Monday 30 July 2012

Be a Hero

Have you ever wanted to be a hero?


I have three children.  The oldest, my stepson, is the one I call my child by choice- he is not of my body or blood, but he holds one third of my heart.  The middle, my first born, made my heart grow about 10 times it's original size.  He has some special needs.  The littlest, but by far the biggest personality, is living proof that love can move mountains.  Not a single one of them has a peanut allergy.  We are very lucky.

We often spend our summer weekends at the beach.  This past weekend, I happened to look under the picnic table, and discovered that the ground was covered in peanuts.  At first, I was a little annoyed that someone had left their "garbage" on the sand.  Then I looked around and saw empty water bottles and a little further up the beach there were a couple of abandoned cans and I thought at least peanuts are biodegradable.  The lesser of two evils.

And then it hit me.

The peanuts may not actually be the lesser of two evils because to someone with a severe peanut allergy,  they could mean death.


I watched my daughter crawl under the table and wiggle around on her four year old hands and knees and wondered what would happen to a younger child with a peanut allergy that they may or may not be aware of.  If you know about it, you most likely have an epi-pen, but if you don't, *what then?

I suddenly couldn't bear to think of the *what then.

I dropped down on my hands and knees and asked my daughter to help me find all of the peanuts.  We gathered all of the shells and peanuts I could find and made a mad dash to the garbage pail.  I suppose it sounds silly and full of desperation but that is exactly how it happened.

You see, my kids don't have a peanut allergy, but like all children, they need people to show them how to  be responsible community members.  In my mind that means that not only should I look out for my own, I should also look out for others.  I'm not telling you to keep your peanuts at home, I'm just asking you to use them with care.  Try not to leave them laying around.  We all have a ton of things to worry about when we take our kids to the beach, let's make the load a little easier where we can, and try to take care of each other.

We are quick to call the person that jumps in to the freezing cold water to save a child a hero, but picking up your peanuts makes you a hero too.

Sunday 29 July 2012

Thin Crust Pizza Dough in Five Minutes

It's Dough Time!

Looking for an easy way to get your kids to help in the kitchen?  Pizza! I know, I know- sounds like an awful lot of work, but the hardest part is making the dough. Until now! This recipe makes enough dough for one thin crust pizza, or 2 super thin cracker crust pizzas. There is no rising time either- you make the dough, roll it, top it and bake it! No additives, no preservatives, and you can choose the type of flour you want to use.


Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup hot water
  • 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
  • pinch of sugar or honey
  • 1 3/4 cup flour (use all purpose and half whole grain spelt)
  • 1/4 tsp salt
Combine water, yeast and sugar/honey. Set aside to let it foam up a bit.  I never really let it sit for more time than it takes to find the mixing bowl and measure the flour.  

Place 3/4 cup of flour in a large mixing bowl, and whisk in salt. Pour water/yeast mixture over top.  With an electric mixer, beat at medium speed until smooth and elastic, about 2 minutes. Add remaining flour, stir or knead in by hand. Work the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. (You are aiming for a smooth, elastic type texture.  If the dough seems sticky, sprinkle more flour and knead)  Roll dough out on a floured surface, transfer to pizza pan and add your favourite toppings.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes. Makes one large thin crust pizza. For a super thin cracker style crust, divide the dough in half, and brush edges with a tiny bit of olive oil. Watch your baking time- it will only take about 15-20 minutes for the cracker style crust.

I usually make 2 pizzas for our family of 4. While I make the second batch of dough for the grown up pizza, the kids put the toppings on theirs. Served with a Caesar side salad or vegetables and dip, or fruit and vegetable smoothies, it makes a much healthier choice than take out.

A few words about take out pizza....

I have been making this pizza for a number of years now.  At first, it was a cost saving measure, as with most of the home cooking I do, since Jon started his apprenticeship just after we met.  We could barely afford to live let alone get take out.  But then, after Owen came along, and we realized that he had food sensitivities coupled with a severe feeding disorder, we felt that it was incredibly important to pay attention to what we were putting on our table.  Have you ever thought about what does in to commercially produced pizza?

Common ingredients found in crust:  Partially hydrogenated soybean or cottonseed oil (transfat- the bad stuff), vital wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup,  fumeric acid, Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Ester of Mono- and Diglycerides (DATEM is the shortform- DUDE!  If I can't say it, I don't want to eat it!) Amylase, Alpha Amylase, Silicon Dioxide.

I think I would rather have this....

