Laurin Evans » Kids

When only a list will do

Laurin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:32:15 +0000

I abandoned my blog back in March, in case that wasn’t clear. But, there were reasons, I swear! I love blogging and missed it terribly, but nevertheless the Blog Abandonment continued for nearly eight months. Yikes! It’s been that long? So, without further ado, I present:

Reasons I haven’t posted since March 24, 2011:

1. Took both kids snowboarding to Copper Mountain, Colorado, with some friends. Without my husband for backup. We took two babysitters with us for help with all three family’s kids, yet it was still…EXHAUSTING. Number of sweats broken while outfitting two kids with the 87 things they need to put on to leave the house five times a day? Don’t know. My memory of the trip is fuzzy due to dehydration from the exertion and all the alcohol.

So, I had to recover from that vacation, then…

2. Started a full-time legal and marketing job at the beginning of April. I felt stifled by having a blog in my real name and couldn’t think of a thing to write without inserting a GIANT disclaimer that my views in no way reflect the views of my employer. OBVIOUSLY.

Also, I started living in my car…

3. Twenty-minute drive to the kids’ fundamental school and then a 40-minute drive from school to work. Plus the twenty-five minute drive home with 2 – 3 days of hitting the gym on the way home to stay sane (it’s all relative) left precious little time to do much extra writing.

At the same time, life started sucking majorly…

4. A very close family member was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer the week I started my new job. My family was adamant that I go ahead and take the job. Fortunately, my dear relative had lots of local love and family support, so everything was handled beautifully. We just found out the cancer is in remission. It is a miracle.

Life marches on, however, and

5. Jack’s second-oldest daughter got married in California a couple of weeks after I started the job. Erin was so sick that she and I missed the wedding and spent nearly the entire trip in the hotel room. Stayed in a lovely old place that began to feel like the Overlook Hotel when we ran out of underwear and receptacles for vomit.

Jack did bring me back a piece of cake, though, and Jake, who promptly began throwing up and other things minutes after Jack left to return to the wedding. Southern California weather is magical that time of year, I hear.

Then, to extinguish my last remaining moments of free time during which I might blog…

6. Brought home the new baby. I purchased a ridiculously expensive, impossibly tiny, designer dog named Bella for Erin in the hope she would stop moving the cat – nearly 20 pounds and unpredictable when pushed to his limit by a young girl determined to carry him everywhere she goes – and it actually worked! The cat was all but ignored, but unfortunately gained what looks like another five pounds due to lack of previous daily fleeing and eluding exercise.

I am now that person with a purse dog. Unexpected treat: Jack, who fought getting a “stupid small dog” like a demon, is absolutely devoted to Bella. He still has not figured out how much I spent on the dog, so we are still married. Avoiding costly ER visits for facial laceration and plastic surgery for daughter? Priceless.

This picture makes Bella look big, but she is only 1.8 pounds. She has long Jim Carrey in The Grinch-like hair tufting out between all of her toes. It’s totally adorable.

7. Traveled a bit for work. Went to conferences in Atlanta, San Francisco and Denver. Like a moron, I ate a giant bowl of cantaloupe in Denver AT THE VERY TIME the tainted Colorado cantaloupe was all over the news. In my defense, my co-worker ate some too, so I’m at least tied for stupid. Spent the next month convinced that every cough was the beginning of the end.

Uncharted territory ahead…

8. Jake was diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disability, complete with an almost total inability to comprehend math (dyscalculia). He was struggling mightily, despite an amazing teacher and support structure at his school. He had a 504 plan and we were in the process of getting an IEP in place, but I could tell that without nearly constant one-on-one intervention he would continue to fall behind.

I lose my shit completely and…

9. We decided to take the kids out of school for me to homeschool them. I have always been curious about homeschooling and teaching in general (My mother was a sixth-grade teacher, coach and computer teacher for many, many years), but always proclaimed loudly and at every opportunity that I could never homeschool my own kids because, well, they are my boisterous, headstrong offspring. I really tried to put that nicely.

For some reason, the President and CEO of the company where I work generously approved me to work around three hours a day from home. I am incredibly grateful because I really enjoy the work and the people and it allows me to still be an adult making adult money and to use my big words and pricey law degree.

Things start to settle down…

10. I get the hang of homeschooling and realize Erin would be better off in our zoned elementary school, especially since it is now graded even higher than her former school. She openly despised homeschool (despite begging me to make the decision in the first place) and it was hindering my ability to teach both of them and, frankly, depriving me of the will to live.

