O Say Can You See

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but I love creating fun food for holidays. Independence Day is coming up and there is a specific patriotic cake I’ve been wanting to create for the past few years, so I decided this was the year to make it happen. I created my masterpiece last Friday when Kevin, Matthew and Malia were camping so it would be a fun surprise when we cut into it. Then I tucked it in the freezer to stay fresh for a few days. This evening we ate my creation for Family Home Evening. I love how it turned out! All it was missing was some white star sprinkles (which I could not find in a Matthew friendly version).

I’m already making plans for next year. 😉

They’ve Got Cabin Fever

I’m not a huge fan of camping. I used to enjoy it, but my tendency to get migraines from the heat and the grapefruit size swollen, itchy spots that I get when bug bitten kind of takes the fun out of it. As a result, I generally stay home when Kev takes the kids camping. After having been cooped up at home for the past three months, Matthew and Malia were getting pretty stir crazy. Kevin arranged an overnight trip with his brother and his family, and all involved in the adventure were super excited. I think Matthew and Malia had a wonderful time. Not only did they get out of the house, but they got to spend some socially distanced time with cousins and sleep in the great outdoors. As for me, I was perfectly content to spend a quiet night at home watching a chick flick. It was a win for all of us.

Giving Tie Dye Another Try

While life has not been normal of late, we have tried to find some sense of normalcy whenever we can. One of our normal summer traditions is creating a patriotic t-shirt to celebrate Independence Day. We tried tie dye about nine years ago and the dye ran together and ended up creating purplish t-shirts. I’ve learned some things since then and so we decided to make another attempt at creating a tricolor design. The kids all had a great time. Daniel and Nathan both spent a considerable amount of time getting the dye just where they wanted it. We’ll have to wait a day or two to see the final outcome, but it was a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Leader of the (Online) Pack

Our elementary school has done the best they can to try to provide some kind of school connection for the kids. While all their classes are online, a lot of the additional school programs and activities are just cancelled for now. However, they have continued their tradition of selecting a leader of the month from each class every month and have celebrated those kids’ accomplishment by compiling a slide show featuring several pictures of each child and sharing it with everyone. This month we were delighted to be notified that Malia was selected as this month’s leader in her class! She was very excited and when we picked up her award and her prize package from the school, we discovered that her teacher selected her because she has been proactive in the switch to online learning. Malia has definitely done that. While there have been hard days, most of the time she has been ready and willing to get her schoolwork done. She has not hesitated to reach out to her teacher via email, chat, instant message and video chat open hours in order to ask questions and receive guidance and individualized learning. She is in the habit of turning everything in on time and while she would much rather be in the classroom, she is still learning and progressing.

This was just a little bit of normalcy for Malia and a chance to celebrate some of the good that is to be found in our present circumstances. She has risen to the challenge and is working hard to continue to be a great student.

A Pleasant Surprise

Today is Nathan’s 17th birthday. He was gone most of the day, so we didn’t actually see him all that much, but I’m ok with that. It’s not that I didn’t want to spend time with him, it just means that he actually had places to go and people to see which is like a small miracle in our current circumstances.

He started off his day by gathering with a small group of friends for breakfast at Denny’s. Breakfast turned into elevensies which turned into brunch and nearly became lunch, so he was too full to eat his previously selected birthday lunch. (We did lunch instead of dinner this time since he works this evening.) He was perfectly content saving his tuna melts for lunch tomorrow but was perfectly pleased to eat his apple spice birthday cake and Tillamook ice cream for a midafternoon snack today. Afterwards, he headed off to work and while most people would not think of going to work an especially wonderful birthday activity, Nathan really enjoys his job. He likes having a focus and a purpose to his days. He enjoys the environment and the opportunity to meet and converse with so many different people. And, of course, he likes the paychecks. The whole thing helps him feel like he’s making good use of the many empty hours each day has held for him since everything shut down in March.

In terms of birthday presents, we have given Nathan the Scooby Do expansion pack for Betrayal at House on the Hill, a board game he got for Christmas and really enjoys. He has always been a Scooby Do fan, so it is a wonderful, campy addition to the game. He will have to wait for it since it won’t be released until July, but he’s super excited!

As previously mentioned on multiple occasions, this shutdown has been hard for my kids. Nathan assumed that having a birthday in the midst of Covid would be terrible. But I feel very blessed to say that he actually had a super day! He admits that despite his earlier feelings, it turned out to be a good birthday. Thank goodness for the multitude of tender mercies that made it so!

 

 

Teeter Totter

 Matthew did another food challenge today. He has been a trooper in terms of these weekly events. He has shown so much courage and I’m so proud of him for being able to take these steps forward in spite of his fears. Unfortunately, today was yet another disappointment. He tested a full-size cake baked for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and while he didn’t react to one bite, he did react to a full piece.

There was been a lot of back and forth with these challenges. Sometimes he reacts and sometimes he doesn’t. We’re not sure why but we’re hoping by continuing the process we can get a better idea of what his reaction threshold is so that he can continue to add some new things to his diet. But it is a slow process and it’s definitely taking longer than any of us want.

Return to Hogwarts

 After some heroic efforts on the part of our third-grade teachers and the acquiescence of the district, the greatly anticipated school Harry Potter week actually happened. Even though Malia had already done a full week of Harry Potter earlier in the month, it in no way diminished her excitement for the event. She simply decided that she could be a second-year student rather than a first year. We picked up all her gear at the school and let me tell you that the teachers really went all out. The great thing was that between the two weeks, there was very little overlap. Some activities that worked great at home would have been difficult in a classroom setting (our planting of the mandrakes and the scavenger hunt for the sorcerer’s stone) and others worked much better in a school setting (house points, visits to the house commons rooms, magical math). This week she got to color her house t-shirt (she was Ravenclaw this time), hatch a dragon egg, and engineer a Gringott’s cart track. Some aspects of it were disappointing to her and she felt like is was not as fun as she had expected, but I think that was largely a casualty of Covid and the shift to online school. But overall, I think she enjoyed the majority of the week’s activities. And kudos to our amazing teachers who were able to pull the whole thing off.

A More Favorable Outcome

After last Saturday’s cupcake disappointment, Matthew had a bit of success today. We used the same recipe and baked it as a full-sized cake. It baked for 30 minutes at 365 degrees and he did not react. It made for a happier day for him. We still have a bunch on things he needs to try, but this is a step forward.