What Relief Society Does

Because I'm worth it

I bought 25 lbs of gluten free baking mix. Yup, I did it. At $3/lb, it was a bargain. And it saves me about 5 hours of work buying, measuring and mixing various flour replacement blends. My time is worth $5/hour. Don't you think?

I went with Better Batter. A 25 lb bag is $75 and shipping is free. It tastes good. Plus, they are a family run company and they do good things. Like give financial aid to families with autistic kids or who get government food aid.

And these cookies are the best gf cookie I've made yet...Coconut Chip Cookies.

age appropriate behavior?

The phrase “age appropriate behavior” does not help me. It invalidates my observations and gut instincts as a mother. I sometimes feel frustrated and let down when I hear those words. And they're said for, what I believe, is one of two reasons. First, the person is trying to make me feel better. Thank you. Your compassion is duly noted, however, your dismissal of my child's erratic and inappropriate behavior as “normal” implies that I am wasting countless hours at therapy, doctor's appointments and crying into my diet coke. Second, perhaps they do not have a full understanding of the situation. “But she's so cute!” Yes, my 3 year old is very adorable in her glasses, but she should be able to say more than two words. Her cuteness does not excuse her lack of speech. “He's so smart!” Yes, he is smart. But his smartness doesn't stop him from running in the road, hiding in the car park and screaming for 10 minutes when I try to coax him into the van.

“Age appropriate behavior” tells me I am the problem. Those well meaning words convey the message that I can not cope with normal children. I must need some parenting education class because Simplicity Parenting, Parenting with Love and Logic, The Power of Positive Parenting, Successfully Parenting At Risk Kids, etc neglected to provide the skills necessary to raise my children.

Those who know so much about child development are right. I can not cope with normal children. God gave me the tough ones because I needed the challenge.

Gluten Free Success.. finally

i have made some nasty tasting, gluten free food. i have proven that it is possible to make chocolate taste disgusting. {a culinary feat, i believe} i have also made brownies taste like edible sand. large pats of butter made my last batch of muffins edible.

tonight, however, my Mulligatawny Soup stole the show. so good, we all had seconds. here is the recipe. i tweaked it from one i found on allrecipes.com. i'm only giving guidelines on spice amounts... make your own to taste.

Gluten Free Mulligatawny Soup
2 carrots, sliced or diced
2 celery stalks, sliced thinly
1/2 onion, diced
1/4-1/2 cup butter
2 chicken breasts, cut into pieces
6 cups of chicken broth
1/2 tsp thyme
1 Tbl curry powder
salt
pepper
1 cup rice, white or brown
1 cup of heavy cream

1. in heavy pot, melt butter. saute carrots, celery and onion. brown chicken cubes
2. add chicken broth, curry powder, thyme, salt and pepper. simmer for 15-20 min.
3. add rice and cook until tender (about 20 mini for white rice, 40 for brown)
4. when rice is tender, slowly stir in heavy cream and serve

If you're not into recycling

consider letting the kids tear apart your old electronics. They can use the parts to make entirely new creations. Like a doll house of one's own. Or a zepplin.

I think Fridays are my new favorite days. I volunteer for a bit at the girls' school, run a book club for high schoolers, then spend the afternoon cleaning while the kids craft and Zerin naps. Last week, Normandy and Meghan made this fairy house using electronic parts from broken items the kids in my book club broke. This week, another friend is making a lego laboratory.

good times.

Parallel Service

The Holmes and Rahe stress scale is a list of 43 stressful life events that can contribute to illness. Each stressful event corresponds with a numerical life change unit (LCU) . The LCUs of a year's events are added together for an idea of how likely the test taker is to become ill due to their stress level. The greater the number, the more stress, the increase in illness.

I often reflect on our time as a military family. It was only 2.5 years ago. Dan's decision to leave the Air Force changed most everything about my life-- my health care, volunteer opportunities, school decisions, housing, grocery shopping. The odd thing is, Dan still works at DLI-- his last duty station. What shocked me most, however, wasn't seeing a specialist without prior approval. It was the stability in our life, in our family.

No longer do I wonder where we'll be living in two years. I don't wonder what job Dan will have or if we'll be separated. I know the girls can stay at MBCS for years. Speech and OT needs are being met by wonderful caring persons. I can paint the walls of my house any color I want. Dan knew this stability is what certain family members needed way before I did. After enjoying this stability most non-military persons experience, I marvel at the constant stress we lived under. We didn't even know it.

I took the stress test myself. (Try it here.)

My stress on the LCUs total 182. We moved, acquired a mortgage, got a medical diagnosis, changed our eating habits, got a speeding ticket and survived Christmas.

The typical military family could, in one year: move to a new duty station in February and the military parent deploys in September. The LCUs for this very, very common scenario: 364. This assumes the children in the family are all healthy and don't react poorly to the changes, no babies are born, no one gets sick, there is a vacation on the way to the new duty station and neither spouse is taking college classes.

This personal essay was written several years ago, while we were still a military family, experiencing 300+ LCUs a year. I will always be grateful for the friends, military and civilian, I made during those years. They taught me about friendship, love and sacrifice. This is for the Mandys, Hollis, Burgandys, Toris, Rebeccas and Michelles of the world. The friendships that endure separation, arguments and bowls of soup.

Parallel Service

“On this day in which the war with Iraq begins,

the confluence of events, lives, symbols

gather steam. There is a sense that we are

charging forward—but toward what?

Karen Houppert,,Home Fires Burning:

Married to the Military

—For Better or Worse

My friends and I served one another. We brought dinners when the day was bad, provided a soapbox, babysat for date and doctor appointments, drove each other to the airport, bought extra milk from the store, fed the dog fish cat or turtle and once I bought Heather’s WIC formula and mailed it to her because she couldn’t use the vouchers from Lakenheath in Salt Lake.

Heather and I walked everywhere together. I’d walk to the PX with her even when I didn’t need to just to give her company. She walked with me to Tennyson’s preschool, but never in the morning because Heather couldn’t get up and ready that early. When we needed to go somewhere and we couldn’t get there by foot, like Bury St. Edmunds or to the playgroup on Mildenhall, we jammed three car seats into the back of a car and went together. Mostly Heather and I just listened to one another. She listened to me describe apraxia and the workings of the inner ear almost every week. I listened to her talk about her mother who was slowly losing her memory and didn’t remember visiting England or falling asleep on my bed New Year’s Eve.

The only thing Heather and I didn’t talk about was what our husbands did for a living. I never mentioned that, although Dan never set foot on Kosovo’s soil, he participated in the bombings of buildings and lives. Heather never mentioned that Calvin probably loaded the bombs that fell over Iraq. Juliet’s husband, Alex, led the F-16 fighter planes into Iraq. But I didn’t ask what happened to the bombs Calvin loaded when Alex flew over Baghdad.

Caren’s husband, Josh, heard Arabic while in an airplane. He probably told Alex where to put those bombs. Amy’s husband, Martin, worked on the computers Dan, Alex and Josh depended on. He didn’t ruin any lives, except his own when he slept with a coworker in Greece. Amy left him. I babysat while Heather drove her to the airport.

Yesterday

People tell me, "It feels like just yesterday I brought my baby home from the hospital, now she's a young woman". or "Just yesterday we said, 'I do', and now, here we are 12 years later....".

Sorry, but it does not feel like "just yesterday" I brought home a screaming, pooping, nursing baby. And it wasn't just yesterday that I naively said, "Yes" thinking all our tomorrows would be sunshine, with occasional showers. There were a lot of yesterdays with colic, depression, irritation, doctors and torrential rains.

I am, very happy to say, however, that we have survived the torrential rain.