Fat Boy Fionn VS the Carrots

Neon puke, stinky diapers, hours of puree-ing here we come.....

The News from Binerville

A few weeks ago during Early Intervention, Emerson's OT was making him do one of his least favorite activities: play in the sand. Just like the paint and playdough in the past, she was slowly getting him to touch it using equal parts creativity and trickery. After limited success on this particular day, we tried an equally frustrating session of painting (the paint was fine - it was the rolled sleeves that drove him nuts), followed by a struggle to get him to wash his hands in the sink. When the OT asked me if he had any other tactile sensitivities, I responded, "Brushing his teeth, washing his hair, putting on sunscreen, (recently) swimming in pools, and touching stuffed animals."

She sighed and handed me a paper booklet, "Fill out this sensory profile for me and we'll create a plan from there."

I calmly said OK and took the paper, but inside I let loose a string of curses. "Oh bloody hell. Here we go again."

Luckily, the results did not create a new diagnosis as I feared, and we have gotten some helpful tips from the OT. He has made steady progress, which is encouraging except that the therapist implied none-too-subtly that a parent's over-emphasis on cleanliness could be a major contributor to the problem. She is right of course, but I have to say I was quite happy with the overly clean little man I had created. I had great hopes for his future spouse - but alas I'm being forced to give that all up so that he can one day create masterpieces out of sand and playdough. Nuts.

On a similar note, I got some interesting news from the school when I finally pushed the issue of getting Fionn's Early Intervention started. I know other parents of children with albinism are probably aghast that I waited six months to get things moving, but honestly, he's on target for all his developments and gets plenty of visual stimulation from an older brother, so I haven't been in a rush. I was dreading this conversation because technically siblings aren't allowed at therapy appointments, so I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to pay for childcare for whoever wasn't getting therapy on that particular day.

When I mentioned this concern during the conversation, the therapist said, "Oh, that won't be an issue. Emerson will be starting preschool half days for four days a week in the Fall, so Fionn can have his weekly appointment during one of those times."

Say what?!

For sixteen hours a week the school is going to watch and teach my child for free? My mind swooned in the glory of so much free time while my heart lurched at the idea of Emerson being so old and independent. I knew that when he was 2 1/2 he would transition to a new program, but I've been dreading the resulting paperwork and special ed lingo so much that I hadn't researched what this would really mean.

Now when I think of it, I do a little happy dance



In other news, Emerson has added some new signs and a couple of words, has decided that following older kids around may be the coolest activity ever, and - thanks to some practice with large groups in Texas - we took him to the insanity that is the mall playground and he didn't shed a tear.

I still get frustrated when I see my friends' 2-year-olds counting to ten, repeating entire songs and books by memory, potty training, etc. because Emerson is nowhere near any of those things. But it is what it is.

The other day we were talking with some friends about breaking all the parenting "rules" and Robbie said (completely joking of course) "Yeah, I mean they say breastfeeding makes kids super smart and Emerson was breastfed for a full year, but look at him." We all turned to look at Emerson, who coincidentally was standing in the corner with his face pressed against the wall. The group of us erupted into laughter at this humorous if unfortunate timing and Emerson was blissfully unaware of what happened except that he made us all laugh.

(By the way, he was doing this because he's spent a lot of time in the "time-out" corner lately and to show me how little effect it has on him, he frequently puts himself in time-out while laughing hysterically. But that's another post.)

Fionn is the complete opposite of his brother in almost every way. While Emerson was very shy and stoic around strangers as a baby, Fionn is all slobbery smiles and reaching out for people to hold him. While Emerson could have cared less about solid foods for months, Fionn watches every bite that goes into our mouths like a starving Oliver Twist and he devours everything we give him (see video to come). Fionn is ready to touch everything and anything - jump into any activity with enthusiasm while Emerson never does anything without forethought and hesitation.

Emerson has proven to be one of the sweetest and most interesting children I've ever seen, but Fionn's ability to be an "ordinary" baby is equally exciting in its own way.

On a final and yet unrelated note....after my last post, my mother questioned whether Zen masters were a good comparison for my children. "I thought Zen masters led by example, by being calm and Zen-like all the time, in which case I'm not sure that applies to the kids."

"Well, I once learned about a group of Buddhist monks who beat their students with sticks to keep them alert and focused," I said.

"My children are those kind of Zen masters."

Little Zen Masters

As we were driving home last Sunday, I heard a story on NPR about the power of meditation. The guest was a man who had written several books on the topic - including "Mindful Parenting." When the interviewer asked him about children, he talked about the life of a parent being as challenging if not more so than monks who devote their lives to secluded contemplation. He called children "little zen masters" because of the way they constantly challenge us. I sort of drifted off in thought about this, so I didn't hear his follow up (how's that for being mindful?), but my own experience definitely supports his comparison.

They challenge us to live in the moment - allowing us to relive the wonder of each new sight, smell, sound and person. They challenge the limits of our patience (OH how well a 2-year-old can do this), and they challenge our perceptions of ourselves in profound ways.

After the story was over, we stopped at the grocery store and Robbie ran in with Emerson to pick up a few things. I pulled out Fionn to feed him, and then propped him up in my lap to look around. It was dark except for the parking lot lights and raining softly. I focused on being present for this moment, noticing how the water running down the windshield reflected on Fionn so that his face looked like a moving sea. I noticed how clear his violet eyes seemed, how sweet his perfect bow-shaped lips were, how much I loved the soft gurgling and cooing noises he made.

Then Robbie swung open the back door, the overhead light blasted the scene with a harsh yellow light, and a screaming Emerson plopped into his car seat. He was overly-tired and apparently not placated by anything we could offer, so we listened to him scream the rest of the way home and well into the bedtime routine.

Zen masters indeed. Children certainly have the potential to teach and challenge, but I'm afraid that when it comes to my own little Bodhisattvas, I'm no where near Nirvana.

Birds of a Feather

Part 2 - A Green Easter

As I recently mentioned, I am one of THOSE people right now, so naturally I decided the Easter Bunny was going green this year. We hosted an Easter egg hunt and lunch for our friends and family at our new house, which meant I could impose my wonderful idea on everyone else as well.

Nothing terribly fascinating happened at the party (ok, maybe one slightly interesting thing, but that's not my story to tell) - we had a wonderful meal with wonderful people



Emerson and his little friend Keagan perfected their egg-hunting skills



the adults had a successful (albeit less competitive than in previous years) egg hunt for themselves; Robbie got an excuse to use a blowtorch in the process of glazing the ham; and he took home the egg-cracking game championship



I promised some people that I would share what green ideas I found, so here's a rundown of what I did:

(This blog had a lot of good suggestions)

For plastic eggs, I reused several from previous years as well as purchased a big bag of second-hand eggs from a thrift store that should give me enough to last a long time.

I purchased baskets from the Salvation Army for the kids and for decorations.

Instead of traditional candy, I opted for some organic fruit-based gummi bears and jelly beans from Whole Foods. While I missed my sweet sweet Peeps, the organic candy was incredibly good. I also filled some eggs with fun-size Fair Trade chocolate bars.

For the kids, I filled some of the eggs with candy and other eggs with a coupon for a prize. I chose some little inexpensive instruments from Ten Thousand Villages, reusable water bottles, stickers, and some re-gifted small toys. Other great ideas I've heard from parents recently include homemade bubbles, sidewalk chalk, pocket change, homemade play dough, homemade baked goods, etc.

For the adults, I tried a complex system that would have worked except some last-minute cancellations sort of threw the whole thing off. Basically everyone ended up going home with a small prize, which included things like: Natural Home magazine, seed packets, reusable grocery totes, large Fair Trade chocolate bars, natural soap, etc. The only non-green item was a bottle of Chocolate Stout, but I suppose if I hadn't run out of time I could have made that better by getting a local label.

For food, we bought mainly organic (I won't lie, the half ton of velvetta cheese in my mom's famous au gratin potatoes doesn't even qualify as real food much less organic, but it was for the sake of tradition). The best part was the ham, which we managed to find locally from a meat hawker at Eastern Market.

Today I was reminiscing with my mom over the phone about Easters past and she reminded me of a couple more ideas I'm going to try in the future. One was to dip a cut-out of a bunny paw print in brown or white washable paint and "walk" the prints up and down tile floors or cement walkways so it looks like the Easter Bunny truly did visit. I know I have friends who will consider this traumatizing and/or twisted, but my mom did it for me and my sister as kids and we thought it was amazing.

She also once made us biodegradable baskets by inflating a balloon and then wrapping a large ball of string around it until it was coated. Then she covered the whole thing with sugar water and let it harden. Like papier mache, she popped the balloon and then cut out a hole so it looked like a giant Easter egg that could be filled with candy and other goodies.

These ideas only reinforce two things I know about my mother:

She is very crafty
She never slept


I hope everyone had a wonderful Passover/Easter/Spring Solstice!

Easter Weekend - Part 1

Saturday morning was one of those mornings. You know, the kind where it's physically painful to peel your eyelids open and you keep coming up with seemingly logical reasons why you should continue to hit the snooze button. Until you finally come to and realize that not only are you now late, but those "logical" reasons for sleeping were actually jibberish.

Our best intentions were to arrive at the Georgia Street Community Garden's Easter event an hour early so I could get some quality volunteer work in. Unfortunately, by the time we dragged two equally sleepy and stubborn children out of bed, got them dressed and sunscreened, and drove the hour to Detroit, that hour was long shot.



Luckily we at least arrived in time for the event, which was an egg hunt followed by breakfast and entertainment. Their version of a small child's egg hunt was brilliant - scatter eggs in an open field and let them go at it. Emerson, still sleepy and grumpy, was clearly wondering why the hell we were making him stand in the cold and pick up plastic eggs. After a couple of demonstrations, he dutifully placed two eggs into his basket, declared "all done" and climbed back into Robbie's arms.



The organizers did a great job arranging gift bags for all the kids along with eggs full of candy, so even a handful of eggs was more than enough for him. He protested when we sat him down to inspect his haul, but then I bit into a jelly bean and put it in his mouth. It was like a drug addict getting his first hit.

"Mmmmm." he crooned, pink drool oozing down his chin.

And thus he became an instant fan of Easter.

The best part of the event was meeting the people involved with the Garden, such as the founder Mark "Cub" Covington. He's one of those people who just exudes warmth - the kind of person you can instantly believe in. He rushed around greeting visitors, handling event minutiae and giving interviews to the local press, keeping a smile on his face all the while.




We also met Tammy, a board member and volunteer for the Garden. She told Robbie about their new community center across the street - a vacant storefront that until recently had served as a haven for crack addicts and prostitutes. In fact, as they were cleaning it up for its new purpose, they apparently found one such prostitute inside and had to literally run her off.



We also met countless other volunteers and supporters who only reinforced the kind of energy and creativity that can be found in Detroit. My measly contribution to the event was to stir some pancake batter (and even that I managed to botch by spraying myself and a sleeping Fionn with said batter), but I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty in the garden this summer.




Robbie made several friends when he attempted to teach some boys how to fly a kite. I walked up just as it soared triumphantly into the air...before swan diving into the closest tree. They managed to get the now mangled carcass down and Robbie pulled out his best Macgyver moves, replacing a broken bar with a twig. The boys' commentaries during all this had us rolling with laughter.

When we got home, Robbie started brainstorming ways to get involved with their outreach programs for kids. I hope he does it - his ability to connect with kids is one of the reasons I adore him.

After the event wound down and Emerson was practically comatose, we drove around getting to know the area better. Several minutes passed and it became clear that Emerson was not going to sleep (probably due in large part to the high amount of sugar he consumed), so we stopped by Eastern Market. We've wanted to go to this ever since we moved to Michigan, but our track record for getting up early on Saturdays is less than stellar.

Now I realize the trip is well worth the lost sleep. Even though it was a smaller winter version, tons of shoppers and vendors packed into a giant shed and spilled out into the walkway. You can buy everything there: vegetables, fruits, honey, meats, herbs, lotions - you name it.



More than anything I loved the visual spectacle of it all - a hefty woman wearing the gauzy white bonnet of a Mennonite selling freshly baked pies and breads...young men bellowing out the prices for asparagus and strawberries like carnival barkers...Easter lilies and hydrangeas lined up like soldiers, their heads nodding softly in the breeze.

We got some things for Easter dinner and some apples for Emerson to snack on, but we're looking forward to going back next month for garden supplies and even more local food.



All in all, it was a pretty amazing day. Now if only I can remember that on future weekend mornings so I can ignore the voice in my head that whispers "reach for the snooze."