I Heart Valentine's Day

I've been using the new Gluten Free Betty Crocker cake mixes to make cupcakes for Connor (and his class). The mixes are expensive, but man they rock. Some people say that they can taste the rice flour in those. I say if you can taste the rice flour you don't have enough icing on it. I've had them without icing though and can't taste anything but chocolate cupcake.



Because I thought he might feel bad if he had to eat different cake than the other kids, I volunteered to make the cake for the class 100 day celebration as well. The 1 is GF but the zeros are just regular cake mix. I didn't do that because of the taste, but because of the expense. With only the 1 being GF it's a $10.00 cake. If the zeros were GF too it would be a $20.00 cake. It was delicious y'all.





The 100 should have stood for everything I did that week. When did Valentine's day become so hectic? We had the 100 day celebration, a field trip, a school project due, valentine's for both of the boys classes, teacher presents, conversation hearts for husbands work friends, conversation hearts for some of the moms at the preschool, a present for our baby sitter, presents for the boys and for husband. Granted I didn't have to volunteer to make a cake and cupcakes that week, but it wasn't the baking that was difficult. It was everything else with it. I'm all for bringing back the Valentine's day that was just a bunch of paper cards. I miss simplicity.

Knock on Wood

I've had a lot of questions over the past few weeks about the GF diet and how it's going. And the answer? Fantastic. Connor is super conscious about not eating foods with gluten in them. The truth is, I was worried about him feeling like the weird kid, but in fact it's the opposite. It makes him feel like the special kid. He's proud of his diet and doesn't seem to feel deprived at all.
One of the Moms at the preschool asked him last week if he he wanted some chips to which he responded, "Only if they don't have gluten in them." I can't believe that this is the thing that he's chosen to listen to us about. He doesn't listen to much he has to say, but he hasn't rebelled at all with the new diet. I am beyond surprised. I wonder if maybe he feels better without it.
We are starting to see changes. It might actually be WORKING! It seems to be happening slowly, but it's happening. He hasn't gotten a yellow card in school in 3 and a half weeks and that's never happened before. I couldn't be more proud. The circles under his eyes seem to be lighter also.
Making lunches and dinners are starting to be less of a challenge for me and we are probably eating better that we ever have, consistantly. We always have eaten fairly well, but without the gluten we can't just order pizza one night. Which sort of sucks. But is better for everyone.
He hasn't been sick as much either. And his moluscum is finally going away. I can attribute that to the vinegar baths and tea tree oil that we've been trying. It's so much easier than the Dr's approach to it, which was to burn it off. That might have worked for me if he'd only had 3 spots of it, but since he had 20 there was no way I was going to torment him like that. Especally since I kept feeling like with the eczema and the moluscum that something was going on with his immune system. Didn't it make sense that these were symptoms of a bigger problem? Why did I stop using holistic medicine in the first place? That probably deserves it's own entry though. For now I'm just glad that finally we are able to utilize the tools that will best help Connor be the best Connor he can be.

GF Baking 101

Gluten Free baking is interesting, my friends. It's completely different than baking with wheat and in some ways it's easier. Aside from the 5363 ingredients that it takes to make something that looks like bread and tastes like rice smells, there's no kneeding, you just mix, rise and bake. Here are some observations I've made so far.


- The GF dough isn't like dough. It's like cake batter. Bread has to be poured or spread, (in the case of pizza crust) into the pan.

- Do not taste it. GF Cookie dough doesn't taste anything like the cookie dough that you make yourself or buy in tubes at the grocery. It's fairly close, but just not quite right.

- Let your bread cool completely before slicing it.

- GF baking can be expensive. However, homemade GF muffins are cheaper than traditional wheat bakery muffins.

- When it doesn't turn out according to plan it will be upsetting. Possibly if it does turn out it will be upsetting if you aren't used to the flavor of the new flours and are expecting wheat flavor.

- It doesn't taste like wheat. You can't make it taste like wheat. But you can give it the texture of wheat, and then mask the flavor with other things. (Like peperoni, mushrooms and extra cheese).

- Set your expectations low. And hope to be pleasantly surprised.



