing blending capabilities and knowing how to not stress kiddo simply because sometimes there really is just no reason to. He has Aspergers and he always will. I do challenge him with food though on a regular basis though because I do want him to be able to tolerate first- the appearance of things in front of him (without gagging) and secondly the ability to at least try a new food (again, without gagging). Its really been an amazingly difficult, hair pulling out, crying, screaming and sobbing food journey for him (and me) but we have gotten to a place where I think we are a little more comfortable knowing what is kosher and what is not.

With oodles of Occupational Therapy and speech therapy and feeding clinics, kiddo now is very tolerant about newer things being introduced to him. It does not mean that he is going to like a new item because a weird texture to him is going to be just that and nothing is going to change it. But he will give it a try usually without tears and panic attacks and that is a huge change from a few years ago. Just writing this now and thinking back to those days trying to beg him to eat because I knew with every fiber of my being that if he didn't we would be back in the hospital the next day, I am tearing up. I would like to think that all those moments are behind me but I know that Kiddo's sensitivities to things fluctuate and require consistent work, but he tries now as hard as I do and I couldn't be prouder of him.

Sensory Integration and food: the taste of white

2012-09-13T10:43:00.002-04:00

Good...Bad....I'm the guy with the gun...err...hand mixer

So the other day I was preparing breakfast for the Kiddo and Lil' sis', good ole' scrambled eggs smothered in cheddar cheese (the cheese was there more so to hide any egg whites that I didn't whisk in completely because kiddo has this thing about egg whites) I thought I did a pretty good job in the whisk and cover mission and served up the bowls to the children. "Ugh, I hate egg whites" is the first sentence I was greeted with. The mission was clearly not as successful as I had first believed. "Just eat it, there's no difference" I replied to him. "They taste white" he shot back." They taste white? I was caught off guard by this, how can egg whites taste like a color? Sensory integration. Kiddo is very sensitive to tastes, textures, and temperatures. I gave that bowl of eggs hell, Serena Williams arms would have been sore if she whisked it like I did....and still the egg whites showed their ugly heads. I swear I could hear the eggs in the fridge laughing at me, calling me crude names, even this morning I heard a "your grandma can whisk better than you...."

I had gotten comfortable with the notion that my eggs would always show the white, and that I would be left to use the archaic metal whisk or (gasp) fork. I told myself, "I'll just add more cheese, everyone loves cheese."

Then one day, after our move, Mom opened up a box that I had forgotten about....a box that held a Cuisinart Smart stick hand mixer. I watched as she put together a fruit shake for us one Monday morning, it quickly and easily blended frozen strawberries and blueberries, so quiet, so quick, so graceful...it kind of sounded like the saw used in "Hannibal"....but that's a post for another blog...I digress. Even then I had not put too much thought into the use of it with eggs, I just saw it as a neat toy, I mean come on, I'm a car guy, I am enamored by air compressors and cylinder hones, not some kitchen tool.

That all changed the other day. I happen to be on vacation this week (staycation, cause a move into a house brings lots of work) so I let Mom sleep in and I got the kids moving for school. A glance in the fridge returned the conformation of no milk, along with a few verbal jabs from those eggs again. So the fall back bowl of cereal was out of the question. I suck at cooking, I blow no smoke about this, so I told myself eggs- I can do eggs. I cracked 4 of those trash talking bastards into a bowl, then as I was grabbing a few other ingredients I remembered the mixer. Well let's give it a go, shall we. I transferred the contents of the bowl to the neat mixing cup provided, connected the blade end and plunged it into the unbeaten mixture and pushed the button.

Dear god in heaven.

This is the greatest invention known to man. I felt like Ash from "Army of Darkness", I even held it above my head and yelled, "THIS IS MY BOOM STICK!!" There were no egg whites missed that day. Kiddo ate the whole plate of scrambled eggs and did not once say anything about something tasting white. My mission here is done, now I can go back to working the House wares section of S-Mart. Shop smart...shop S-Mart.

Macleod

We're Back!

2012-09-10T13:44:00.000-04:00

It is Fall.

Wait... I did that wrong.

IT'S FALL!!!!!

Ok, that's better. From September through, oh say about January first, it's like my extended sweet spot. I am a holiday person. Excluding a dismal five or so years of my life, it takes a great deal to get me out of the "holidays" spirit. I start off with the Autumnal stuff, we head out apple picking and apple crisps and pies and bread and then do some canning with apple butter then head long into Halloween. YES!!! I will stop there because frankly I may go on too long.

