Pro-motion/for movement

There are too many memories floating around in my brain cloud that I want to write down. I need to write them down. Things are happening here and I feel like it's getting away from me. Just as I was beginning to wonder why I haven't gotten to it, I realized in the time it took me write the first three sentences, I had to check on Micah who had fallen off his scooter, give Millie more of her snack and then wipe off the droplets of coughed up snack off the computer screen. It's distracting when a baby simultaneously asks for more honey graham bar while acting like she's going to vomit the first piece.

Now that I've talked about vomit, I can proceed with the record of recent events.

Silas' Kindergarten Graduation

While the idea of a kindergarten graduation seemed undue at the time, when Silas walked across the stage in his white cap and gown, I could tell he was proud to have his family there to watch him.  I realized how many reasons I had to be proud of him. He learned to read this year. He excelled in math. He struggled- really struggled- through writing in a journal every day. He made new friends; something I was anxious about. He learned to obey new authority figures.


*Further interruptions: Micah just fell off his scooter again. Children have also alerted me that Baby Big Chicken has knocked over the water. Again. This is an awfully naughty batch of chicks.*

Back to Silas... Finishing kindergarten turned out to be a bigger deal than I thought. In twelve years, God willing, we're going to see him do this again. And as we just celebrated my sister Katie's graduation from JBU this weekend, it's possible Silas will do that too. His potential is unknown at this point. What is known is he will not be with me forever. This beginning of his formal education creates automatic reminders to the number of years he's expected to remain at home with me, and a third of it is already gone. I'm really grateful for a school like Providence that allows me such a significant role in his education and so much time at home. Having a first grader and gearing up for another kindergartner will make the 2012-2013 school year just as fun, no doubt. Two school age children! It's like Joel and I are adults now. And speaking of the man...

Dr. Joel Fankhauser, Team Sectional Leader

That's Joel's promotion! He's now the liaison for the Mercy Health Big Boss and physicians for three primary care clinics. What does this mean? I'm not sure. Maybe more meetings, but so far it's pretty much the same.  I'm so very proud of him! Way to go, Joel.

                          Laura, Summer & Stewart, and Joel before the surprise baby shower

Comings and Goings of a Eventful Weekend

As mentioned before, sister Katie graduated from John Brown University on Saturday. It was 2 days after Abbie's birthday. Abbie is expecting her first baby, a son, in about 8 weeks so we also had a surprise baby shower for her. It was great fun to have all us 7 girls, a couple cousins, cousins' girlfriends, nieces, aunt, uncle, great aunt and grandparents in and out over the weekend. The kids did great with so many people to talk to and Micah and Liza had only a couple of minor kerfuffles (see below), but not in front of Grandfather, as per instructions. Everyone was so helpful in getting meals out, moving chairs around, being excited about the lame-o door prizes I pawned off on them, and being quiet after children's bed time. I'm thoroughly exhausted from the weekend, and now very lonely.  I going to miss Katie and Sara!

                                                    Abbie's birthday Mississippi Mud Cake

                                        The Graduation Party Crowd
Like WWF

And just so you know it's not all happy family farm around here, I have to write a note about how much Micah and Liza are fighting these days. With Micah being on the smaller size of 5 and Liza being on the larger size of 3, folks often ask if they are twins.

                                                     They even have similar messy faces!

Liza is really mean to Micah. Micah, like anybody, doesn't like being pushed around. She's always "accidentally" bumping into him or taking his things when she swears she didn't know he wasn't done playing with it. They slap each other with blankets in the car. They steal each others bikes. They blow bubbles in each others eyes. They push each other out of the shopping cart at the store. It's exhausting. God give me a wisdom to deal with this pair.

And Millie: I'm purposefully leaving Millie out of this post. She's getting her own post next. Check back soon.



Update: it's been a week since I wrote this and I'm just now getting back to editing and adding pictures. I need another blog post just to catch up.

Contagiondamnation Days 3,4 and 5

Mother called Grandmother the next morning for she was in the pits of despair. Grandmother verbally signed a waiver of liability by saying she understood the risks of visiting our family and quickly set out to make the 5 hour drive to offer moral and laundry support. Perhaps the clincher for Grandmother's decision was that Mother described cleaning the kitchen at 4am for losing sleep with worry. Or that Mother's sister wouldn't be able to come for a 31st birthday celebration that had been in the making since Christmas. Either way Grandmother sensed she was desperately needed.

The whole family went with Liza to see the Specialist. The Specialist was cocky and wrong. But he did give Liza a prescription for an ointment that cost $100 instead of the $4 eye drops that he would have liked us to believe were like splashing battery acid into a child's eyes.

The official and final diagnosis was a hemorrhagic conjunctivitis from Haemophilus. It is reported that in the olden days of the 1980s and before, Liza's symptoms and bacterial culture would have earned her a spinal tap.

Grandmother stayed with the family until Auntie Andrea and her two girls arrived. Things were fine at last and Grandmother made plans to return home so she could return for a previously planned visit the next weekend. Things were fine at last and Mother and Father even got to attend their small group that evening. Yes, everyone was well...for about 9 hours.