These cookies don't look exactly like a traditional chocolate chip cookie, but they are close enough. I thought they were pretty good considering they were made from things that had names like, millet and sorghum. I made enough batter to freeze so that we could have decent cookies whenever we wanted.

Check it peeps. It's not stuffed crust, but it was pretty damn good for a gluten free pizza crust I had to mix, rise and bake 12 hours in advance. Because you know, I'm not doing anything else around here.

Tears of joy.

Snow Daze

We didn't get a whole lot of great pictures in the snow this year for some reason. I think it's because we turned on the gas fireplace which the kids have never seen on before. They were so enthralled by having fire in the living room that they didn't want to leave the fireplace.

The Sugar Bear however was all about charming our (generous) neighbor into going down the hill with him. I might have done it, but that sled looked pretty small and I didn't want to get half way down the hill, have it explode underneath me and then continue the rest of the way Looney Tunes style.

Connor walking up the hill after limping down it with the Bilibo. He was pretty miffed over something but we never figured out what. We have determined that some days his problem is that he is just prematurely 14 years old. You know. whatever.

Tristan digging for worms. It doesn't matter the weather. If that kid is outside he's looking for worms for his worm farm. It lives on our kitchen counter. I know, right? Now you can't WAIT to come over for dinner!

Whose yer Loser?

You may have received an email from me regarding the MOMS Club Biggest Loser competition that we are holding to benefit the SPD Foundation. Now believe it or not, donating to the SPD Foundation wasn't even my idea. In fact, at first I didn't want to do it because I didn't want people to think that I had engineered something towards my own cause. But I talked to a couple of other Mommies, who thought that it would be better to help a foundation that at least had something to do with someone that we knew rather than just a nameless foundation just because. But since I happen to be involved with the SPD Foundation anyway, it's full steam ahead.
The competition involves participants, (like me and Jorma) losing weight and getting a pledge amount from sponsors for each pound that we lose. If you didn't receive an email from me and want to support the cause, bring it on. We'll take your money. Or at least we'll take your money to the MOMS Club to give to the SPD Foundation. I'm posting random updates on the blog so that everyone can gain amusement from our loss. It should be entertaining at the least.

Dear Connor - 5 Years, 3 Months

Dear Connor,
Something magical happened this weekend. It snowed. You and your brother couldn’t get out the door fast enough. After about 20 minutes, you couldn’t get in the door fast enough because it was dang cold outside and still sleeting. Daddy took you around a few laps in the sled, you tried to make some snowballs out of the sleet ice combination and concluded that snowball making was very hard. We did explain that it wasn’t good snowball snow, but that didn’t stop you from trying. For some reason the snow seeped in and cut off communication with your brain because later in the afternoon we let you out front for a minute while we finished bundling up your brother and then Daddy walked outside to find you standing on the roof of his car which was completely coated with a thick layer of ice. I don’t know how we’ve managed not to be on a first name basis with everyone in the ER but so far we’ve (you’ve) been lucky.

Today all of the kids were sledding down the hill in front of our house and you took a couple of turns and then decided that you wanted to go and sit by yourself in the snow by our house. Daddy came over to make snowballs with you and you were appeased for a little while but still didn’t have much interest in sledding. You did however have interest in the snow cream that we made yesterday, announcing that since it was made from snow instead of ice that it was ice cream. You cracked yourself up.
I don’t have any endearing you and brother stories to tell this month. There’s been mostly fighting. Always the fighting. I think it’s probably a phase or at least I hope it is. Your “little bother” can’t help but poke you when he walks by. And you will not resist the urge to poke him back.

Every day at school you have a different friend that’s your new best friend. I’m happy that you are making friends and I am angry for you if you tell me a story about how you were snubbed by another child. One day, you told me that you told the little girl in your class that her shoes were very pretty. You said that you told her that so she would like you and want to play with you but she still wouldn’t play with you. She was trying to teach you something very important. That no matter how hard you try you’ll never figure out girls. Just ask Daddy.
I love you,
Mama

Dear Tristan - 3 Years, 4 Months

Dear Tristan,
Every night when I put you to bed, you demand three things. A story. A lullaby. Snuggle time. Since you have your big boy bed, either Mommy or Daddy can climb into bed with you, while you pretend to be falling asleep. When I get up to leave it starts an epic tantrum that lasts for approximately 10 seconds and then stops so you can ask, "Tomorrow, can we go ice skating?"