But to add to all of my holiday joy is the fact that this year we have real reason to celebrate other than the normal happy-to-be-breathing-another-day sort of thing. We are now FINALLY in an actual house, somewhere that we are not going to be moving from in another year (again). The kids and dogs have a real yard to play in and kiddo has a big room to squirrel away all his gajillions of legos in, finally.

This is also going to offically going to be the first real holiday season that I will be fully baking with gusto competely gluten-free. So I will be in full conversion mode, which is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Thankfully, my waistline has been kind to me and I have been losing considerable amounts of weight since the move.... I think because of all the work we have been putting into the house. Lets just say it was a fixer-upper. Hopefully, I can maintain the weight and force MacLeod to guinea pig all the baked goodies that I prepare, mwah haha.

So, anyway, we are officially back, and settling in beautifully and will be back to the bloggling life... I am SO sure you all have missed us :)

Cha-Cha Changes...

2012-08-16T13:56:00.000-04:00

It happens ever so often that things change pretty dramitically... in our case historically, it has usually been for the worst. Thankfully yesterday we started on our latest change which is hopefully just the first in a string of great changes for our future. Yesterday we closed on our new home, something we have been working towards and waiting on for a considerable amount of time.

We have been prepping for this change in a number of ways for a very long time. Of course to help kiddo cope with changes, we are extremely open with all things that may happen, will happen in the future or happen soon. If we can we start discussing the changing event as soon as we have an inkling it is going to happen, that way there is plently of time for kiddo to get more comfortable with the idea of it. And so it happened with the house hunting and purchase. We have been looking for a home for close to a year now, so the discussions of a new living situation and location have been floating through our apartment for a while just in normal converstation. This is the easiest possible way to do things with kiddo, he has a long lead way to think about things and what he does or does not like about it. It also gives us plenty of time to adjust in ways to help him moving forward. The worst possible thing I can do in changes like this is to spring it on him... I can just expect to get the atomic meltdowns with regularity.

With the discussions about moving, the only real conflict we have run into with regards to kiddo and Lil Sis' feelings about the move have been about changing schools agian and leaving friends. The leaving of friends is always more of a concern for Lil Sis as she is a social butterfly. But this time around, Kiddo also had his reservations because he finally made a friend.

It has been hard for Kiddo to build relationships with peers, something not uncommon for many Aspies. So this past year when he developed a friendship with a boy in his class, it would be a grave understatement to say that I was overjoyed... I literally cried about it when he called the boy his friend. His mom and I worked to maintain the friendship over the summer, but now that school is just around the corner, he will now be starting school in a new county, away from his friend.

When talking about the move, Kiddo did ask me about what school he would be going to. We talked about how we would now be back into a house and we had to make some changes for that like going to a new school. I promised him that we would not be moving again for a good long time and I would do whatever I needed to do to try to help him in his new setting. He wasn't happy about it, but with the knowledge that his friend's mom and I will continue to get them together on weekends, he seems a little more content about things.

Both kiddos are excited about decorating thier new rooms, as are we. So like many times when things are changing alot for us, I have the great David Bowie playing regularly in my head as we look forward to face the strain with our changes.

Yes! Gluten-free Yellow Cake!

2012-08-13T11:27:00.000-04:00

Summertime in our home is usually pretty busy, like most homes we morph into summer routines that are a modification of our normal daily schedule which we discussed on this post earlier in the summer. Kids out of school and visits to friends, family, visits from McLeod's kids and visitation schedules make the summer something of a challenge to work through. Throw into that buying a new home and all the insanity that goes into just getting to closing and you have yourself one heck of a summer. Thankfully, we are closing on the home this week and then get to start the next steps,moving, fixing up and unpacking. The moving. I hate moving, its probably one of the things that would be awaiting me in the netherworld should I end up at the wrong gate at the conclusion of my life. I can just see it: stacks of moving boxes and piles of stuff- clothing, kitchen wares, kids stuff, all waiting for me to pack and move to another location to unpack. Then I would immediately need to repack and move the stuff to another location and unpack and so on. Yes, that would definitely be my version of hell. In any case, this should be our last move for a long time, so I am foolishly optimistic about it all.

A midst all the craziness of packing and other scheduled routines, we have Lil Sis' birthday to arrange and celebrate. Our current home is packed to the nines with boxes and not exactly suitable to partying so as requested by the birthday girl, her party would be held at a local pottery painting shop. Originally she had wanted to have an animal themed party and was hoping to do something at a zoo or something along those lines. Alas, we live about an hour and a half from any zoo and all the traveling petting zoo's prices were insanely astronomical. Aside of the price though, we currently live in an apartment and as you might guess, they don't exactly welcome zoo animals with open arms here. So we rested on the backup plan for pottery and decided on a jungle theme for the affair.

