Cleaning house

I'm trying, TRYING, to go through Kittyboy's toys and post what he really doesn't play with on Freecycle. I've done this a few times, once when we realized that he just wasn't a stuffed animal person and we gave away most of those, and another time when I was just fed up with the amount of toys we had. We gave him a teddy bear for Christmas (it was wearing a sweater, I couldn't resist) and a book for his birthday, chipped in with the great-grands on a bunch of plastic farm animals, and that was it - then the extended families' gifts came out. He has probably twice the amount of toys he had before, not that any one person gave him a WHOLE bunch (though several are big), but more that everyone altogether just gave him soooo much. Naturally, I'm anxious to clean out from what he got last year. But what has to go? The little blue teddy bear some friends gave us while I was in the hospital with him, that's special because of the time and because I know they didn't have money at the time whatsoever. He doesn't play with it, but it's still special. The wooden blocks he doesn't play with, I know he'll play with one day, and future children will play with them. He's got a whole big box of them, you don't give away basics like that. We've already passed off stuff he didn't play with often to other houses where he spends time - my parents, Husband's parents, an uncle's - and found out that the in-laws take it personally if anything they gave him comes back, regardless of whether it was given for an occasion or just something they saw and picked up because he "might like it". And then there are the vintage Fisher Price toys out in the garage - they aren't in the best of shape, but they're things Husband and I remember playing with when we were little. We can't get rid of THOSE.
He has the pint-size ATV, an un-motorized ride-on toy, one of those big red and yellow Fisher Price cars (he can't figure out how it works, but the in-laws would be insulted if we offered to bring it back to their house for him to play with when he visits there - and IT'S HUGE, so if they visit and it's not here, they'll notice), and two big Radio Flyer wagons. One is in pretty good shape and is from, again, the in-laws, and one needs some fixing up but I looooove it because it's a bit of an antique and well worth fixing up. He has a rocking horse, and a rocking caterpillar. Caterpillars, my gosh, he's got a three-foot and a SIX-foot one the trucking uncle picked up at a truck stop somewhere - couldn't decide which Kittyboy would like, so he got both.
Then there's also the fact that we will at some point have more children!
So... any suggestions? Here's what I've come up with thus far:
1. Take inventory of toys at Other Houses - get rid of anything I don't remember, or which has lost sentimental value in the months that we didn't miss it.
2. Anything easily and cheaply replaced at a dollar store or Walmart. If the replacement value is under $5 (maybe $10), it's not worth the "cost" of storage.
3. Take things that aren't often played with to the Other Houses to replace those which were gotten rid of (see #1).
4. Inventory the vintage Fisher Price, and find out if anyone on Freecycle collects such things - if we really, really want the little plastic record player, we can buy one off of Ebay sometime that actually works well.
5. YOUR SUGGESTION HERE.

Seriously, input would be great.

Ramblings...

So, I spent a couple HOURS on blogspot last night finding other Orthodox bloggers, and was distressed that many of them hadn't written anything since '05...'04...'03... I did find a bunch to add to my blog list, but it was kind of a letdown to find blog after blog written by a priest's wife (YAY!) that hadn't been updated in years (waah!). Oh please, presbyteras and matushkas, keep writing! I have to learn your recipes for vasilopita, what it is you say in Russian at Christmas (I used to know and have forgotten), and how on earth to keep the Lenten fast with a toddler!!
Had services this morning for St. John the Baptist. I am still learning which hymns I only have memorized in English, and which I only have memorized in Greek, and so I still sometimes start a hymn and then have to switch languages to finish it. :)
I have a toddler who will eat apple or orange slices happily and scream when there are no more, will eat salad more often than not if the dressing is ranch, and as I've said before, will eat just about anything at least once, but "doesn't do" chicken nuggets. We got drive-thru after church because Husband had to go STRAIGHT to work, and figured a 20-piece nuggets would take care of everyone - and got a small fry in case Kittyboy went vegetarian on us. Kittyboy took ONE (1) nugget. He then held it in his mouth for at least 20 minutes. Child-feeding trick I learned from a VET, used to get dogs and cats to swallow pills - rub the throat in a downward motion, it triggers a swallow reflex. It works in humans too; rub down across your adam's apple and I just about guarantee you will swallow. We used to do that after every bite he took, as a matter of course, because he wouldn't necessarily swallow otherwise. So I did that, repeatedly, but of course he couldn't swallow something he hadn't chewed, and there IS no chew reflex, just rubbing his cheeks and jaw to remind him there's something in his mouth. He did swallow it at some point, long after I'd given up. That was his one nugget. Good thing we got fries. Kittyboy's just not a big fan of meat, that's all there is to it. Not a bad thing, just something that requires more flexibility and planning sometimes.
Well, I should get going now, I'm cleaning the house to hopefully have Father come over for a house blessing for the new year. At the start of '07, everything was falling apart, I was recovering from the c-section and all, and at the start of '08, we just couldn't seem to get things nice enough to feel comfortable having Father over. A house blessing is EVERY room, so it includes the rooms into which you usually shove everything when someone comes over! But this year, we are determined. The first Sunday of Lent, if not beforehand, Father IS coming. And the house WILL be clean. I swear.