I thought that you might actually know what ice skating is, since you've seen a little segment on one of your TV shows about a kid that goes ice skating with his mom. Since there's a new ice rink about 15 minutes away, we decided that on Saturday, we would take you ice skating. You were pretty excited about it all the way there. You didn't mind waiting in line. You were excited to see the ice skates that you were going to wear. Then we put them on you and you refused to walk on them. After a few minutes you had your feet under you and were walking just fine as long as we were holding your hand. We watched the Zamboni clean the ice and then went to get onto the rink. I picked you up and put you on the ice, ushering you over to the wall. And after a month of begging to go ice skating you decided one thing. No way in hell were you getting onto that ice. You were doing pretty well too. You had your feet straight and your balance was superb. I really think that you probably could have skated without my help at all. But that didn't matter because you started screaming and clinging to me or Daddy so desperately that we knew there was no way that you were going to get out there. We tried a few more times but each time you acted like we were bringing you to certain death. So you settled for sitting on the sidelines with Daddy, eating Reeses cups and watching the skaters.

We've declared that next time we go out to do something as a family, it will be something that you can get into also. I know you love a Reeses cup, but I felt like you were cheated just a little bit. I will confess though, when we took off our skates you were running around not listening and I told you to sit still next to us or I was going to put your ice skates back on. You sat.

You still pitch a fit some days when I take you into school. But it's not nearly as big of a fit as you pitch when someone says the word nap to you. I have to say I definitely appreciate the irony of you having a flat out tantrum about how you don't want to nap, mostly because you are so exhausted that you find it necessary to sob over anything that doesn't go your way. Like the nap.

Your brother has figured this out and announces loudly on the way home from school that you're going to have to go home and take a nap because tormenting you is his favorite thing ever. I guess there isn't much to do in the car so you guys like to see who can make the other cry the loudest while Mommy is driving. Before you start feeling sorry for yourself though, you should know that you do your fair share of tormenting Connor. Mostly you completely ignore him causing him to have a screaming tantrum because he's trying to talk to you and you aren't listening to him. You just stare out the window with a smirk on your face. I've never had to pull the car over, but it's coming. I know it as surely as I know that you'll never ask me if you can go ice skating in the morning again.
I love you,
Mama

Bread of my Ancestors

Wheat is a relatively new addition to the human digestive system. While humans have been on the planet for 100,000 years, for 90,000 years we ate what we could gather or hunt. This adds up to a 45 year old human eating wheat for the first time at 41 years of age. While 10,000 years IS definitely long enough for the human body to evolve it’s digestion processes, we also have to consider that wheat was primarily grown in Southeast Asia and didn’t make its way to Europe, (where my family hails from) until much, much later. The bread that our ancestors ate was very, very different than the bread that we eat today. I am explaining this because when I made my first loaf of gluten free bread last night that’s what I was thinking. This is the bread of my ancestors. Well, except they didn’t have Xanathan Gum.
 The bread I made was from a mix containing different starches (think potato) and rice flours. The yeast in the package was several months expired which didn’t help the matter.
I mixed the bread, being very careful to follow the instructions. The bread didn’t rise at all until I put it into the oven to bake at which point it gustily soared 8 inches above the rim of my bread pan. Didn’t matter. I was still hopeful. When it was done we had to cut it out of the pan, which made me feel tearful since I was anticipating a beautiful bread loaf that could be sliced and used for sandwich bread for the kids. But still, I was hopeful. The bread of my ancestors was waiting. I pulled off a chunk from the warm loaf and popped it into my mouth. The bread of my ancestors… well, it’s pretty nasty.
I was so disappointed that it made me sad. I was anticipating something that didn’t taste like THAT. It was awful! I put some oil and spices on the table to dip it in which definitely helped get the bread down, but after dinner I could not get the taste out of my mouth. I was mad at the bread of my ancestors. I was mad that it didn’t have that luscious taste of wheat even if it did have the texture. I was mad that it smelled sort of fishy.
The good news is that regardless of how I felt about it, the kids tagged it, not minding at all the fishy taste that was masked by the olive oil and spice. I don’t think they even knew it was different at all.
I have to master this bread thing though. Connor told me today that all he wanted for dinner was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And that made me sadder than even the bread of my ancestors.