One Hundred Percent Whole Stone Ground  Spelt Flour



How does shredded mozzarella sound?  Does it still sound yummy when I tell you that most companies add powdered cellulose made from wood pulp to keep it from clumping together?  Also interesting to note- powdered cellulose increases the fibre content of food.  Here you thought you were getting more fibre from better quality whole grains.  Read more about cellulose here.  Another interesting add on in cheese- Natamycin. It is an anitfungal, in the same family as Nystatin.  While I am happy that my pizza cheese is likely to be mould free, and now higher in fibre and non-clumping, wouldn't it be better to avoid the additives and shred my own mozzarella?

I think I would be much better off using this.....

One Hundred Percent Fresh Mozzarella and Cheddar Cheese

For a long time, it seemed like having take out pizza once a week wasn't a bad idea.  But if you take that one meal, with all of those additives, and then remember that many of them are found in other mass produced bakery goods, how much are you actually eating?

I think that I would rather eat this....



Which would you prefer?

Hey!  If you stopped by, THANK YOU!  Please feel free to drop me a line below in the comments section!  I love hearing from you!


Tuesday 24 July 2012

Breakfast Trifle

Care to share?  Yes, please!

This makes a super simple breakfast, snack or dessert.  The only secret is to put them together the day before you want to have them.  Play with this basic recipe and see if you can make it healthier!  For Owen, I sometimes make a coconut milk Blancmange (stove top cooked custard with eggs, coconut milk and sugar) in place of the yogurt.  In this house, that is known as "Eggs, Cleverly Disguised...as Pudding".   Replacing the angel food cake with Omega 3 packed blueberry muffins could also boost the nutrition!

Ready!

For this recipe, you will need:

  • chunks of angel food cake (or day old blueberry muffins)
  • a few handfuls of your favourite berries, fresh (well washed) or frozen
  • a drizzle of orange juice, or some low sugar jam
  • your favourite French vanilla yogurt
  • single serving size containers
Place chunks of cake or muffins in the bottom of your containers.  Top with berries, a drizzle of orange juice or jam.  Top with yogurt.  Make as many as you wish- it's really that simple!

Set!

Seal containers, and *REFRIGERATE until ready to serve.

Go!

Do you want to try some?  You won't be disappointed!

*When yogurt is in contact with any other food, it is extremely important to refrigerate while it is holding and use promptly.  Why?  Because it is a bacteria culture- full of healthy bacterial cultures, which are good for your health.  BUT- say you want to sweeten it up a bit and use unpasteurised honey- which can carry botulism toxin.  Yogurt has potential to help breed botulism toxin as well as those wonderful beneficial bacteria as well if it is kept warm enough!  Keep it cold until ready to eat! 

Hey!  If you stopped by, THANK YOU!  Please feel free to drop me a line below in the comments section!  I love hearing from you!

Thursday 19 July 2012

Fine Motor Skills


Occupational Therapy works best for us when we don't realize that we are actually doing it.  When we build it in to our day and it becomes so automatic that I forget there is a purpose.  Really, any activity that we do together is a chance to build skill- and each skill that is gained is a stepping stone to something bigger.  It's not much different than what you would do when you engage any child.  We just do it a little more often, and sometimes we have to approach it in a different way.  I love finding activities that do "double duty", where we work on multiple skills at the same time.  I went through a phase where I thought that I needed to buy all sorts of fancy Occupational Therapy sets and toys, but know I realize that it actually makes more sense to use real life experiences for teaching moments.



Today we are working with coins, which is partially a fine motor task, but also a learning experience for school.  Over the summer it was suggested that we work developing his fine motor but also that he become more familiar with Canadian coins.  So wrapped up in one activity we have fine motor, sorting, math awareness and language.  No special equipment required, it all starts with a jar of pocket change.


Hyperlexia has some advantages, especially to get the party started!  If he doesn't really want to play with something, I can always suggest we make letters!  Not a big fan of letters?  Make shapes!  Make lines!  Separate by coin type- this picture has just pennies, but how dimes, nickels or quarters?  Make a pattern line for beginning reading tasks- penny penny nickel, penny penny nickel. Just like that you added a language task!


We sort them, stack them, make letters with them.  We build towers.  And then we knock them down.  He reaches for them.  If I plan it out well, I can get him using both hands at the same time, which is something that he has great difficulty with.  I can move the piles around and then ask him to cross mid-line to pick them up.  Sometimes we play specific games with the coins, and sometimes he sneaks away and plays with them all by himself.  That's what I call a winning therapy experience!

