This morning I set Aiden in his crib for a few minutes to contain his early morning wildness while I was in the bathroom. I leaned over to ascertain the contents - if any- of his diaper...and groaned. My olfactory senses delivered bad news. But it had to wait for a few minutes.
I was gone for maybe three or four minutes and when I returned, there stood Aiden in his crib, playing with MY CELLPHONE! I stood there aghast. How had he gotten my phone? Then I realized I had it in my shirt pocket and when I leaned over to sniff his pants, he must have PICKPOCKETED ME! There is NO OTHER explanation. ( Brad maintains that the phone simply fell out of my pocket. That is too prosaic and I do not accept it.)
About an hour or so later, I got a call from Nicole, asking if I'd called her earlier. I said no....but then realized that Aiden must have called her. That kid! Using up my...um... unlimited minutes. Whatever. Wait- we DO have unlimited minutes, right?
Then I got home from my grocery shopping to Brad's story: He was talking to someone at the jail this morning who said they had just had a couple minute conversation...with AIDEN! Oh my WORD! He called the Booking Department at the JAIL! He is Trouble - and notice I capitalized it! And here I thought I had corralled his mischievous ways by putting him in the crib... First he pickpockets me, then he makes calls on my phone....!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Not cooking like a Pilgrim? Priceless.
As Penny and I waited through the last few minutes of 60 minutes so we could watch the latest installment of "The Amazing Race," we actually listened to some of what older-than-dirt Andy Rooney was gabbling about. His main point seemed to be that we should cast off modern conveniences, do without pre-packaged foods, and cook authentic Thanksgiving meals like the Pilgrims. Penny and I looked at each other with the same "has-he-lost-his-ever-loving-mind?" expression on our faces. What- go out and shoot a turkey with a blunderbuss? A bow and arrow? I think he was suggesting cooking from scratch more than turning us all into hunters...but it got me thinking about how life would be different, very, very different, if we were living, even just culinarily, like the Pilgrims.
No Kroger. No Walmart. No ovens or stove tops. No meat thermometers. No roasting bags. No electric knives. No boxed stuffing. No ergonomically correct peelers. No freezers or fridges. No cooking spray. No Dawn dish soap. No dishwashers - except the human kind. No graham cracker crust. No sweetened condensed milk( GASP - that is the worst part of all!) No canned pumpkin. No canned ANYTHING - unless you canned it yourself. No Pillsbury crescent rolls. NO MARSHMALLOWS! ( probably. Unless you watched Alton Brown and learned how to make them yourself. But no - no Food Network or internet either!) Now that's the worst - forget sweetened condensed milk. No internet? Unthinkable! I can go online and in seconds have THOUSANDS of recipes and advice at my fingertips. The Pilgrims? All they had was...Squanto.
This is the first Thanksgiving that I am hostessing. We will have eleven plus Aiden at our table and I have delegated a lot of the side dishes to my guests, so it's not like I will be doing it all by myself... In fact - I received this charming message via Facebook recently from one who will be at my festive table come Thursday:
What shall I bring you, poor as I am?
If I were a swineherd I'd bring you a ham.
If I were Mcdonald's I'd bring some fries.
What shall I bring you?
Maybe some pies?
by CHRISTINA BROWNETTI ('s) Mom
Now isn't that the cleverest, funniest thing you've seen all day?! ( I got her permission to use it here. This material is copyrighted.)
But in spite of all the help, I do feel some amount of um...what's the word I want...stress? Angst? Pressure? Nerves? The fact weighing in upon me that this is a rite of passage into womanhood? Those are all a little weightier than the truth of how I feel. What I want to know is - WILL THE TURKEY BE MOIST?! Will it be done in time so we can eat before Brad has to leave for work?! Oh, the suspense is killing me. But this is something I've wanted to do for quite some time. Something I must conquer.
In addition, we are moving Grampa into his new home the day before T-Day. Well, the moving process will take place in the next couple days because we want to get it all nice and set up before he gets there... So yeah. There are a lot of components that need to come together that I haven't even mentioned. It's looking like a big week. I have mapped out/earmarked what seems like the majority of the hours between now and Thursday. God forbid any unforeseen monkey wrenches should be thrown into our midst. Like getting sick. No! I didn't say it! Not jinxing myself!