Bon Appetit!

Living Gluten free isn't difficult. It just requires planning. Since we happen to have two children under the age of five there isn't much in our life that doesn't require planning anyway. The person that it's most difficult for is me. Not with the eating, but with the preparing. Since I'm in the kitchen three times a day, (four if you count snack), I'm faced with the cooking challenge.
Making the kids lunches for school isn't a problem. I have to make an extra snack for Connor to take so the preschool doesn't get stuck worrying about having GF food for the entire class. I try to make something special for him to take. He likes it when he gets different snack and all of the other kids want what he's having. That's just fine with me.
I'm about to start experimenting with GF flours which can be pre-mixed in a baking mix that can be used as a bisquick type base for muffins, cakes or pizza crusts. The flours in any base likely contain some or any of the following; sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, millet flour, sorgum flour, tapioca flour, xanthan gum, guar gum and cornstarch. Because these are speciality flours they are expensive too. I've heard a lot from other people about how expensive it is to eat gluten free. I think it's only expensive if you get obsessive about replacing the foods, that you are missing. If you are used to eating prepackaged foods and trying to replace those, it's expensive. If you don't mind spending a little bit of time in the kitchen, it's not that expensive or that difficult it's just time consuming. I'm sure that the bread doesn't have that delicious wheat flavor but the kids will be so happy to have a pimento cheese sandwich that they probably aren't going to care. Bon appetit!

Windows 7 Update

If you’ve ever used a Mac you’d love Windows 7. Actually, I should say if you’ve ever loved a Mac instead of used. I’ve used a Mac and PC both, but finally determined that there are better ways to stand out from the crowd than overpaying for your computers. (Let the hate mail, BEGIN!) I still have problems finding things and got extremely pissed over the new security settings that won’t allow you to go into any of the hidden folders unless you change the security settings to allow yourself to do it. It seems stupid that the main account that has full admin rights has to give itself permission to view these files. I finally moved my email over to my laptop, putting a stop to the putting down the laptop and going into the office to check my email and then forwarding email to my gmail account on my laptop cycle that I started. Yeah, I know, speaking of stupid right?

Now that I’m getting used to Windows 7 I’m starting to like it a little bit more. It’s definitely shiny. And what girl doesn’t like shiny?

Resolutions 2010

Although I resolved several years ago to never make resolutions again, to prove myself consistent I broke that one and started making resolutions again. This year I’ve resolved to:

· Get healthier, lose some more of the baby weight, (22 lbs down and 40 to go). I’ve got to start going to the gym again. I’ve been on hiatus since I’ve been having some digestive issues. They’ve thoroughly checked my gallbladder and other organs but still there’s no answer as to why I’m suffering from constant upper right quadrant pain. It takes so long with all of the testing and such that at least I know it’s not serious. If it was serious, I’d be dead already.

· Attempt to make it to church at least once a month. This includes finding a church that’s not all judgey and weird.

· Have someone over for dinner once a month (I stole this from my friend Julie and it’s a good one). When I say dinner, I don’t mean getting all fancy, I mean just having someone over… even if we are eating tacos. No good china, just some good friends and a bottle of wine. Remember that we are gluten free, ‘round here so expect a dish containing potatoes.

· Finally find some way to take that Anatomy class that I need to start on my going back to school journey.

· Jorma resolved to do a family outing once a month and I’m totally piggy backing his. We don’t do enough fun stuff as a family. Usually by the time the weekend comes we are exhausted and content just to hang out together on the sofa like a pile of puppies watching TV and giggling.

