Read This, Eat This, Play This

Nothing says fall like these Pumpkin Oatmeal Scotchies. Buy 2 bags of butterscotch chips. You’ll need them. This is a recipe you’ll make again and again. This recipe for Pumpkin Pie Dip has also been a winner. And it’s slightly healthier because apples dip nicely in it. Although graham crackers do too. Lastly, we love mini bananas. They’re perfect for snacks and school lunches.

I’m only partway through The Whole-Brain Child by Siegel and Bryson, but I wish I’d read it sooner. One really good take away is to explain to children that emotions are like clouds. They aren’t permanent. They roll by.

Luk Chaai’s teacher recently asked me about our snake. Our snake? The closest we have to a snake is a now-deceased caterpillar that got taken to Share Day in a pickle jar. So when I can across the suggestion to play 2 truths and 1 make believe with yours kids in The Whole-Brain Child, I knew this was a game for us. It’s actually been a lot of fun. We pared it down to one truth and one make believe though to make it slightly easier.

Here’s an example of how I played it with Luk Chaai: I once had a banana cut out of my mouth with a samurai sword or I’ve eaten alligator. (Just ask my summer camp roomie who volunteered me for an “activity”, which one is true.)

Happy eating. Happy reading.

The Wheelchair Minivan, Part III

So the wheelchair is now a full-time addition to our family. We even had family pictures taken with it recently. Ying loves her wheelchair, loves it.

Who could blame her? It gives her a freedom she’s never previously had. She can go up, down and around all by herself. And, trust me, she does! Watching her zoom over to the light switch and turn it on and off has been a beautiful thing.

While having the wheelchair has been a huge positive change for Ying, it’s also meant a few changes for the rest of us. There was a bit of furniture rearranging inside the house as well as the ramp and a wider door. But the bigger change has obviously been the car.

As much as I never wanted to be a minivan mom, I’m so grateful for this car. Ying drives her wheelchair straight up the ramp and into the car. We had the Permolock C3 installed, so she can ride in the wheelchair, instead of a car seat. (She hasn’t done this yet though, because I’m waiting for the safety vest we ordered to arrive.)

The Permolock is manufactured by Permobil and can only be installed on Permobil chairs. There is a second option, however, and that’s the EZ Lock.

 

Permolock C3

The Permolock is a 2-pin locking system. (EZ Lock is a one-pin system.) That means that if both pins aren’t lined up with the locking base properly, the chair won’t lock. We put taped guides down on the floor to help Ying learn to properly get onto the base. There is a light on the release button that lets you know if you’re properly locked in. Green means you’re good, red means you aren’t. We had our locking mojo pretty well down at first but seem to have lost it. I contacted Permobil and they think that we may need our base shimmed up, so I’m going to be visiting the dealership again soon.

A few more tips:

- You can’t have the Permolock installed into your vehicle until you have your wheelchair because the installer needs both the wheelchair and the locking base to line everything up properly.

- The locking pins for the Permobil K450 are not retractable. But that hasn’t been a problem. We haven’t scratched my hardwood floors or gotten caught in the grass outside.

- If you have an automatic ramp, your keys get bulkier. You’ll have a separate ramp remote from car remote. Hello bulky pockets!

- All the major vehicle manufacturers offer rebates for mobility adaptation/wheelchair conversions. The rebates range from $1000-$1500. Toyota wanted to see a doctor’s note/RX regarding the disability, but luckily I still had the note the DMV required and photocopied that. Go here for a full list of rebates and mobility programs.

- We’ve had to develop a new routine. Getting two preschoolers (and their school bags, water bottles, etc…) and a wheelchair backed out of the car safely and efficiently takes a little getting used too. But like everything, this has simply been about practice. Because we take the wheelchair everywhere, we’ve gotten a lot of practice in a short amount of time.

I can’t sing the praises of this chair enough. It really has been life changing. And, everyone loves the hot, hot pink.

Go little girl in the hot pink chair!

Why Christmas Was Never Meant To Be A Celebration

  Mount St. Helen, 2008

The air is crisp, the leaves are crunchy. That can only mean one thing – Costco has begun selling Christmas wrap. Cue the collective groan.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my share of griping about the rushing of the seasons and the fact that a silent night can be blown-up and put in your front lawn for $99 and a handful of cents.

But for those of us who believe Christmas to be the holiest season, we have only ourselves to blame that it has been made tawdry with tinsel and tacky singing lights.

We try to get back to the true meaning of Christmas by eliminating St. Nicklaus or by limiting gifts to the number of magi. Yet we barely have joy for the world for a day, much less a whole month.

How is it we send cards proclaiming the hope of the world yet stand in the post office line to mail them feeling hollow and haggard?

Christmas was never meant to be celebrated. That’s not what the wise men, the shepherd boy or the weary mother did. They bowed down. They worshiped.

There, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the-almost-assuredly-not sweet smelling hay, illuminated by the eastern star was an Extinguishing Light.

You visit a tear-stained mother in the NICU, her tiny child in an incubator fed the breath of life by tubes and wires; the outcome etched on the doctor’s face. You don’t take candles and a cake.