At 5:45am, Father got up early as he had to visit his patients in the hospital before taking Silas to school. Between 5:45 and 7:00am, he threw up 6 times. About the time he stopped throwing up and got up to tell Mother she would need to drive the boy to school, Mother heard fussing and sputtering in the other room. Young Micah had also thrown up.

Contagiondamnation

Day 2- Little Liza walked out of her bedroom rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It was business as usual in the Fank House. Mother was drinking her coffee with milk and checking daily deals on Amazon while being kicked in the thigh by 10 month old baby Millie. This was Millie's custom while she took her morning bottle. On the floor, two ruffian man-cubs scrawled on blankets, unusually quieted by Curious George.

The high point of the day for mother was Liza's bowel movement. After more than 6 weeks of abdominal pain, diarrhea, testing and diet experimentation, Liza seemed like she had barely closed the chapter entitled, "the Christmas with all the GI problems". Alas, the euphoria from the perfectly formed, pain-free poo was short lived.

Crying over Legos began. Then crying over Word World began. Then there was a trip to Sam's Club for Larabars, Millie's post-placement report photos, and a waffle maker. The trip to Sam's ended in crying because Silas wouldn't feel how soft Liza's pants were like she wanted. It was at this point, mother began to wonder if all this crying were indicative of a deeper symptom. Having just read this blog, mother assumed the children needed more attention.

But there was schooling to be done so Silas and mother set out to memorize odd numbers. Around 12:00pm, mother noticed the dark circles under Liza's eyes had become red and puffy. A yellow goo was beginning to ooze from the corners of her eyes. Being no stranger to conjunctivitus, mother assumed her little daughter needed nothing more than antibiotic eye drops. The pediatrician was contacted and a second trip to Sam's was planned.

By 2:00pm, Liza's eyes had swollen more and further crying ensued. To mother's extreme irritability, having a reason to cry made it no more tolerable. Mother laid down beside her little daughter with warm, soft cloth and did her best to coax the lass into at least closing her eyes so that they might rest.

Liza would no more close her eyes than a salt water croc in fresh water, waiting for a Indian cow to get a drink of water. You get the idea. She didn't want to close her eyes.

It is unknowable now how long mother snoozed, but it is estimated the amount of time was somewhere between 5 minutes and 9 minutes. Around 3:30, all attempts to make Liza rest and close her eyes had been retired. Disney's "Beauty and Beast" was turned on and plans were set into motion to expedite the second Sam's trip.

Great-grandmother was gracious and kind. Mother had more than once requested her service for what had been called "a drive-by". No, not a shooting. A "drive-by" was where mother picked up Great-Grandmother and together they drove to a store, post-office, clinic or other errand type location at which mother would leave Great-grandmother in the car with all the children and mother would bop in, and bop out more quickly than if all 4 children were unloaded, carted in and out, and then reloaded.

OK- here's how the story wraps up because I'm getting tired of remembering this day: Liza got a second, oral antibiotic and by the time she was getting out of the bath and into bed, there was blood dripping from her eyes. To be continued...

A Cure for What Ails Them?

This morning both Micah and Liza cried because they wanted to be six.

Liza later told me that her tummy hurts from talking too much.

More FOOD!

Eating? Or being eaten...

There is a small variety of culinary and digestive tales going on at our place recently. Liza has been suffering from some gastro-intestinal um...we'll call them "issues". I'll spare you the details, but it's been going on for at least 3 weeks and we're doing what I call "poosome testing". I'll post results when they arrive, perhaps as soon as 48 to 72 hours. What? You don't want to know whether bacteria or parasites are living in her sweet little intestines? Now how do you feel about me tricking you into reading about poo when you were lead to believe you would read about food? Joke's on you, sucker.

Fatty, Phatty, Mcfattertons

I've adapted a sour cream pound cake that Paula Dean makes. I omitted 1/4 C of sour cream for orange juice, added a full orange's zest, added 1/2 tsp. almond extract and substituted all of the butter cream frosting with an orange almond glaze. My plan would have been perfect had I frozen half of the cake. Between Joel, Katie, Sara, the children and I, the cake was completely consumed withing 36 hours.

Supper Tonight

In the process of blackening chicken, I accidentally created a pepper-spray situation in our kitchen. Everyone has watery eyes and coughing, choking and freezing since I had to open all the windows and doors. I then proceeded to inflict further respiratory punishment on myself by sprinkling ground ginger on this recipe instead of using fresh sage. My sage bush died either in the blizzard, flooding, or drought of 2011. I really don't remember which atmospheric extreme it was, but natives assured me they had never seen snow/rain/lack of rain in these parts such as they did this last year.


Anyway, ground ginger blew into my nose because the fan and all the doors were open. I coughed, choked and cried some more.

We're also having rice but there's nothing interesting about the rice, except I added a little bit of olive oil to it whereas normally, I would just add nothing.