But at least I can number among my blessings that I don't have to cook like a Pilgrim. I don't have to go through the ordeal of killing a turkey and plucking it, harvesting my wheat so I can flog it into flour to make bread to make stuffing with, picking the cranberries from the bog, churning butter, digging potatoes out of the ground, chopping the wood to stoke the fires that I will use to "cook" over, and hauling home a pumpkin to cut up and cook down for my pie. Not cooking like a Pilgrim? Now, THAT is something for which to give thanks INDEED.
No Kroger. No Walmart. No ovens or stove tops. No meat thermometers. No roasting bags. No electric knives. No boxed stuffing. No ergonomically correct peelers. No freezers or fridges. No cooking spray. No Dawn dish soap. No dishwashers - except the human kind. No graham cracker crust. No sweetened condensed milk( GASP - that is the worst part of all!) No canned pumpkin. No canned ANYTHING - unless you canned it yourself. No Pillsbury crescent rolls. NO MARSHMALLOWS! ( probably. Unless you watched Alton Brown and learned how to make them yourself. But no - no Food Network or internet either!) Now that's the worst - forget sweetened condensed milk. No internet? Unthinkable! I can go online and in seconds have THOUSANDS of recipes and advice at my fingertips. The Pilgrims? All they had was...Squanto.
This is the first Thanksgiving that I am hostessing. We will have eleven plus Aiden at our table and I have delegated a lot of the side dishes to my guests, so it's not like I will be doing it all by myself... In fact - I received this charming message via Facebook recently from one who will be at my festive table come Thursday:
What shall I bring you, poor as I am?
If I were a swineherd I'd bring you a ham.
If I were Mcdonald's I'd bring some fries.
What shall I bring you?
Maybe some pies?
by CHRISTINA BROWNETTI ('s) Mom
Now isn't that the cleverest, funniest thing you've seen all day?! ( I got her permission to use it here. This material is copyrighted.)
But in spite of all the help, I do feel some amount of um...what's the word I want...stress? Angst? Pressure? Nerves? The fact weighing in upon me that this is a rite of passage into womanhood? Those are all a little weightier than the truth of how I feel. What I want to know is - WILL THE TURKEY BE MOIST?! Will it be done in time so we can eat before Brad has to leave for work?! Oh, the suspense is killing me. But this is something I've wanted to do for quite some time. Something I must conquer.
In addition, we are moving Grampa into his new home the day before T-Day. Well, the moving process will take place in the next couple days because we want to get it all nice and set up before he gets there... So yeah. There are a lot of components that need to come together that I haven't even mentioned. It's looking like a big week. I have mapped out/earmarked what seems like the majority of the hours between now and Thursday. God forbid any unforeseen monkey wrenches should be thrown into our midst. Like getting sick. No! I didn't say it! Not jinxing myself!
But at least I can number among my blessings that I don't have to cook like a Pilgrim. I don't have to go through the ordeal of killing a turkey and plucking it, harvesting my wheat so I can flog it into flour to make bread to make stuffing with, picking the cranberries from the bog, churning butter, digging potatoes out of the ground, chopping the wood to stoke the fires that I will use to "cook" over, and hauling home a pumpkin to cut up and cook down for my pie. Not cooking like a Pilgrim? Now, THAT is something for which to give thanks INDEED.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Simple Gifts
Philip and I had a great time at Lowe's the other day. From the start, I had been encouraging him to use his Dynavox more. Well, maybe "encouraging" is slightly deceptive - I told him he had to use it more! I think sometimes it is intimidating to him to use it in public with people who aren't familiar with how it works. Also, I think it seems sort of laborious to him in a setting that, in his mind, is supposed to be all play and no work, simply devoted to the pure joy of forklift spotting. And I don't blame him a bit for being hesitant. I understand. But I have had to crack down on him; from my perspective, going out in the community and interacting with people is the whole goal of my training with him. Having experience communicating with people who aren't completely familiar with the Dynavox is so valuable. Most of his friends at Lowe's know a little bit about it, but there is enough "foreign-ness" about it so that it's almost like being with strangers. If that makes any sense. In a lot of ways, it's a perfect situation - the people care about him and will talk to him but they don't always understand how it all works and about the fact that you often have to wait a minute or two to get an answer. So it's a little challenging because it can be awkward, but it's very good experience for him. And for the other people too.
So, yesterday, I emphasized several times on the way to Lowe's that I was expecting him to use the Dynavox in more than one conversation. And he did! Oh me of little faith.