My favourite part of coin therapy?  Counting out enough money to get a treat at the store!  It's important to have a pay out at the end:)

This  post is part of  #TherapyThursday, which I hope gives you a glimpse inside our lives.  Care to join me in raising awareness of Special Needs?  Post a blog, picture or tweet about it using the hashtag #TherapyThursday.  Feel free to post a link below in the comment section!  Remember that there are many different types of therapy- Occupational, Physical, Feeding, Speech Language and Behavioural to name a few.  I hope it will serve as yet another way to spread awareness of special needs!



From the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists

"Occupational therapy is the art and science of enabling engagement in everyday living, through occupation; of enabling people to perform the occupations that foster health and well-being; and of enabling a just and inclusive society so that all people may participate to their potential in the daily occupations of life (Townsend& Polatajko, 2007, p. 372)."

Thursday 12 July 2012

The Sensory Side of Feeding Therapy


This post has been a long time in coming.  Almost 6 years.  

Owen's feeding issues were present at birth.  He did not "regress" into poor feeding.  I was a new mother, had no experience, and no idea that there was something wrong.

We started feeding therapy in January of this year.  It has been the most difficult therapy so far- gains are small, effort is enormous and it takes it's toll emotionally.  I'm sure that sounds strange.  But it's a difficult thing for me to put into words.

This child is frightened of food.  Scared he will choke.  Terrified he will vomit.  He is so uncomfortable with eating that he will gag and retch watching YOU eat.  It's complicated.  It's painful to talk about.  It breaks my heart.  I may require years of my own therapy to come to terms with it.  It is the ONE thing that I would do anything to change for him.  Anything.

Our feeding therapy is multifaceted.  There are sensory issues (like textures, temperature), physical issues (like coordination, strength, motor skills)  and organic issues- absence of appetite, food sensitivities, a year of dental pain and generally not feeling well.  These are all topics that I will revisit in future posts.  For today's #TherapyThursday post I will focus on some of the sensory aspects of feeding therapy.



Favourite Stop
Honey Bees at work
The first step for us was gaining a comfort level with food.  This means many trips to grocery stores, markets and restaurants.  Big family dinners, sitting at the table as much as possible.  Allowing him to come and go as much as required- but still setting limits and time lines.  We started with 5 minutes.  Now he sits for twenty. I spend a lot of time thinking outside the box.



“Think left, and think right, and think low, and think high. Oh, the things you can think up, if only you try!”  Dr. Suess



Sometimes, we have do things a little out of the ordinary to reach our goals.  Let's talk about chocolate sauce.  Personally I cannot imagine NOT wanting to dip things into chocolate sauce, but that's the O-man's style.  He would not believe me when I said it was chocolate sauce. Hyperlexia has its advantages.  Read it Owie- it really is chocolate sauce!  But he was wary.  For two weeks I gave him a small amount in a bowl for dipping.  Nothing.

So we tried a different approach. Painting.  It worked best when I taped the paper to the wall in the bathtub.  I filled the tub with about 2 inches of water so that he could wash it off if he needed to.  He was still wary, but he was comfortable in his space knowing that he could get clean.

I showed him the bottle a number of times, and reinforced the idea that it was chocolate by having him read it.



And suddenly, out of nowhere, he puts the paintbrush into his mouth.  I know it sounds silly, but it took every ounce of control I could muster to control my tears.  He put a paintbrush into his mouth!  Six months ago he would have gagged just looking at a paintbrush.  Keep it together Mama, and keep moving forward.


We moved from the paper to a large cutting board.  I squished out a large blob of chocolate and showed him how to finger paint.  He sloshed it around a few seconds, and then decided that it would look better on his belly.  Mommy, will you make a face on my belly?  Together, we drew funny faces, sad faces, happy faces and angry faces.  Over and over again, until the water in the tub was chocolatey brown.

Funny, I never pictured the colour of success as chocolate.  But that day, it was.


Success, no matter how small, is worth celebrating!





I plan on writing a post every Thursday for the next little while to give you a glimpse inside our lives.  Thursday will henceforth be known as Therapy Thursday, and I hope that you will join me.  Post a blog, or tweet about it using the hashtag #TherapyThursday.  Feel free to post a link below in the comment section!  Remember that there are many different types of therapy- Occupational, Physical, Feeding, Speech Language and Behavioural to name a few.  I hope it will serve as yet another way to spread awareness of special needs!


From the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists

"Occupational therapy is the art and science of enabling engagement in everyday living, through occupation; of enabling people to perform the occupations that foster health and well-being; and of enabling a just and inclusive society so that all people may participate to their potential in the daily occupations of life (Townsend& Polatajko, 2007, p. 372)."













Tuesday 10 July 2012

One of Those Days



Have you ever had one?

