November 2009

Middle One is hoarding ‘stuff’ again. Or, more accurately, “still” hoarding stuff. It doesn’t really stop.

He’s rebuilding his collection of (seemingly) random things – pieces of paper, clothing, string, broken toys, old school projects, dixie cups, items from the recycling bin, game pieces, broken pencils.. all crammed into his side of the room. Bins of ‘stuff’ overflowing under the bed and no room on top of his dresser. Dresser drawers he can’t open, or can’t close, properly.

At first, we tried giving him bins – with the direction that he had to keep his ‘stuff’ in those bins. The lids had to close. If stuff wasn’t in the bin(s) and/or if the lid(s) wouldn’t close, we’d take it away for “a while”.

This summer we had at least four big bins of ‘stuff’ stored in the garage. He continued to accumulate more in his room.

We told him that if he didn’t take care of the stuff – putting it away properly or putting it in the bin-with-lids – we’d throw it in the garbage. We followed through. He continued to accumulate more.

We’ve worked with him on sorting. He accumulates more stuff.

We’ve taken stuff away (like the collection of plastic juice bottles he fished from the recycling, filled with water, and was storing in his room). He accumulates more.

We’ve yelled. We’ve cajoled. We’ve bribed. We’ve purchased different bins.

The biggest problem is that he shares his room with Maymo. And Maymo needs to have SPACE. It’s not fair for Middle One to take up all the room with stuff he doesn’t even WANT, let alone use. But.. he tries.

We decked our Maymo’s side of the room with new shelves (for toys and books) and Maymo regularly tidies up and organizes them. He folds his clothes and puts them in the drawers. His side of the room looks like a normal child lives in it – a little messy from time to time, a little clutter.

Middle One’s side looks like something exploded – and I’m not even sure WHAT. Just.. SOMETHING.

On his chore chart, there are two days on which he is expected to clean up his room – Thursdays (because Friday is garbage/recycling day) and Sunday (because that’s when his bedroom gets vacuumed). He lies and says he’s done it; he can’t clean it all up because it’s a disaster. Then he gets in trouble for lying AND hoarding.

I try to analyze the reasoning behind this behaviour – loss, loss and more loss. It doesn’t make it easier to handle. It doesn’t alleviate my concern that, some day in the future, he won’t die under a collapsing stack of bundled newspapers in a filthy apartment.

And it doesn’t make it easier for Maymo who has to share a room that has an odd, funky smell and a million empty containers, slips of paper and a large stack of plastic “TODAY” sheets that fit inside a school planner.

The thing is? Middle One doesn’t get particularly upset when we remove things – or throw them out – beyond the initial upset at being “caught”. He doesn’t get anxious. He just.. starts again. Like when you wreck an ant-hill and they pause before starting to recollect grains of sand.

He shows no symptoms of OCD. He isn’t particular about the items he saves – it isn’t all paper or all plastic or all WHATEVER.

I keep trying to figure it out. I have no clue.

(This is a recipe made up by Coffee. It fed our family of 5 – two stuffed adults and 3 kids who ate one normal portion each!)

Lentil Daal.

Ingredients:
1 Tbs oil, heated
1 onion, chopped
1 Tbs Thai red curry paste (not sauce)
1 can of mostly-drained, chopped tomatoes
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 can of lentils, drained and rinsed
1 Tbs curry powder (or to taste)

Directions:
1. Heat oil. Sautee onion in oil.
2. Add Thai red curry paste.
3. Add in the mostly-drained, chopped tomatoes and the curry powder.
4. Add in chickpeas
5. Add in lentils

Notes:
Heat thoroughly and serve on warm Naan for best effect. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!
If your family isn’t much into ‘heat’, just use the curry powder and skip the curry paste.