· Get my blog moved over to something better like Wordpress or Movable Type. I’ve been putting that off forever because it requires actually purchasing webspace instead of riding out the free web hosting like I have been doing, but it really limits me. I’d like a little more control, a better site and maybe even a storefront selling something… maybe sensory toys? There are a ton of people making little bits of cash from their own websites online and while I’m not expecting anything lucrative, it’d be nice to generate some sort of something.

I like posting my resolutions on my blog because it helps to hold me to them. Because then I can go in and take a look at the end of the year and see how I’ve done. I need accountability. So let’s take a look at last year’s (cringe).

· Put on makeup everyday - Does chapstick count as makeup? If Chapstick counts as makeup I did this one!

· Try out some cardio. I love yoga, but I'm not losing any weight... just firming up. I did this! Religiously for a while. For a long while actually. I lost 22 lbs but then came to a screeching halt in September when the first cold come to our house.

· Embrace joy. I’m not sure I did this like I should have. I think I just got so busy that I stopped enjoying all of the things that I should have been and started just trying to make it through. I will try to do better at this, this year.

· Spend more time doing things that are creative. More art. I did this! I joined the Matthews Artist Guild and set up our spare room as an art studio. This involved getting rid of a bunch of Jorma’s weight equipment, but that wasn’t a big deal since we have a gym membership.

· Set up a budget for the family and use it... for a whole year. I did set up a budget. And we didn’t use it at all. This is because it was my intention to set up a cash budget for spending. But we don’t use cash. It would work better if we set up two additional accounts with debit cards and moved our spending money for the month to those. And then used the main account for bills only.

So all in all, I didn’t do that bad. Maybe I can make this year’s happen. I think I can, I think I can.

Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - Sign the Petition

Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - Sign the Petition

We watched Food, Inc last night and rather than go on and on about it, I'll just say, if you have the chance watch it. It's interesting in some parts, horrifiying in others. It's not a bad idea to sign the petition for healthier school choices though. If you are interested in signing, this is where you do it.

It's a Hard Knock Life

Pippin puts up with a lot of torment, but he gets a lot of sweetness too. And might I mention his 5 year old slave loves nothing more than to feed him canned cat food and his three year old slave pets him so often that he's forced to hide in the garage for brief periods of time. I was hoping that Santa would bring him a girlfriend, but he'll have to hold out for Valentine's Day.



Everyone likes to snuggle with blankie.

Oh, don't feel sorry for him. He lives here rent free.

Footloose and Gluten Free

As of today we've decided to go gluten free. For those of you that have no idea what gluten is, let me be the first to explain. It's anything made with wheat. We are mainly partaking in this adventure because there is some research that children with food sensitivities (not allergies) sometimes respond to these sensitivities with neurological symptoms.
Sometimes these children have dark circles under their eyes, don't sleep well, don't behave well and have pretty short attention spans. Removing the wheat from the diet allows their bodies to rest and start to concentrate on other things that might be causing the problems. Then you pinpoint those new problems and start to fix them. Like peeling the layers of an onion.
Not only have we throughly researched this, but know people that have actually had profound changes in their children that were struggling with one issue or another.
This doesn't mean that we'll be off of wheat forever. It just means that we're off of wheat for a while.
Even at birthday parties. Even at your house. Even at the grocery store where they give out the free sugar cookies.
If we see positive change we can start to unravel the other issues that come up, strengthening his neuro systems and then slowly introducing wheat to his system again without his body thinking it's a toxin. If we go several months with this and we don't see any changes at all of course, we'll stop and try something else, but we figured, if not now when?
Footloose and gluten free baby! Come on over for dinner, y'all. We'll have ice cream for dessert.

Christmas 09

Dear Connor and Tristan,
Tristan, one night before Christmas Daddy came into the living room and spotted you in front of the Christmas tree with your hands clasped and head bowed, praying to Santa for a Go, Diego Go Field Journal. Your prayer consisted of you saying the words Field Journal over and over. I came in on the tail end of the prayer but just in the few seconds I saw what the magic of believing was all about. And believe me when I say I would have gotten on an airplane to find one for you if that's what it took. Luckily, Santa has internet access so it wasn't so difficult. I guess between the story of Jesus from preschool, the pump up about Santa from Mommy and Daddy and the large lighted evergreen in the living room it could be confusing if you were three.