Erin starts school next week. Jake is 100% fine with this turn of events and even told me it would be better for just the two of us to do homeschool. Phew!

11. This just in. Just started Jake on the Feingold program last week to see if it will help with some of the behavior issues. It is a fairly controversial program, and a radical lifestyle change since you can’t eat any artificial colors, flavorings, preservatives or salicylates, but I feel compelled to give it a try. I truly believe I am seeing a calmer boy, with just a few days under our belt. I have written before about Jake’s reaction to red dye, and absolutely believe he has a sensitivity to artificial ingredients.

Jack is not convinced the program has merit and we’ve already had a scuffle after he bought Jake some gingersnaps that contained cloves – lots of salicylates. I will report back on how it goes.

That’s pretty much it. No more or less than what others probably have to deal with during the course of an (almost) year, but I just couldn’t find time for my blog.

See you in eight months! Just kidding. I hope.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Valentines – Think Crafty, Not Candy

Laurin — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:33:11 +0000

Another candy holiday is upon us – Valentine’s Day. I’m not even worried about the kids, it’s me who can’t resist the row of brightly colored bags of candy at the grocery store. No, I’m serious. It’s a problem.

The kids are somewhat insulated from all the chocolate and candy of the holiday because they are only allowed to exchange non-candy valentines at school. Sure, I could pick up one of those inexpensive boxes of pre-printed cards and call it a day, but this year I decided to step up my game a bit and get crafty.

My kids are currently fascinated with snow globes. Sadly, we lost one of our “vintage” snow globes belonging to the kids’ older sister when she was a toddler, due to some exuberant play over the Christmas break. I was able to stop the tears with promises of a replacement snow globe, but I decided to check with my oracle, Google, to see just how hard it would be to make our own to give as valentines at school.

It turns out that making your own snow globe is a super-popular craft activity and can be made easily with just a few items from the craft and dollar stores. As a side note, I recently discovered that dollar stores and party supply stores are the best thing that ever happened to a mom who needs an endless supply of inexpensive gift and donation items for a kid’s school requirements. Honestly, it’s like I’ve been living in a cave.

All you need to make a snow globe is the following items:

Small jar with a screw-on lid: I found small spice jars at a big box home goods retailer for .99 cents each and had two $5 off coupons.
Modeling clay to attach objects to the lid of the jar.
Floral wire to attach foam objects to the modeling clay.
Plastic or foam items to display: We used pre-cut foam hearts, stars and assorted sports balls (for the boys). You could also use plastic animals or other objects. Make sure your object is narrow enough to insert into the jar once you attach it to the lid.
Glitter
Optional: Narrow ribbon to glue around the sides of the jar lids.

Instructions:

To attach your objects, flatten a ball of modeling clay firmly in the lid of the jar. Push your object firmly into the clay so it will stay put once it’s in the water.
For the foam objects, stick two identical foam shapes together over the end of a length of floral wire shaped into a J shape. Attach two identical items to the other end of the wire and firmly push the curved end of the wire into the clay. Press the clay around the base of the floral wire to make sure it is secure.
Fill your jar with water, as close to the top as possible, leaving a bit of room for the water the object will displace.
Sprinkle the amount of glitter you would like to have in the water. Gently ease the objects on the lid into the water and firmly close the lid. You could also seal the lid with a glue gun, but it’s not necessary. You can also glue plastic objects to the lid instead of using clay. I found that using the clay was much easier for my kids.
We then attached a round white label to the lid of the jar, for the kids to fill out with their friends’ names and their names, but I think a Sharpie marker on the lid would have worked fine.

That’s it! It was a really fun craft to do with my kids and they made an extra snow globe each to keep. This took around three hours for us to do, and ended up costing me about $35 dollars for 36 snow globes. If you can find jars for less than a dollar each, the cost will be much lower. Remember, everything costs me double!

If making a snow globe doesn’t appeal to your kids, there are an endless amount of valentines you can make that don’t include candy and are easy and inexpensive. Here are some of the ideas I came up with or found online:

Melt broken crayons in heart shaped muffin tins. Attach a tag with your child’s name and the recipient’s name.
Buy mini hand sanitizers for lunch boxes or backpacks and attach a heart-shaped tag.
Scour the dollar store or party store for favors or animal figurines and attach a heart-shaped tag.
Decorate pre-cut foam hearts using foam markers and write the names on the back.
Decorate small craft photo frames with markers, stickers or glued embellishments and write the names on the back.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Now, I’ve got some sweet tarts to eat.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Momentum

Laurin — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:25:51 +0000

This year I am volunteering in both of the kids’ classrooms. Their teachers work hard and I don’t know how they would get it all done without parent help. So, I help, but part of it is that I like to be near the kids. School is 20 minutes from our house and the distance works at me during the day in unpleasant ways.

