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I made "white chicken chili" for the first time today. I've heard

mommydama talk about it before, and it sounded great, and then I found this variation with lime juice, curry and cheese that was really intriguing, but in the end the one I made was pretty mild and...almost sweet? But good. It's a weird concept.

The other night I made this amazing orzo stuff - I got the recipe from Anna Maria Horner. It starts with a big old pan full of fresh basil, vine ripe tomatoes, and garlic, all sauteeing in olive oil, lemon juice and butter with some salt and pepper...

You let it cook for awhile as you sautee up some bite size chicken pieces in another pan, which I do with more olive oil and lemon and some seasoned salt. Then add in about half a cup of milk, let it cook some more, and add a ton of parmesean cheese to thicken. Stir it and the meat into orzo. YUM.

Despite all this decadent fare I've lost NINE POUNDS already since cutting out sugar and refined flour at the first of the year. I was really weighing too much and REALLY eating too much sugar - the weight loss will plateau sooner or later if I don't make other changes and/or excercise more. I feel more active already, though, just because I've walked once at the park with my sister and resumed jumping on the trampoline with the kids (twice so far). It's unreal and...really kickass. To be ok. To be using my body and thinking about things like fitness, not just "is this infected" or "can I lift the baby".

Isaac is going to be FOUR next month. Four! Four is such a big, transitional age...Not a baby, not a toddler, but well into "preschooler" territory. I realized the other day that he had never seen the Wizard of Oz or heard any variation of it...except for the Veggietales spoof "The Wizard of Has" (like ha-ha). So we watched that again, and it's neat to see it through new eyes. He wants to watch it everyday, now, and read the book, and tell me all about it - "The witch was on FIRE! And that is CRAZY! So they threw water and she melted! She melted! That is CRAZY!" This kid uses a lot of hand gesturing, too.

And Glenda always blows my mind - "Oh no; only bad witches are ugly!"

Ananda's big recital was last Friday. Practicing makeup for one of the dances, according to instructions:

She had to have different hair and makeup for each of her two dances, and we had only 5 dances in between during which to switch them (and change)...AND parents weren't allowed backstage except for special "stage moms" who volunteered in advance. It went well, though, she got a great stage mom who helped her...these are pictures from the stage rehearsal the earlier in the day, which are horrible :p

In each, she is the one in the black leotard and light pink tights, which is what she wears to class.

It went alright. She was a bit lost in her first dance, which was kind of awful because everyone else really had it together so it was super glaring. I felt very guilty, because my hospital time is why she missed a month of classes that everyone else got. I've actually LOST SLEEP beating myself up for our lack of consistency with extracurricular activities for them over the past few months, and had to kind of slap myself and think "You damn near DIED. There will be other years." *sigh*

Anyway, she did awesome in the second dance, which is actually a lot more complex to remember. Grant took the three little kids to the mall while Aaron and I stayed to watch her, and we bought the dvd of the whole thing so he can see. It was really, really incredible...Dance Empire's teachers and staff were performing right along with the students - many of whom are teens and adults - and a lot of them are Star Search alumni, have been on Broadway, etc...I was blown away quite a few times. It made me want to take dance classes. Kind of a lot, like I'm thinking about it more and more. I think Ananda will love having the dvd so she can see it all, since she didn't get to at the time.

Aaron and I walked down to a Walgreens on the corner and bought her roses, while we waited for the show to start.

She was happy in the end, although I think half from relief because it had all been overwhelming. She is LOVING having these fancy expensive recital costumes for dress up play now.

That's my Isaac. What kind of birthday cake do you want, I asked him. I suggested a dragon because I saw a great dragon cake with instructions recently, or Diego because he had been asking for a Diego cake awhile back. "A pink cake with pink frosting and pink letters! With a lot of fruit all around it!" was his answer.

Jake has been nuts. I don't know what his problem is. He's still ultra sweet and affectionate - to me, and in the moment - but his temper is out of control and I swear he's just doing everything in his power to be defiant at every turn. Potty training that was becoming a distant memory went out the window after weeks without an accident, and he acts like he's challenging us with it O_o Anything he has to wait for is met with angrily throwing things, growling and screaming things like "NO!" and "NOW!!" at me/whoever, and he runs everytime you call him. This has been for...3 days now? It's a complete turnabout and he's always been damned near angelic (although he has always had a bit of temper). I mean we almost left a restaurant the other night after the third time one of us had to take him away from the table, and neither of us have EVER had to take Jake away from the table before. He did tell me when I asked that he didn't like it because it was dark - and it was really dim (it was Outback, and we haven't been there since Boston so he's used to well lit places) but come ON. The only things I can think are, maybe this is some kind of delayed reaction to Elise, since he never had any issues with her coming into the picture before, or maybe he's getting some molars he didn't already have or something. I've actually locked him in my room (i.e., me holding the door shut from the outside for two minutes) for a timeout a few times, and snapped and smacked him once :x I really, really hope this is ultra-temporary, and in the meantime will continue to try to "Catch" him being good and initiate as much one-on-one stuff as I can...he is asking for milk 55 times a day, and I give it to him at least 3 or 4, but realistically with him being over 2 and my having a baby that almost exclusively nurses, and having to cook and having to clean and having to homeschool the big kids and having to not lose my mind, I can't do more than 3 or 4 nursing sessions a day with him most days. Especially with them each being at least 15-20 minutes long. ARG. I can't think of anything that changed all of a sudden, and believe me, I've tried. Elise becoming more and more "toddler-like" is the only thing...she walks around behind a push cart a lot, and stands at the bench eating little piles of fruit or cereal sometimes, and things like that now. So maybe he is feeling threatened. But none of it seems directed at her.