The week before her birthday a friend, who still exults me as a professional baker (which I was at one point but am no longer), needed a cake for her co-worker's birthday. She needed it to be a combination of coconut and lemon. So I decided that I would try to tackle a cake flavor which has yet been unattainable to me gluten-free. In my professional baker days, I used a modification of this recipe by Cooks Illustrated. Of course it calls for lots of butter, cream and gluten-full flour. For my friend's cake I decided I would try the recipe our with my gluten-free substitution. With slight changes to the recipe size and ratio of liquids to solids, the resulting cake was amazing (after the second bake, the first bake was a little dry so I had to modify the liquids a bit more).

So when my birthday girl asked for a two tier cake, if you read this post you might remember my kiddos bar is set pretty high for birthday cakes, I told her a two tier chocolate cake may not appeal to everyone. So she settled on having the top tier chocolate and the bottom tier yellow cake with a triple berry filling.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I am incredibly modest when it comes to my cake making. I am my worst critic, so at the end of the baking and decorating all I can see are the things I wish I had done better. However at Lil Sis' party after cutting the cake and serving it, I actually decided to have a piece of cake. I took a small slice of yellow cake and a small slice of the chocolate cake. Folks, I hate saying it, but this birthday cake was amazing. Not one person at the party knew that they were gluten-free cakes and I didn't mention it. McLeod sometimes likes to do a big reveal like we are tricking people into eating gluten-free, but I told him that my goal was for there not to be a taste difference at all. I want the cake to taste like a regular cake and if they think its great without knowing then I have done my job. Everyone raved about how delicious the cake was so I think I achieved just that.

Of course my next step will be trying to make this tasty cake not only gluten-free but dairy free as well and possibly trying a number of different flour blends, so keep posted!

Gluten-free Yellow Cake (not dairy free)

Adaptation from Yellow Cake Cupcakes, Cooks Illustrated

3 C Gluten-free flour blend

2 C unrefined granulated sugar

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 C unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs, room temperature
1 egg yolk

2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 C Plain yogurt, room temperature

Triple Berry Filling

1/2 C Fresh Raspberries, washed

1/2 C Fresh Blueberries, washed

1/2 C Fresh Strawberries, washed and de-stemmed

1/3 C water

1/2 C unrefined sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two round 8-inch pans with non-stick cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour blend, sugar, baking powder and salt.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter, eggs and yolk, vanilla and yogurt. Blend a medium speed until combined about 1 minute.

4. Slowly add dry ingredients one cup at time, blending until combined after each addition. Repeat until all dry ingredients are added. Blend on medium-high speed for 1 minute.

5. Divide batter evenly into the two pans and place in oven to bake for about 25 minutes.

6. While cake bakes, prepare filling by combining all ingredients in a small sauce pan.

7. Bring berry combination to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.

8. Allow berry mixture to simmer until the liquid has reduced and the mixture resembles a compote, about 30 minutes

9. Remove filling from the pan and refrigerate until completely cooled. When cake springs back to touch in the center, the cake is ready to come out. Cool on rack.

10. When cake is cooled, level cake by cutting the dome off the top of each cake. With your choice of icing, make a barrier around the edge of the bottom cake. Place the filling in the center of the bottom of the cake filling until you get it level to the piped barrier. Place the top of the cake over the bottom and press down slightly to seal the barrier. Ice with your choice of icing like this dairy free vanilla.

Summertime... vacation, no.

2012-07-12T12:12:00.000-04:00

So I would like to say that yes it is summertime, the time to sip cocktails by the pool while the children splash around and I get to work on my tan. That sentence in itself is laughable.

No, my summertime is comprised of a shared custody schedule, car shopping, house hunting and home packing. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I love having my children with me for the summer and the days that they are with me I try to fill with fun if at all possible in the midst of house hunting and packing. We manage to keep ridiculously busy between the library, nearby water park, neighborhood pool, friends, bbq's and so much more.

The most important thing for us to remember in the hustle and bustle of all the summertime changes going on in our home is to be very open and clear with the kids about what the schedule is going to look like and what we will be doing. Kiddo, like most Aspie's can be very rigid about trips out or movements in his schedule. Each and every time we go the grocery or any other store, kiddo asks me exactly how many things we need to buy. Throughout the trip he closely watches the number of items growing in the cart. Should I wonder a bit and remember those few things I didn't write down, once we reach the designated number of items, kiddo starts to get frigidity. So if I have a major change of schedule or plans, I sure surely expect what I have coming to me... a meltdown.