I am working with the struggling readers every Thursday, and helping out with what amounts to a lot of busy work like pulling homework and FCAT prep sheets out of the kids’ books and organizing them, and making construction paper pockets for projects and such – something I love to do for whatever reason. Seriously, it calms me. I can cut out 18 pumpkins and think of nothing else but how much I love the sound of scissors cutting through construction paper. Today I made a mental note to buy Jake’s teacher an automatic stapler. Love that sound.

When I volunteered for reading assist at the beginning of the year, I assumed Jake was going to be in the group (I’m sorry, baby!) and wondered how that would go with us because doing homework is an epic suckfest. Although he has made extraordinary strides in reading since the beginning of first grade, I still didn’t know what his proficiency level would be starting second grade.

When the teacher was training me for the program, I asked in a small voice if Jake was on the list. She seemed genuinely surprised at my question. She took the time to get out the class list of reading levels and pointed to Jake’s name. #3. My boy is the third-best reader in the entire class! He is awesome at reading!

At that moment it felt like the massive rock I’ve been pushing uphill since he was two and a half was finally at the top and about to roll down the other side without any help from me for once, and without changing course and flattening my tired ass.

For the last five years I’ve been putting together pieces of the puzzle that is Jake. He has sensory processing disorder and dyspraxia, a motor skills delay that mostly means he can’t tie his shoes yet or work buttons. It also means he holds his pencil in a cleverly modified grip that allows him to write as well as any other kid in his class, when he takes his time. In addition to being a champion reader, his grades have shot up from where they were after the first few weeks and, aside from the occasional hiccup, he is as well-behaved as any of his classmates.

We’ve had years of occupational therapy, attended sensory processing camp, tried a ton of therapy tools like jigglers and pressure belts, participated in a social skills group, seen a tutor 1 to 2 times a week since first grade, and even clapped to a metronome for an entire summer of appointments.

I feel like it is all coming together. Finally. We have momentum.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Spooky and Delicious (Yet Totally Nutritious) Halloween Dishes

Laurin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:28:03 +0000

Halloween is the holiday my kids look forward to the most, right after Christmas. They have 2 things on their minds, costumes and candy. The last thing they want to hear is me nagging them to eat something before we head out to trick or treat. But if they don’t, I could be facing a long night of sugar highs and potential upset stomachs on a school night. Oh, you bet I looked at the calendar. It’s on a Sunday this year.

My only hope of getting some food in them before the sugar onslaught is to make some snacks and party food they can graze on while they vibrate around the house asking, WHEN ARE WE GOING TRICK OR TREATING ALREADY? Last year we had a fun little party with scary “feel and touch” bags and some terrifyingly tasty food.

We aren’t throwing a party this year, but I still want to make Halloween as exciting as possible for the kids. Little do they know it’s my favorite holiday, too. Shhhh. Continue reading post on Club Mum.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

A Bento Beginning

Laurin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:29:20 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with bento. School lunch was an abysmal failure for us last year. The kids preferred to buy their lunch because the lunches I made for them were uncool. Ingrates.

After reading my friend’s wise words, I decided to get more creative because I didn’t want them eating cafeteria food even a few times a week.

This was my first attempt at a bento meal. It’s a dinner I made for the kids after some of the bento supplies I ordered came in. Please to ignore the poorly-lit photo. Also, I was trying to take the picture while holding the kids back with my elbows because they were starving. They hate suffering for my art.

Why yes, those are the drip trays for a George Foreman grill. Thanks for noticing. The ketchup is Hunt’s, and that’s a whole other story.

The corn is in Wilton silicone cupcake molds with chicken feet. I separated the food in the boxes with silicone sushi grass. The cheese cutouts were made with ocean scene cutters. I ordered all of the bento stuffs from All Things for Sale.

My dinner creation is certainly not the greatest, but I wanted you to see my first attempt. I plan to get better at this. I mean, obviously.

I’ll have a lot more cute things to show you soon, including photos of the kids’ lunches, hopefully with better lighting and composition.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Where did the time go?

Laurin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:46:07 +0000

Today was the kids’ meet-the-teacher day. School officially starts tomorrow. I successfully procured all items on their supply lists and even brought in gigantic pump bottles of anti-bacterial hand gel for the class. I made sure the teachers saw me bring in these wish list items because their feelings about me and my parenting abilities today might be as good as it gets and I need all the extra credit I can get.