Post-supper update: Joel was the only one who liked it and when asked what feeling was inspired by the chicken, he said, "fire". The rice wasn't better with olive oil, the carrots had delicious flavor but didn't steam long enough and were therefore too firm. And for dessert, since we had already eaten all the pound cake, there were only some old fruit snacks.

Do you like the new layout?

I think it makes my eyes stand out and pictures of trash nearly delightful!

What we're eating these days

I love it when friends post recipes on their blog. It makes me feel like if we were closer, I would have invited myself over to eat with them. If you're willing to step over the bird seed and wade carefully through the leaves in the carport, we're finally eating again and everyone is invited. (This reminds me, I need to write about our Christmas vacation.) We're eating better than we have before, digestively speaking.

1) We eat fresh eggs every day, thanks to the chicky chickens. They have been laying all through the winter, to my pleasant surprise. They take turns taking days off and we get 3-4 eggs a day. I usually fry one in olive oil for lunch and a kid or two will usually ask for one as well. A fun side note: I am starting to tell a difference in the eggs that each chicken lays. Rooster lays smaller oval eggs. Dorkas and Coopus lay larger, darker eggs. I'm not sure which is which, but either Eggy or Mrs. Bock lay speckled or pinkish eggs.

2) Walmart stopped selling Horizon Chocolate Milk. Without anything to bribe the children to stay in their beds at night, and because all the chocolate syrup I can find has artificial flavors or costs $6 for 16oz, I had to make my own. I'm a huge fan of Alton Brown and he has a recipe so I made this and canned it.

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups Dutch-processed cocoa
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

In a small pot, bring water and sugar to a boil and whisk in cocoa, vanilla, salt, and corn syrup. Whisk until all of the solids have dissolved. Reduce sauce until slightly thickened. Strain and cool to room temperature.
(http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/cocoa-syrup-recipe/index.html)


3) At my friend Amy's suggestion, we're eating plain ole Cheerios off the floor. This was a secret plan to get Millie crawling. You make a trail of Cheerios and try to get Millie to follow it like Hansel and Gretel. We got a new carpet that no one has spilled milk or spit up, laid out the trail, and voila! It worked. Millie is crawling, thereby achieving her #1 new year's resolution.


4) Now this next pile of foods is going to sound bragadocious. But I don't have a lot of other accomplishments going for me right now so I'm going to write all this anyway. I've been baking quite a bit. Fresh bread boules, sour dough loaves, blueberry cornmeal muffins (thanks Andrea), cinnamon rolls, batman birthday trifles, chocolate chip cookie sandwiches...

5) There's bad news though. Our dietary changes this year have meant some losses and I'd like to take a minute in remembrance.

:( Chick Fil A is officially O-U-T of our diet. Since we went from eating there every week after church (that's right. After church. We go to church on Saturday night, you know.) to never again, I really miss it. But I think we're doing the right thing, and we're committed. The culprit here? Mainly TBHQ, a preservative. I've written Truett Cathy a letter, but he hasn't written me back OR changed any recipes.

:( Almond Joy Coffee Creamer is out. For a while I was happy drinking half and half with my coffee, but I'm trying to get skinny for Laura's wedding this summer and it also had to go. I'm now drinking 2% milk and one sugar cube.

:( Poptarts and mini-muffins from Sam's are out. I miss these a lot because on Silas' go-to-school days, they were so fast and easy. There are dye-fee, organic pop tart varieties, but no one likes them as much and even though I can bake nearly gourmet style muffins, no one is interesting in eating those out of the freezer. Lamentations.

I don't sweep every day.

Here's the dirt pile of everything I swept up when I swept under the table after breakfast this morning. It's all the usual suspects, except the duck. Until just a few weeks ago, he was up in the attic with all the other toys I boxed up in a cleaning rage.

New Year's Resolutions 2012

After reviewing my post from the resolutions of 2011, I feel like I did pretty well. I didn't wear a faux hawk and I didn't learn to criminally profile people by their handwriting. Having either/or goals was really helpful. This year, the whole family set some goals for the 2012.

Millie: (I helped her with her list)
1) Learn to crawl
2) Learn to walk
3) Learn to take better naps
4) move in with Liza (again)




Liza:
1) Buy something at the Chuck E Cheezit store (my store that I keep to encourage children to do chores/learn about money)
2) Take someone on a ride to her house in her princess car



Micah:
1) Go to Chuck E Cheese's
2) Take someone to a place
3) Go Christmas shopping because that would be fun



Silas:
1) Try my new slip 'n' slide
2) Go to Chuck E Cheese's
3) Jump on the trampoline with Micah and Liza
4) Go to Mad Pizza for supper



Me:
1) Find a note pad to write down resolutions
2) Lose 30 lbs before July 14
3) Take the dogs to the vet
4) Learn French
5) Read 10 books
6) Use the envelope system for spending/saving again
7) Pay off $50,000 of medical student loans
8) Buy Joel a car with a knob on the AC dial
9) De-worm the chickens
10) Eat more food from the the garden than we did last summer




Joel:
1) Be more positive