Total change of topic: My mother got us a couple of Christmas presents that we were refunding. She sent us the receipt, and they were from Walmart. We don't normally shop at Walmart so I forget the little things that make going there so ridiculous, with all high-minded boycott type issues aside:

I mean...damn.

I've been wanting to update about Aaron.

He is always saying, "Mom, watch this!" and then doing something like standing on the crossbar of his bike as it glides along, or putting his feet up on the handlebars at high speeds. He can do flips on my bed now.

He LOVES poems and my mother in law got him "Where the Sidewalk Ends" for Christmas. We've been reading a bit of it every night. He cracks me up...like one night he got all excited and said "Hey, we've BEEN to the place where the sidewalk ends, I remember!", and another he teared up about the farmer who planted a diamond and got a gem garden, but stood there just dreaming of one real peach. Many of them make him laugh out loud. It's far less entertaining to read them to Ananda, who just sits and listens without any real reaction (which is also what I did as a kid - Aaron makes me see them in a whole new light).

The two of them are so big. I have to make them put up the MP3 player (him) and the tamagochi (her) at school time.

And I'm 99% sure Ananda is dyslexic. Our latest FPEA Guide to Homeschooling in Florida details all the typical signs of dyslexia, and she has every single one.
-will take a moment to sound out felt and announce it as left (and other similar examples)
-sight reads saw as was (and other similar ones)
-will read an ususual or specialized word several times on a single page and not begin to recognize it on sight, but have to keep sounding it out each time with the same level of difficulty
-has a much harder time if the book is moving in any small minute way - her reading slows to (barely) a crawl if we're in the van, for instance, or if she's holding the book up. There's a very noticeable change if it's just laying flat on a hard surface
-and others, those are just the most striking. There's also just the general way that she is far more advanced in every other subject but reading, which alone has always actually frustrated her. She is at or slightly above grade level, but in math, logic, vocabulary, science, social studies, reading comprehension and so on she is several grades ahead, and she does everything else with a lot more ease. Even though she adores books. So I've always suspected this, and her biological father is dyslexic, so there's that too.

It makes me very happy to think that she is not labeled dyslexic, put in special ed classes in school, getting poor grades for refusing to perform in front of others, etc. As it is she has no idea she's anything other than doing her best and smart. Reading is hard but worth it as long as I don't push her too hard. I just really think this is a perfect example of the kind of thing that can potentially really screw a bright kid up in public school.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, Aaron, who I'm used to having to be really inventive and consistent and encouraging with for all school stuff, blows me away by how well he reads. And I think it may just be that he's picking it up like a normal kid would for this age and stage, but it's so different than how it was at this age with Annie (which is all I've ever known). I swear she would almost break into a sweat a year and a half ago as we tediously waded through learn-to-read books.

I've gone from totally relaxed to worrying a little, with Elise, in the last week or so...I'm not even sure why. I think I'm afraid to relax and be taken off guard. I saw an MTV thing on tourettes late one night and it made me imagine how it would be if she had that or one of myriad other lifestyle-effecting neuro quirks. She's most likely to end up with cerebral palsy, what with the starting diagnosis of HIE - it's almost considered a given. But, she has beaten so many odds that all bets are off (and cerebral palsy has a huge range of prognoses depending on the individual anyway, so ___). She's developed this new thing where she shakes her head back and forth rapidly, over and over and over, after she pops off the boob and before she is totally asleep. It freaks me the hell out re:seizures. But, she doesn't do it in her sleep or any other time, and from everything I've read and heard from the neurologist and other mothers, seizures are totally involuntary and not linked to patterns and behaviors and moods like that. And, it's only for like 10 long-to-me seconds. I mean all babies have weird things they do, of course, but again (for the millionth time), how do you not wonder with her? I'll ask at our neuro appt next month. And ask if there's something I'm supposed to "do" about checking on her organs and all (dumb as that sounds even to me), like specialists or something, since she had such extensive organ failure at birth and I sometimes wonder if that has any longterm negative consequences...but really, she is saying Mama. She is playing games and responding to things like "Do you want milk?". She's interested in everything and crawling FAST. She's only 8.5 months old.

That whole resolution to sleep? Yeah, that isn't working out for me. Off I go at nearly 5, not because I'm done writing but because otherwise I will be a freaking zombie tomorrow.