My favorite interaction happened like this: We followed a forklift from flooring out to the front where the driver and spotter were going to deposit some boxes into a customer's vehicle. There was some sort of minor delay and we had to wait a bit, and while we waited, I struck up a conversation with the forklift spotter girl who, for those of you who know who this is, reminds me of Queen Latifah. Only a slightly toned down version. With a small amount of prompting, I got Philip involved in the conversation. He asked her, "How was your day?" and after she told him, she asked how his day was. I quickly moved over to the adjectives page, and Philip replied, "fast" and "beautiful." I was so thrilled! This is what I had been wanting to happen - real interaction - back and forth... Oh, I was so excited, but pretty much kept it all inside, just acting like this happened all the time, not wanting to embarrass Philip. Then, Queen Latifah had to go back inside, and she raised her hands like she was parting the Red Sea so the automatic doors would open...kind of making a big joke out of it... and walked inside. The adjectives page was still scanning and suddenly Philip clicked on the word "open" and then almost immediately afterward "funny." I said, "Yes!" and laughed aloud and wanted to jump up and down point and tell everyone what just happened. I pictured myself doing just that: "He said, Open! He said, Funny!" and how, to people who don't understand what a momentous thing this was, it would sound so silly and simple...like I was spelling out the punchline to a totally obvious joke. She opened the door in a funny way. So what? But to have the right word - not to mention wordS- available at exactly the right moment is so rare for him that I was just practically falling on the ground with joy! Instead of simply laughing about it, he got to comment on it, and thereby participated in it. To participate in a joke is such a basic event for most of us that we hardly consider what a privilege it is to communicate about humor.
I've thought since then about how there are moments going on like that in all corners of the world - moments of something small but wonderful happening, and somebody noticing, and wanting to shout it triumphantly to the whole world...but most of the world doesn't understand or appreciate the deep joy and satisfaction connected with it. And it made me even happier to think about that. For all the sorrow, disconnectedness, mis-communication, limitations and suffering in the world, there is a vast amount of unheralded good. Boy, I feel like Andrea, with all her philosophy about the connectedness of man. :)
And even if most of the world doesn't understand or appreciate the significance of this small but illuminating event, I'm going to tell it anyway...because I know at least a few people will have the imagination and insight to understand and smile about it.
So, yesterday, I emphasized several times on the way to Lowe's that I was expecting him to use the Dynavox in more than one conversation. And he did! Oh me of little faith.
My favorite interaction happened like this: We followed a forklift from flooring out to the front where the driver and spotter were going to deposit some boxes into a customer's vehicle. There was some sort of minor delay and we had to wait a bit, and while we waited, I struck up a conversation with the forklift spotter girl who, for those of you who know who this is, reminds me of Queen Latifah. Only a slightly toned down version. With a small amount of prompting, I got Philip involved in the conversation. He asked her, "How was your day?" and after she told him, she asked how his day was. I quickly moved over to the adjectives page, and Philip replied, "fast" and "beautiful." I was so thrilled! This is what I had been wanting to happen - real interaction - back and forth... Oh, I was so excited, but pretty much kept it all inside, just acting like this happened all the time, not wanting to embarrass Philip. Then, Queen Latifah had to go back inside, and she raised her hands like she was parting the Red Sea so the automatic doors would open...kind of making a big joke out of it... and walked inside. The adjectives page was still scanning and suddenly Philip clicked on the word "open" and then almost immediately afterward "funny." I said, "Yes!" and laughed aloud and wanted to jump up and down point and tell everyone what just happened. I pictured myself doing just that: "He said, Open! He said, Funny!" and how, to people who don't understand what a momentous thing this was, it would sound so silly and simple...like I was spelling out the punchline to a totally obvious joke. She opened the door in a funny way. So what? But to have the right word - not to mention wordS- available at exactly the right moment is so rare for him that I was just practically falling on the ground with joy! Instead of simply laughing about it, he got to comment on it, and thereby participated in it. To participate in a joke is such a basic event for most of us that we hardly consider what a privilege it is to communicate about humor.
I've thought since then about how there are moments going on like that in all corners of the world - moments of something small but wonderful happening, and somebody noticing, and wanting to shout it triumphantly to the whole world...but most of the world doesn't understand or appreciate the deep joy and satisfaction connected with it. And it made me even happier to think about that. For all the sorrow, disconnectedness, mis-communication, limitations and suffering in the world, there is a vast amount of unheralded good. Boy, I feel like Andrea, with all her philosophy about the connectedness of man. :)
And even if most of the world doesn't understand or appreciate the significance of this small but illuminating event, I'm going to tell it anyway...because I know at least a few people will have the imagination and insight to understand and smile about it.
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