Michelle asked about food and the boys. I was totally positive that I had written about how we eat now, and how we ate when they moved in, but, in retrospect, I think I’m remembering talking about it with some of my classmates recently. I couldn’t find anything in my blog archives, so if this is a repeat, please skip this post and move along in your RSS feeds! :)

A few years before we adopted, Coffee and I both made a concerted effort to clean up our eating habits. It’s not that we don’t like crappy, unhealthy foods – it’s just that there were SO many benefits to eating healthier stuff. The benefits ranged from the ol “feeling and looking better” to “it’s actually cheaper” to everything in between. I lost a lovely chunk of weight and I can definitely say that my taste buds shifted significantly toward healthier foods. I’ve always loved to cook, too, so it was a nice bonus to spend more time in the kitchen whenever possible.

When the boys moved in, I naively assumed we’d just keep eating that way. Spicy foods! Healthy! Occasional indulgences of unhealthy foods! Fiber!

Oh, man, I was WRONG.

When the boys moved into our house, I had forgotten that our meals were healthier. I had forgotten that we didn’t eat the way the majority of other families do. We weren’t vegans, or even vegetarians, or any sort of specialty-food people (like, say a specific diet for hypertension or diabetes or anything else requiring attention to balance) but we ate really well.

And so, the boys moved in and were shocked. I was shocked too.

There were meals where kid(s) refused to eat.

There were meals where kid(s) cried – flat out cried.

There were meals where kid(s) glared at me.

And it didn’t get any better.

The boys wanted pre-packaged foods: pizza pops and pogos and microwaveable foods and macaroni and cheese.. they couldn’t recognize certain vegetables – literally had no idea what they were or why they sat on the dinner plate AT ALL. They offered to “just eat cereal” in place of most of the meals I made.

They refused to try anything new. They scowled. They called everything “too spicy” (which we later learned meant “too much flavour” and wasn’t referring to heat). They wouldn’t eat vegetable soup or pasta sauce with any visible colour beyond red (because it might contain a vegetable!).

I cried. I ranted to Coffee (and my friends on WNET and elsewhere). I looked into all of those “sneak vegetables into your kids’ diet” books.

Meals sucked.

So we stopped eating healthy. We bought greasy fish sticks and we melted cheese into pasta. We ate meat burgers instead of veggie/lentil burgers. We ate hotdogs. We bought Kraft Dinner.

I gained a lot of weight from the combination of stress and greasy food. I hated meals. I felt my toes curl at the idea that the little people at the table were eating so poorly.

But the boys needed to adjust to so many other things – new home, new routines, new parents, new school, new clothes, new bedrooms, new toys. And the hour-long cry-fest every day was one thing that we, the adults, could put aside for a while.

But it pained me. Oh god, it pained me.

After a few months we started shifting – reaaaaaaaaaally slowly – to healthier food. From white pasta to whole wheat. From plain red sauce to sauce-with-added-fiber. From greasy fish sticks to breaded. It took at least six months to get to the little shifts.

The kids barely noticed. We said things like, “Oh, this kind was on SALE so we figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it, right?” and they scarfed down the food.

As they made progress (in the sense of not making gagging noises, crying or freaking out) we started to add in new foods. Veggies. Stir fries with real vegetables. Still light on the seasonings and with lots of sugary sauce whenever possible.

In the past few months I’ve really noticed how far they’ve come, however. We regularly eat curries and hummus and stir fries and fish – not fish sticks, but fillets – and roasted root veggies (like beets! carrots! onions! garlic cloves!) and our pasta always has added veggies. No one complains anymore. We serve up lentils and spinach and I cannot recall the last time we ate hot dogs (though Maymo picked out pogos for his birthday meal).

They no longer ask for “Lunchables” for school and, instead, take sandwiches and dried apricots and yogurts and apple sauce. And yes, cookies or pudding cups, too (we’re not THAT mean!)

We eat pizza – either frozen or take-out – once per week. The kids pick one meal per week (and it’s almost always healthy – usually fish fillets and veggies). The rest are healthy and full of veggies and fiber and goodness.

Maymo recently pondered what “white bread tastes like” and asked if he could “try it sometime”.

Middle One has remarked a few times on how much he likes broccoli and stir fry. Last night he uttered the words, “I LOVE hummus, Mom!” when I plunked the container down on the table (coincidentally, I love making hummus!)

Oldest One eats cottage cheese for his after-school snack. Drinks milk more often than pop. Asks for fish regularly and has, on occasion, commented on how healthy our family eats when compared to his friends’ families or his classmates’.