So, to try to alleviate some of the stresses that we face with schedule and changes, in our home we use a pretty comprehensive schedule which we place openly for the kids to be able to see and reference when they need to. Along with the monthly calendar is a weekly calendar of home tasks, chores and daily schedule. Next to the weekly schedule is the kids reward system. Each item on the reward sheet is redeemable to a number of plastic gold coins. The items change each month but are usually not toys or "things." The rewards range from a "Movie Night as A Family," which they can pool coins together for to "20 minutes Wii or Playstation Time." Lil sis always has "Sushi Date with Mom" on hers because she invites any chance to eat sushi. Kiddo's favorite chart item is "30 mins Computer Time" which he usually uses to look up animals that he is currently interested in.

It isn't a perfect system, but it seems to work really well for us when things can be challenging with constant change. Hopefully we can stick to our schedule and reward system through all our hectic moves this summer and manage to actually enjoy the hot and sticky days too.

Happy Father's Day!

2012-06-17T20:22:00.000-04:00

Every family has their issues, there is no doubt about it, but when I was growing up I was pretty certain that my family was close to perfect. My mom and my dad loved each other dearly and I never saw them fight. I had two siblings and we lived in a beautiful suburban home with a wishing well and white picket fence. On nice days we would ride our bikes all over the neighborhood finding friends or going to the park. My mom worked on her garden and my father with his cars or on the house. In the hot summer afternoons, my siblings and I would run to my father and beg him for spare change for the ice cream man, something he could never resist.

My father was always a strong man. In our home, there was no doubt that my mother was the boss, he even admits it, but my father was our example of what a man was supposed to be. Everyday he got up in the wee hours of the morning to hit the road to get to work near the city. Sometimes I would wake and watch him getting ready to go, doing his morning routine. I am not sure why I watched him, I guess my dad always fascinated me in some way. My siblings would tell you that I was his favorite with a snarky look on their faces and he was certainly one of my most favorite people.

He was a cobbler and work with his hands making things new that were once old and worn out. He used leather like it was butter, molding things into a beautiful fine shining finish. My friend's parents were laborers of some kind or worked in offices in stuffy suits, I was certain that my dad was so mush more skilled than anyone else's father could possibly be.

Aside of his profession, my father could solve any problem. Whether it was a split hose or a sunken roof, my dad came up with an amazingly genius way to fix it. He didn't rely on anything other than a stack of Time Magazine's home repair books that he bought to reference in his home ownership shortly after my parents were married. I would watch my father with a pencil in his hand sketching out ideas to resolve some problem he was faced with. I loved watching my dad think.

When I grew up and had my first child, I knew what a father should be, I had watched mine my entire life. I knew what a family should be, my parents raised us in a loving and complete home. I knew what I wanted my children to have. I wasn't however prepared for what direction life would take me, undoubtedly for the poor decisions that I made.

In 2009 my life changed completely and irreparably. My marriage was over and the dreams I had for giving my children the childhood I had had, was gone. Don't get me wrong, the decisions that were made within those few months of my life were the best decisions I had made (minus a few little scuffles) for myself and especially my children and I haven't regretted them since. But I felt for so long that I was failing my children because they would not have the father and mother, the family unit that I had had. I tried to think that everything was the best for my children and with our family supporting me and them, they would not miss what was now gone.

I was now a single mother to two kids, one with high needs and Asperger's Syndrome. I had no delusions that I would be single and simply have to be the best that I could be for my kids. It was role I was not prepared for but with my mother and father standing beside me, I knew that my children would not suffer.

Life is funny though. I am absolutely positive that God is somewhere watching my life unfold with a glint in his eye and possibly a bucket of popcorn. Somehow I managed to run into MacLeod, someone who had been there for so long but I had never seen. He too had suffered a terrible divorce, but also had come from a wonderful and loving family. Before long my own children looked to him for support and love. I didn't think that I could possibly give my children what I had always dreamed for them, the life I had growing up in my family, but now they do. They have two parents in their home who they can see modeling a good and caring relationship and more than anything see what my dad taught me, what a father should be.

Happy Father's Day daddy, I love you so much. Thank you for looking past all my failings and my faults and loving me no matter what. ... and Happy Father's Day MacLeod, you are such a loving, wonderful father to your own kids, a love you have been selflessly sharing with my children. We love you and are happy to be able to call you ours.