Connor, you remained obsessive about the Christmas candy phonomena for the entire month of December. You were quite adament when you saw Santa that you should receive chocolate coins in your stocking and that candy canes should be hung on the tree. You also requested a real working camera. You did get your coins and the canes on the tree and shortly lost interest after you found them. I mean, when you have a camera where you can take pictures of the cat's butt and Mommy half asleep first thing in the morning who needs a bunch of chocolate coins?

We made a gingerbread house and put reindeer bait on the lawn so Santa's sleigh could find our house. We put out cookies for Santa, but somehow I felt like you still weren't convinced. When ever we talked about Santa you gave me a skeptical sort of look, but by Christmas morning, you were Santa's biggest fan. You might let some body talk smack about your Mommy, but I'd be willing to bet that if someone said a cross word about Santa you'd be all over it. I mean, how cool is a man that puts a reindeer that poops jellybeans in your stocking? It's like he's known you all of your life!

I can not say the fighting over toys was minimal but I can say that after we got back from Nana and PaPaw's that the Christmas spirit had washed over you and your brother and you wanted to have a sleep over in your new sleeping bags together. We ended up having to split you both up and when you both cried over it, it made my heart swell with love. "Look, Honey! They LOVE each other! It's a Christmas Miracle!"

Merry Christmas Babies,
Mama

Happy Birthday to ME!

I used to take my birthday off of work every year. It didn't take me long to figure out that it's not your birthday that you take off... it's the day after it. I usually ended up, sleeping half the day and bumming around the house until everyone got off work and started calling and then everyone else came over and we started drinking. Then I'd roll into work the next day hung over and miserable. Those days are behind me now and I didn't even miss the late night partying this year. This year, Tristan toddled into my room and when I said, "Do you know what today is?" He responded, "Happy Birfday Mommy". I tried to use my birthday as an extra special reason for the boys to behave. I don't remember how many times I tried, "Don't make me yell at you on my birthday!", but it didn't work after the first time.

It was a busy day for me, dropping the kids off at school, a shopping trip to Ikea with Mommy playgroup, then a rush to pick up the kids from school and straight to gymnastics, home to clean up the house, dinner and then off to a cookie exchage. Sounds domestic doesn't it? It was domestic... at 180 miles per hour.
Here's to being another year wiser.

The Lazy Cook

I've always wanted to learn how to can. The problem is, I just didn't feel like that was something that I might be able to learn from a book, like everything else I've ever learned. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the whole botulism thing that makes me a little bit nervous.
In September, Lena taught me a thing or two about canning and together we put up 80-something jars of strawberry jam for her wedding. Since then I've been experimenting. I've made Apple Butter, Apple Jelly, Low Sugar Apple Jelly (this is a little bit cloudy due to my impatience with juice making and squeezing the ba-jesus out of the jelly bag to make the juice strain faster), Strawberry Jam, Apple Pie Jam (this is Jorma's favorite) and today I finished up my canning for the season with pepper jelly. I was going to give out the Pepper Jelly as presents but it didn't make that much and it kicks ass so I'm hoarding it for pot lucks and parties. If you come to the house during the Christmas season or invite us to something that requires us to bring a dish, prepare for pepper jelly.
I did something different with my pepper jelly batch. Something that crazy! Something scandalous! Instead of boiling them with the heat seal method I used the invertion method. That's where instead of boiling them in a canner for 15 minutes you ladle the hot jelly into hot jars and flip them upside down. And they seal. I was prepared to keep them all in the fridge. I was sure it wasn't going to work... but it did. Those sonofabitches sealed right up. Now I know this isn't the recommended method for canning, but I figured, if I'm going to use this method with anything, pepper jelly is my best bet. I mean it's fresh jalapeno peppers, vinegar and sugar. Can bacteria even live in that? I think it's safe. I love canning the lazy way.