It’s stunning.

It took FOREVER.. but now that I can watch Maymo scoop up a big serving of lentil Daal without a complaint? Worth it. TOTALLY worth it. Baby steps away from the crappy food and tiny – so small it can’t be noticed – steps toward the good. Watching him pop cloves of roasted garlic into his mouth? Cram it full of dates? YES!

(Michelle, or anyone else, feel free to ask questions if I didn’t cover everything you wanted to know or were curious about!)

1. Grape juice.
2. Two big bowls of roasted root veggies for dinner last night – with homemade hummus!
3. The cat trying to steal my cheese string. While I’m eating it. Using her mouth AND paws.
4. All-Sorts.
5. Maple smoked salmon.

1. I painted Maymo’s fingernails alternating red-pink yesterday — he picked the colours. Then he said, “Some of the kids at school might call me a girl!” I asked him what he’d say if they did. “I’m not a girl! I just like those colours!” was his reply. :)
2. Other than stocking stuffers, we are totally done Christmas shopping. And this is all thanks to my husband because I had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
3. Clean bathrooms.
4. My husband re-stocked my Tofurkey for me. Because he loves me.
5. The fact that I wasn’t alone in thinking Dave’s Sharpie Book was completely awesome. :)

In mid-August, I wrote a post about the “Bird Man”. Since that post, I’ve only seen the man once – I’ve had fewer occasions to drive Coffee to work and I’ve mostly been heading to school, myself. I’ve popped onto Google a few times to search for him, but had no luck.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my college newspaper a while ago and found this:

There’s nothing else there. No article to accompany that. No other information about Franklyn Subachan or his birds. And when I google, I find nothing.

But Mr. Subachan is definitely the man that I saw.

Now I must find him and meet him in person.

Come on, universe. Help a girl out.

Remember when I said that Dave had sent me “something” and that it was awesome and that I was going to post pictures? And then a few weeks passed and there were no pictures?

It might be tempting to assume that my lack of photos meant that I wasn’t really as excited about the “something” as I made it out to seem. That would not be an accurate assumption.

(The correct assumption, btw, is that I’m a lazy slacker who first couldn’t find her camera, then needed to charge the batteries, then forgot, then charged them for several days straight, then.. blahblahblah..)

As you view these images and read the associated text, please try to maintain a breathless squealing noise in the back of your mind. That’ll help make it more like you were HERE for the experience. Then try to picture me leaping around and shouting, “LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!” at Coffee. Then laugh when Coffee says, “You’re totally leaving me for Dave now, aren’t you?”

Ready? Here we go.

Oh! COOL! A book with the Sharpie logo on it!

Yep, that's definitely the Sharpie logo.

Ohmygodohmygod. There are SHARPIES INSIDE!

Oh!oh!OH!OH!OOOH!!!!! OH!!!!

Lost.. power.. to.. speak.. OH! OH! OH!!!!!

A snap?

A SNAP! HINGE! OHMYGOD!! EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

It's a book.. of Sharpies.. that stays open.. OHMYGOD!OHMYGOD! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!

Is that not one of those most awesome things you’ve EVER seen???

I know I said “thank you” by email, Dave, but seriously? THANK YOU! So very, very awesome. :)

1. Looking forward to starting over at “1″ again for my GiST 365 (GiST 365-squared?).
2. Our neighbour is going to fix our leaking chimney in exchange for cinnamon rolls. :)
3. Making some behavioural changes pertaining to school. Shifting my priorities.
4. The kids spent a few hours at the park today. Outside! Fresh air! OMG!
5. This morning I ate toast. I chewed it with my freshly-built tooth. It was awesome!

Please allow Maymo to show you his teeth.

1. I still have my tooth. And it is functional again. And the appointment was horrible but I survived. And it was almost all covered by insurance.
2. Taking a long shower with the window open. I love doing that – cold air! hot water! cold air!.
3. It’s the weekend! I ♥ weekends.
4. Thinking about making some lists. I love lists. I love writing things down in new notebooks.
5. Dislike. For Firefox.