They seem to pop up out of nowhere.  It's bright and sunshine-y, the birds are chirping, the grass is green and the neighbourhood is alive with the sounds of summer.  You've made a lovely breakfast for the kids and they even remembered their manners!  You have cleaned the kitchen and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher.  And then....

The dishwasher will not start.   You fiddle with the buttons, get a little annoyed.  Maybe (just sayin') you even kick it.  Nothing.  So you suck it up and wash a double load by hand.  You were trying to save on your water and electric bills so you didn't run the dishwasher last night because it wasn't completely full.

Meanwhile, youngest gets angry at oldest for not playing fair.  Youngest hits oldest, middle gets angry and runs to to defend oldest (or youngest, who knows).  Youngest and oldest get sent to time out.  While trying to decide what to do with middle you notice that he jingles when he walks.  Upon closer inspection you discover that he has jammed every coin that he could find into his underwear.  Because it makes a good pocket, he says, with his most serious expression.  You worry about his future, make him wash the loonies and twonies with disinfectant and tell him that it is not socially appropriate to stuff things down his shorts.  He can keep the smaller denominations so long as he promises that he will put them in the jar you give him.

No big deal, but it definitely puts a cramp in your morning plans.

You realize that you are running behind schedule, but you are still willing to catch up.  And then....

Laundry needs to be done since you discovered your oldest has been stuffing both the clean and the dirty laundry behind his dresser.  Hooray for finally locating the smell that has been drifting down the stairs!

No big deal, but it is putting another cramp in your morning plans.

Still running behind.  But you think you may catch up.  And then....

Before you start the kid's laundry, you have to re-wash a load that you left sitting in the washer, wet.  Because it is summer, and wet laundry goes skunk-y really quick.  But don't worry!  You are catching up!  Switch over the wash!  Load in the boy's clothes!  There is a light at the end of the tunnel!  Quick run to the kitchen to fix everyone a snack!  Wash the snack dishes so you won't have to do them later.  Get the kids organized with shoes for the trip to the park that you promised them an hour ago.  Wait- where are their pants?  Why do they never have pants on?  Send the youngest to the bathroom since there are no toilets at the park and pause to think,

"So I'm a little behind,  but I'm getting on top of things."

And then....

A little voice asks "Mommy? Why is there SO MUCH WATER on the laundry room floor?"

Sigh.  Because Your washing machine started filling, and did not know when to stop.  You throw every towel and blanket you can find on top of the lake that used to be your laundry room and hope it sops up the mess.  But not before realizing that the water has leaked through the floor into Daddy's office downstairs.  And you will have to pull down the walls AND the ceiling down there because this is not the first time water has leaked.

Have you ever had one of THOSE days?

I think we will go to the park anyway.  After Mommy has a nap.





Thursday 5 July 2012

Therapy Thursday

A Day at the Beach




Think of sand for a moment.  Soft, hard, wet, dry, smooth, rough, uneven, shifting, light, heavy.  It is ever-changing depending on where you step.  It is an incredibly diverse landscape, very similar to life.

For a child, the beach is an opportunity to explore, relax, run, play and most importantly, learn.

But have you ever wondered what it's like to see the world through different eyes?  One that requires a different approach to learning and sensing?  Have you seen or heard the term Occupational Therapy and wondered what it's all about?

A day in the life of my sensory sensitive boy is full of things that are therapy based activities.

Large rocks and driftwood can serve as tactile (sense of touch) experience.  If they stand or walk across them, they help develop balance, co-ordination and motor skills.












Collecting rocks for fine and gross motor skills, visual skills, sorting and tactile experience.  I ask him reach for the (pink) rock (shiny) rock (smooth) rock which adds language experience as well.












Body awareness is easy with sand!
Many times over the course of our visit
hands, feet, body and belly are 
covered in it.  Having him gently rubbing it off his
skin helps him isolate body parts, creating better body awareness.  











I plan on writing a post every Thursday for the next little while to give you a glimpse inside our lives.  Thursday will henceforth be known as Therapy Thursday, and I hope that you will join me.  Post a blog, or tweet about it using the hashtag #TherapyThursday.  Feel free to post a link below in the comment section!  Remember that there are many different types of therapy- Occupational, Physical, Feeding, Speech Language and Behavioural to name a few.  I hope it will serve as yet another way to spread awareness of special needs!


From the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists

"Occupational therapy is the art and science of enabling engagement in everyday living, through occupation; of enabling people to perform the occupations that foster health and well-being; and of enabling a just and inclusive society so that all people may participate to their potential in the daily occupations of life (Townsend& Polatajko, 2007, p. 372)."






Dance like no one is watching.