Love Child - Windows 7

So far I've been using Windows 7 for less than 24 hours. It's as though iGoogle and OS X had a child. I haven't even had time to really go through of all of the tweaking and I'm finding it more difficult than I thought I would to get it set up the way I want it. I think when you boot it for the first time, it should have a big button that says, "Old School" and you click it so that it reverts to the previous OS at least long enough for you to get it set up the way you want it. Everytime I go to tweak something it takes me more than 10 seconds to find it and that's just unacceptable.
There are some features that really rock though, like the view desktop mouse over on the lower right and the minmizing IE icon that shows the pages that you went to last. We had a hell of a time getting it online with the wireless for some reason that Jorma explained to me while I smiled and nodded and pretended to understand what in the hell he was talking about. I know it had the words Mac Address and router it in and other than that I just sort of looked interested while I tried to figure out if I should put the pepper jelly I'm making tomorrow in half pint or 4 ounce jars.
So far though I haven't installed anything on it. I have to get it set up with some software, (arr matey) that might get tricky so I'm waiting on that outcome before I start loving it.

Dear Connor - 5 Years, 1 Month

Dear Connor,

I must say that you are a trooper with the supplementation ritual that we have you on. I got you and brother to take fish oil without complaint by following it with a spoonful of Hershey's Syrup. I'm sure the high frutose corn syrup isn't the best thing for your system, but it allows me to lure you into thinking that you want to take the fish oil.

You have been taking gymnastics classes, something that you are really into. They spend as much time chasing you back from the other side of the gym as they do teaching you how to tumble. I'll be glad when we get your focus a little stronger so that you can focus long enough to really learn something in your class, but one thing is for sure, all of that heavy work we do with you really pays off. You are strong as an ox. You are good at bouncing too. It makes me want a trampoline in the backyard, but I know if we had one here, you'd be over it pretty quickly.

You've lost your first tooth. It got really loose, really quick. That's because you were obsessed with it. We offered to tie a string to the tooth, tie the other end to the cat and then let your brother loose, but you didn't want to take us up on it.

Actually, you pulled it out yourself. You walked over to me and said, "Look Mommy it's really lose, and flipped it over backwards with your tongue". I knew that we should go ahead and pull it, but knew you'd be freaked out and I didn't like the idea of holding you down to pull your tooth. As I was debating on how your Dad and I were going sell you the idea that it would be fun and painless to remove part of your body, you got a look of intense concentration as you twisted the loose tooth. And then it was in between your fingers which is something you barely even noticed since you were suddenly enthralled by the hole it made in the row of your bottom teeth.

Congratulations! You are really a big kid now.
I love you,

Mama

Dear Tristan - 3 Years, 2 Months

Dear Tristan,
We kept talking about moving the chair that you love to sleep in. And we kept putting it off. This is mostly because we love sleep. You see, each morning you would get up from your bed at 6am, mutter to yourself for a few minutes and then get into your chair and sleep until precisely 7:15am. It's that extra hour and fifteen minutes that I didn't want to lose. I figured we've move the chair and you'd wake at 3am and start crying because it wasn't in your room then fall back asleep then wake again at 6am and not be able to go back to sleep. I pictured this happening until you were at least 16 or so.


But finally, one night before bed, I broke down the chair and moved it to the hallway. You came out of the bathroom from brushing your teeth and a look of horror crossed your face when you saw your chair in the hall. I explained that we were moving the chair downstairs and that it was still your chair, but you'd have to sit in it downstairs instead. Then Daddy came and whisked it away to the living room. You went and sat in the corner where your chair had been and started trying to stir up a tantrum, but then were quickly distracted by the lure of having a book read to you.

You went to sleep in your bed and you woke up at 7:15am. You did not seem to care a single bit that your chair was gone. All that ado for nothing. A few times later that week, I came into your room to find you sleeping on the floor in front of the door. That didn't last long though. You're smart so it didn't take long for you to determine that sleeping on the floor well... it sucks. Especially when you have a nice comfy big boy bed to sleep in. Lesson to myself: it's never as big of a deal as I make it out to bed. Thanks for teaching me that buddy.
I love you,
Mommy