Yet we dress up Christmas like this year the story may have a different ending. Like we can glitz away, just for a day, Gethsemane or a tomb.

I don’t want to forgo the carols, the lights or the presents under the tree. It was the magic of my childhood, and I want it to be my children’s too.

But I also want to celebrate Christmas like I know the ending. This season, I want to admit that sorrow was born because of, and for, me.

Stay tuned for more. I don’t actually know what the more is, just that it’s coming.

The Power of Yes

I’ve talked about it before. About how one little ‘yes’ changed our lives in a great big and beautiful way. But sometimes I neglect to add that the ‘yes’ continues to change our lives. That the ‘yes’ was a snowball, not a snowstorm.

The funny thing is that while that initial ‘yes’ felt so big and so scary, everything since has felt pretty much  felt like a natural extension of our lives. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still afraid of change. Sometimes really afraid. And, sometimes we still shrink back when we should be forging ahead. But we’ve also learned that courage is not the absence of fear.

We’ve also learned that 'saying ‘yes’ should never be an insolated incident, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Instead, it should be a way of life.

She’s says it far more beautifully here. Don’t miss it, especially where she says “This should not be a unique story. Our story should not be special. This story should be all of ours.”

When It Comes Undone

Whenever changes are afloat, I start out sailing smoothly. But after days of uneven waters, I tend to lose it.

I make headway on the To Do list. I call and email all the needed people it takes to get things done. But then a moment comes. It’s that moment when I’m stirfrying but I can’t find my stirfry spoon or it’s when someone, who has been asked not to screech repeatedly, screeches a little too loud and too long. In that moment, I come undone.

In that moment I forget that the issue is a cooking utensil or a kid being a (crazy) kid. Instead I hear “Really, you think you can do that? You can’t even do this.” or “You don’t get to whine and complain. You’re the one who thought you could have it all.”

The self doubt, the emotional exhaustion, the patience of a gnat – it doesn’t come from someplace good.

We tell ourselves and our kids to always give 110%. Malarkey. If we’re going to embrace this life and not endure it, then sometimes you just can’t. Some days you need to do enough to just get by. Some days you need to pack it in long before quitting time.

You need to build your strength back up. You need to be able to get back to a place where you can feel the rush of the water between your fingers, even when you’re just doing dishes. You need to be able to feel the warmth of the sun on your cheek and to know that it shone for you.

You need to get back to the place where you can put it back together when it comes undone.

I Love To Tell The Story

Some days I feel like I have nothing to say. That everything has been said before. On those days, I question if I write because I actually enjoy it or if I’m just something of an egomaniac.

But I also know that stories are powerful. That people’s personal tales, including people I’ve never met, have helped bring me where I am today.

This is especially true of our adoption story and our limb different story. I’ve done my fair share of 2 AM other-people-in-the-same-boat story reading while nail-biting through the next chapter of our own.

But it isn’t just the stories of the similarly situated that connect us. Stories are common connections that transcend time. We all know the one about George Washington and the cherry tree and that one isn’t even true.

Some days I read blogs because I’m looking for advice or a good recipe. Other days I just want to know that I’m not in this thing alone.

I think that’s what we want. Everyone using social media, whether they’re posting cute pictures of their kids or their pooch, whether they’re knuckle-headed enough to be documenting the crime they just committed or what they had for lunch is seeking the same thing, connection. Don’t believe me? Then why does Facebook have a “Like” button? Why do blogs have followers? People are seeking different types of connection - validation,compensation, commiseration, a shared laugh - but we’re all ultimately seeking the same thing.

Maybe the guy typing out #atebadburrito isn’t just a twenty-something self-absorbed technology addict. Maybe he just needs a hug, virtual or otherwise. Or maybe he just needs to be heard.

Maybe so do I. Maybe so do you.

When It Isn’t Black and White

I used to think the world was so black and white. Life was easier when I believed that something was either right or wrong.

I used to make choices according to “the rules.” Consequently, I was more sure of the decisions I made.

These days I still believe in Absolute Truth.

But I also believe that Absolute Truth has a whole mess to say on the merits of long-cut detours, seemingly impractical decisions and getting our hands more than a little dirty.

My life is not as black and white as it once was.

The safety net of a reflexive “yes” or “no” has been replaced with angsty soul-searching and the joys of tossing and turning.

Yet, strangely enough, I eat and drink a song of peace.

 

PS – Did you vote for Love Without Boundaries today at Intuit’s Small Business, Big Game site? LWB is in the running for a professionally produced commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl. Go here to vote.

Linking up with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Yall.

Literacy of Life

Are you literate? Not can you read, but are you literate in the language of life?

Are you well-educated and learned when it comes to the transforming power of pain, to still reverence, to the quiet whisperings of grace?

We tend to think of ourselves as either literate or illiterate. But there is a third possibility: aliterate.

An aliterate person can read and write but has little interest in doing so, whether out of indifference to learning in general or from a preference for seeking information and entertainment by other means.

Today, which do you choose to be?

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Here's an interesting podcast from two adult amputees about how they deal with children staring at their prosthetics. My favorite part is when the mom says her child wanted to take her prosthetic leg to career day.