Jack took a half day off work to help us because there are always scavenger hunt-like things to do at these events, and while the twins’ classrooms are adjacent, it would have been pert near impossible to get it all done without wrecking my baseline parental competency (see above).

Anyhow, I can’t believe summer is over. The kids had tennis camp for most of the summer and we had our usual amazing Sanibel family vacation with family, nee friends, and Jack and I were even able to fit in a long weekend in Great Guana Cay in the Bahamas. A lot of my writing about summer events ended up over on Aiming Low because there are deadlines and such.

So, if you would like to catch up, I started the summer off with a rant about Gary Coleman’s death and his sorry excuse for an ex-wife. After that I nearly went insane from sleep deprivation because Jack started snoring much more than usual on our Bahamas trip. I learned that having a snoring husband is a problem of epic proportions.

My kids played with their neighborhood friends a lot this summer, and I was assured that I’m not the meanest mom in the neighborhood for setting some boundaries like stay out of our refrigerator and pantry if you don’t live here! At some point this summer I had the distinct pleasure of having a colonoscopy. Things are a bit hazy.

Our Fourth of July party was very exciting. Jack tried to off our guests with an inadvertent pyrotechnic display. Then we were in Sanibel the last week of July, and right after we got back I got to go to New York City for the annual BlogHer conference. I kinda fell in love with the city even though I was only there for two-ish days and didn’t even go to Bergdorf Goodman. I did get to ride the subway many times, sample cupcakes from three of New York’s top bakeries, and pay my respects at Ground Zero. I’ll be going back.

I’m actually looking forward to being back in the routine of school. I have plenty to do work-wise and one very exciting project I’m participating in and can tell you about soon!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Making Her Happy

Laurin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:18:26 +0000

In a moment of complete and total capitulation, I let Erin get her ears pierced this past weekend. After telling her for months that she had to wait until she is much older, I gave in.

Her very best friend recently got her ears pierced and OMG, how could I refuse her after that without officially gaining the title of Meanest Mom Ever/Crusher of Childhood Dreams? This line of reasoning obviously doesn’t apply to future situations like curfew, dating, wearing hoochie clothes and the like, but it finally occurred to me that it’s just pierced ears.

So we set off on Sunday for Claire’s, with Erin fairly vibrating with joy and not an ounce of fear. We had an extremely traumatic experience when she had to give blood a couple of years ago and I wondered if her bravado would eventually collapse and we might return home piercing-free, or with a single pierced ear. It turns out that Claire’s avoids that outcome by piercing both ears at once. She didn’t even make a squeak.

After some celebratory Dippin’ Dots, we left the mall with Erin happily sporting tiny square cubic zirconias and with me feeling pretty awesome, actually.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Halloween Is In the Bag

Laurin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:46:50 +0000

Another Halloween is over! We had a fantastic time and have enough candy to last until Valentine’s Day. Maybe. I was able to overcome my unexplained sluggishness of late and really do it up this year.

We had a party for the kids and their friends, and I went a little nuts with themed food and fun. First up, the door wreath. I found an inexpensive feather wreath and added a ghoul to the top. That was easy.

I decided that the theme of this year’s Halloween would simply be Gross Out the People. Take a look:

Dirty Q-Tips: Mini Marshmallows on white straws dunked in caramel (ear wax).

Snot on a Stick: Pretzel sticks with green cream cheese dip (snot).

These were my favorite. Squished Cockroaches: Dates filled with cream cheese and chopped walnuts (roach innards).

One of my favorite memories of Halloween as a kid was the haunted houses that had bowls of gross stuff to feel. I used paper bags lined with plastic bags. The kids loved this, but I think I liked making the bags more!

Scabs: dried apple chips
Dragon Skin: wet tamale wrappers
Goblin Guts: pumpkin seeds and strings
Ghost Vomit: cold oatmeal
Tapeworms: oiled half-cooked fettuccine
Ghoul Eyeballs: peeled grapes

Do you know how hard it is to get a good photo of eight kids when four moms are each taking pictures at the same time and shouting, “Look over here!”? Hard. Still cute.

And, finally, the best sugar cookies ever. My daughter handled the icing of the cookies. She wanted them all to be happy. The only thing gross about this is that I ate eleventy billion of them. They’re that good.

© admin for Laurin Evans, 2009. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Grossing myself out, Halloween '09, Memories

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh