The Numbers Are Against Us

I was watching a documentary about how stress affects people. In one segment they talked about how parents with special needs kids, specifically women, age 6 years for every one year. Great, fabulous, wonderful! That is all we need, more stress! Now I am stressing about how all of this stress is going to age me at an accelerated speed. There is also a statistic that says 80% of parents with special needs kids get divorced. This news is not inspiring, and it frustrates me!

Where are the statistics that say families with special needs kids are 10 time more likely to be outstanding members of society? Or that kids who have siblings with special needs are 70% more likely to be wonderful and compassionate adults? Why can't I find more optimistic findings about having kids with special needs in families?

So far, having Lily in our family has made our other kids sweeter, kinder, more patient siblings. And Lily's happy smiley face always makes us smile a little more, even when we are feeling stressed out. If I listen to all of the statistics out there, its easy to get discouraged and to feel a little hopeless and definitely more stressed out!

So one of my resolutions has been to find ways to de-stress, to beat these numbers, and to write my own story of how it is to have a child with special needs.

And guess what?

There are things I can do. In the same documentary about stress and aging, they also talked about how they have evidence that shows you can actually undo the damage that stress causes by talking about what you are going through, or having a support group. Well there is no support group around here for parents of kids with CDC, but I can talk about it and I can connect to other parents with kids of special needs, using my own little blog. So that is what I plan to do. Part of the goal in keeping this blog is to connect to other moms going through this, or to just connect to anyone who has their own stresses.

And who knows... maybe I will undo some of the damage done to my DNA!

Recipe 4: Fudge Frosting

2x 1 oz. squares plain chocolate

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

4 tbsp. butter

3 tbsp. milk or light cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Break the chocolate into small pieces. Put the chocolate, confectioners' sugar, butter, milk and vanilla extract in a heavy-based saucepan.

2. Stir over a very low heat until the chocolate and butter melt. Remove from the heat and stir until evenly blended.

3. Beat the icing frequently as it cools until it thickens sufficiently to use for spreading or piping. Use immediately and work quickly once it has reached the right consistency.

This recipe was really yummy and so much better than store bought frosting! I give it 3 stars for being tasty, easy, and inexpensive. But it is not healthy, no matter how much I want to believe that it is! It did take some time to make because of how long you had to stir it for, but other than that, I don't really have any complaints. And it makes the cupcakes taste so much better.

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Recipe 3: Flavorful Pot Roast

2 21/2-lb. boneless beef chuck roast

1-oz. envelope dry ranch style salad dressing mix

1-oz. envelope dry italian salad dressing mix

1-oz. envelope dry brown gravy mix

1/2 cup water

1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour (optional)

1/2 cup water (optional)

1. Place chuck roasts in slow cooker.

2. In a small bowl, combine salad dressing and gravy mixes. Stir in water. Pour over meat.

3. Cover and cook on high 1 hour and then on low 3 to 4 hours or until meat is tender.

4. To thicken the cooking juices for gravy, remove meat from slow cooker at end of cooking time and keep warm on a platter.

5. Turn heat to high. Bring juices to a boil

6. If desired, combine 1 Tbsp. flour and 1/2 cup water in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake until smooth.

7. Pour flour mixture is a thing stream into boiling juices, stirring constantly. Continue cooking and stirring until juices thicken.

8. Serve gravy over meat or in a side dish along with meat.

(I didn't do the last 5 steps and it was still great)

I give this recipe 4 stars! It overcame all of my obstacles, so its a keeper. Amazingly, the whole family liked it and it was soooooo easy to make. Also it only cost about $6 to make and I think it counts for being healthy because it didn't call for a lot of extra ingredients or calories.

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To My Little Ella Bella

Dear Ella,

Today you turned five! I can't believe how fast time is going and I can't believe how grown up you are. You are such a great big sister to Hunter and Lily and you are such a great daughter. You have the sweetest and most tender heart and you really do love everyone. You have so much joy and imagination and I hope you never lose those things.

It has been so amazing to watch you grow and to progress. You have brought so much happiness and joy to our family. The last 5 years has been so much fun and I have loved every minute of being your mom.

Love,

Mom

The Yellman's

My name is Brittany... and I am a yeller. There I admitted it, and isn't that the first step to recovery?

My maiden name is Yeaman and when we were kids my mom called us girls the Yellman sisters. Yelling was just another form of communication in our house, it was a part of our daily conversations. I come from a long line of yellers, my parents were yellers, my parents parents were yellers and now I think my kids may be on the path to becoming yellers themselves.

Now I have to say I am not a vein popping, eye twitching, angry kind of yeller. I yell for many different reasons:

1) Trying to tell my kids something without actually having to go to them.

3) Because I confuse the fact that listening and hearing are two different things and that maybe if I talk louder and louder than my kids will "hear" me!

3) Sometimes I just get frustrated.

Still even this kind of yelling isn't great and I don't want to always have to get to the point of raising my voice before my kids (mostly Hunter) will listen to me! Poor kid, I think I asked him several times today, "why don't you listen to me"? Like when I told him not to put his head through the the banister because it would get stuck... 10 minutes later after I squished his head out I said, "why don't you listen to me"? Or when I told him not to throw all of his toys down the stairs or they might break.... 5 minutes later, with tears in his eyes and his favorite toy in hand, I said, "why don't you listen to me"?

Anyway I am officially admitting that I am a yeller... in recovery, and while there may be set backs and many temptations, I am confident that my yelling days will soon be a thing of the past!

This is the place where Hunter has spent some time. His little time-out step has seen a lot of action, but what totally cracked me up is when he brought me over to the stair, and told me that his Binkie was on time out!

Love it !

This Is For My Mom

These pictures are for my mom to see. She bought this cute little outfit for Lily and I had to get a picture of her in it so my mom could see her cuteness!

Recipe 2: Big Batch Pancakes

Big Batch Pancakes

Makes: 30 Pancaes

4 cups all-purpose flour
8 Tbs sugar
8 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
4 cups milk
1 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla

1. Heat your pan or griddle to medium low heat.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients and mix together. Next, add in the liquids and eggs. Mix until smooth.
3. Pour the mix onto the griddle by scant 1/3 cup. When bubbles form on top, turn over and cook until golden.
4. To flash freeze pancakes allow to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, place pancakes, 6 at a time, on a large cookie sheet. Put them in the freezer for 15 minutes. Remove and place in an air tight storage container or freezer bag and put back into freezer until ready to use. Continue until all pancakes have been “flash frozen”. Why flash freeze? Why not skip that step and just stick them in the freezer? Flash freezing each pancake individually allows you to stack them after wards for storage without each pancake sticking to each other. That way, of you want to take out 1 pancake or 5, you can grab them each individually without worrying about breaking and sticking.

If you want to see where I found the recipe go Here

I give this recipe 3 stars! One star for taste, my kids love them and they taste like the Krusteaz pancake mix. Another star for being pretty easy to make. It took long time to make 30 pancakes, but I love that there are a bunch of pancakes in my freezer that I can make in less than a minute on a busy morning. I am also giving it another star for cost, its way cheaper than buying a box of Eggo waffles and I already had all of these ingredients in my house. I am not giving it a star for being healthy because there was nothing that made this recipe extra nutritious. But overall its a keeper and I would highly recommend this as a freezer option.

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Recipe 1: Roasted Eggplant Marinara with Spaghetti Squash

Ingredients

1 medium firm eggplant, halved lengthwise

Salt

Pepper

EVOO - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 head garlic

2 red bell pepper

1 28-ounce can fire-roasted tomatoes, whole

2 large spaghetti squash

Split squash lengthwise and roast cut-side down on baking sheet 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the squash flesh is very tender. Drizzle eggplant halves with EVOO, salt and pepper and roast face down on a baking sheet. Cut heads of garlic to expose cloves at ends, then drizzle liberally with EVOO, salt and pepper. Wrap in foil and place alongside eggplant. Roast 40-45 minutes.

Char peppers over open gas burner flame. Transfer to a bowl and cover, until cool enough to handle. Peel and seed the peppers, then roughly chop.

Scoop eggplants and add to a food processor with garlic and peppers.

For squash, split squash lengthwise and roast cut-side down on baking sheet 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the squash flesh is very tender. Flip squash over and shred the squash into spaghetti like strands with tines of a fork, leaving squash in shells. Dress the squash evenly with marinara

Heat fire roasted tomatoes in a sauce pan on medium-high heat and crush up with a potato masher. Stir vegetable puree in with tomatoes and heat through.

I give this recipe 3.5 stars because Mike and I really liked it, but the kids didn't so it only gets a half star for that. But it was really easy to make, it only costs about $6, and it is really healthy! I will definitely make this again!

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A New Years Resolution

One of my resolutions is to try new recipes this year. I don't like to cook, it's not fun, and I really want to enjoy it more. So I came up with this crazy idea to try a new recipe every week or 52 new recipes by the end of the year. Then I came up with an even crazier idea to journal it on the blog. I guess my idea is that if i have to post about it every week, then there will be a little more accountability... and if I complete 52 recipes by the end of the year then I am going to reward myself with a new set of pots and pans (we are still using pots and pans that came with us into this marriage, which just shows you how often I cook).

So here are the 4 main reasons I don't enjoy cooking:

1. Every meal begins with, "this looks so gross", "this is yucky", "I caaaaan'ttttt eat this". Then of course the kids start to chime in too :)

2. It takes way too much time. I hate spending a ton of time making 1 meal and then having to do dishes and prep. Not my idea of a good time!

3. It is not always easy to make a healthy meal. If I do find a meal that is fast and kid/husband friendly, it tends to not be very healthy.

4. It is not always cheap to make a home cooked meal. Sometimes I think I found the perfect recipe, only to find that it has 93 ingredients and I only have 3 of them in my pantry!

So when I post a recipe that I have tried, I will also be giving it a rating. One star for every hurdle that the recipe overcomes. For example 1 star if it was cheap, 1 star if it is healthy, and so on. And if there is a recipe out there that achieves all 4 stars, well then it is the holy grail of all recipes in my opinion!

So if anyone has any great recipes that they think I would love to try, send them my way, otherwise stay tuned for my first recipe:

Mock Spaghetti with fire roasted tomato sauce!

What Did You Do Today?

Since today was a holiday and it was a gray and chilly day, we did what anyone one would do, we built a BEAR CAVE! It was actually Ella's idea to build a bear cave for all of her bears and inside she and Hunter built a kitchen, a bed, and they even brought out the projector to make stars on the roof of their cave. It was so cute and they were having so much fun playing together that I had to play a long. So we made bear claw pancakes (which is just pancakes with a cool name) and I found a movie with bears in it that they could watch from their bear cave. It was a fun (and messy) holiday.

What did you do today?

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Is It Something We Did?

So when Lily had to have a bunch of evaluations done to get her in the early intervention program, I decided to get Hunter an evaluation too. I thought his speech was a little behind and I just wanted to make sure he didn't get lost in the shuffle. Well after he had a speech evaluation and a developmental evaluation, the therapists told us that he did not really qualify based on his speech, phew what a relief... oh but he did qualify based on his behavior.

Really? My crazy and wild little man is not a normal 2 year old? This was kind of blow to my parental self-esteem. I mean to have 2 out of your 3 kids in an early intervention program only leaves me to wonder:

Is it something we did?

Do Mike and I have some really bad genes lurking around or have we made every parenting mistake possible?

Now I know Hunter is a handful to say the least, and I know he has his meltdowns and I know he has his anger issues, but I thought this kind of went hand in hand with being a 2 year old boy. I was a little shocked to find out that really his behavior is not "normal" (whatever that really means) and that he could benefit from EIP.

I had a mix of emotions because while I was glad that there were tools and resources for him, I was a little worried that somehow this meant there was something really wrong with him, and I just didn't know if I could handle that right now. Anyway, once I got over my own feelings of somehow being a horrible mom, and we got Hunter into the toddler program, I realized what an amazing gift this has been to our family, and one that Lily gave us, just by being her!

You see Hunter is a new boy after only a few months of going to the program. He can make it through 3 hours of church, he can stay in nursery all by himself, we can take him to public places without wanting to leave after 5 minutes and his speech has improved so much! I had no idea the results we would see in such a short time, and although Hunter still has his meltdowns and his frustrations, he is progressing so much.

So while I still worry that the therapists may eventually come back and say that Hunter has ADHD or Autism (which they say is a possibility) right now I have a sweet, protective, funny little man who adores his sisters and loves his family.

The moral of the story? If you have a child that seems just a little more wild than the other kids around, it may not hurt to have them checked out. There are amazing resources out there that can make a huge difference, and if it weren't for Lily, we may have never even known they existed. So if you didn't know either, now you do!

P.S. Don't worry, I worked through my emotions and I know it really isn't anything that Mike or I did, but those thoughts and feelings really do run through your mind, even if you logically know it isn't true.

Milestones

Lily turned 6 months old on Monday and it is always fun to look back and see how far kids have come, to see kids progressing and reaching milestones. But with Lily it sometimes feels like a miracle to see her reaching her milestones.

There are always worries about if she will be able to do certain things and one thing I have been worried about is how she would handle solids. Well with the help of our OT, Matt, we tried solids last week and Lily did AWESOME! She had no problems eating rice cereal and she really seemed to enjoy trying something new. It is such a relief because I know that there can be a lot of problems with feeding and so far (fingers crossed) it has been pretty successful.

The only thing that makes starting solids difficult is the fact that Lily is not sitting up yet and even though her head control is pretty strong we still have to help her keep her head up, but at this point I don't mind, because I know if could have been worse.

Here are some other milestones Lily has reached:

Rolling over from back to front and front to back

holds her head up while on her tummy and can get up on hands

Holds her own bottle for 10-15 seconds

Reaches for toys and is starting to hold them in her hand

Smiles, Laughs, and coos

New Years Eve

This New Year's eve we went up to my cousins house for a fun night of food and games. We started with dinner at a neighbors house and then headed over to my cousins house where they taught me a new game called, "Liars dice". I had never heard of it before, but it was really fun and the best part is that everyone can play, even the kids! We rang in the new year with an apple cider toast and the kids loved staying up extra late!

This is the dice game, I came in second place, not too shabby!

Poor Hunter, he made it to about 10:00 pm and then pooped out on the couch!

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!