Roast Brussels Sprouts

I'm copying this from nytimes.com, because being from February of LAST year, every time I try to "share" the page, it says it can't be found. Sounds REALLY good to me! I hope to grow a Brussels sprout plant indoors this summer, or maybe two if I try this recipe and it's as good as it sounds. From what I read, they're VERY finiky plants - too hot outside, the flavor is strong and unpleasant. Not enough water, same problem. Hmmm... sounds like an indoor plant to me. I thought for the longest time that sprouts were supposed to be horrible, but had honestly never eaten them. So one day (as an independent adult) I bought some and steamed them with basil and such, and they were good. Just like little cabbages. And the plants are FUNKY looking - a single stalk with little sprouts growing off of it, like a bat with baseballs stuck all over it. That alone makes me want to grow it - this recipe, though, is doubly tempting.

February 21, 2008, 11:11 am

Recipe of the Day: Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Garlic By Mark Bittman

Ingredients

• 1 pint brussels sprouts (about a pound)
• 4 to 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, to coat bottom of pan
• 5 cloves garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Method

• 1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Trim bottom of brussels sprouts, and slice each in half top to bottom. Heat oil in cast-iron pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers; put sprouts cut side down in one layer in pan. Put in garlic, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• 2. Cook, undisturbed, until sprouts begin to brown on bottom, and transfer to oven. Cook, shaking pan occasionally, until sprouts are quite brown and tender, about 1/2 hour.
• 3. Taste, and add more salt and pepper if necessary. Stir in balsamic vinegar, and serve hot or warm.

Source: The New York Times

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

An answer to a prayer I hadn't prayed

This is an example of how, when God gives, He gives in abundance. Sometimes, you get exactly what you asked for, nothing more, nothing less. I asked God once to give me at least enough voice to finish out a Liturgy when my throat was really bad, and got EXACTLY that - after the last hymn, I couldn't TALK. Well, I did say just enough to finish the Liturgy... I didn't say anything about conversation during coffee hour. And sometimes, He does say no. I wanted contacts at my last eye exam - turns out I'm a horrible candidate for them, so that was a "no". To quote the Stones, "You can't always get what you want."
And sometimes, you don't get JUST what you want, you get what you didn't dare ask for. Case in point - dining room chairs. I planned poorly, and gave away all of ours before shopping for more. Friends said they were apartment-hunting, I said, "Great, when you find one, you can have our old dining set (the chairs we were using, the table was being used outside)." And I planned on replacing our chairs with ones from Salvation Army, a couple at a time. The eclectic look, you know. This was in July, however, and because in the first place I had nowhere to store the chairs we'd be giving away, and in the second place I'm just not that "together", I had done no chair-shopping when our chairs all departed for the friends' apartment last month. I went to Salvation Army, and lo and behold, there were NO chairs that were not in a set with a table. NO single, lonely, mismatched chairs whatsoever. I went back again, and again, and there just weren't any, period. My budget didn't cover new chairs, unless they were folding chairs from Walmart. After a couple weeks of nothing to sit on and all meals on the couch, I talked myself into accepting that folding chairs would be okay (they perform the basic function required, after all), and furthermore they would even be a GOOD idea, because our house is so small, and we could fold them up when not in use. But it kind of stunk, because those still aren't CHEAP, and of course money's tight. So as a last resort, I posted the following Wanted on Freecycle:
"Do you have one or two kitchen/dining room chairs that no longer match your other furniture? Maybe they need a leg replaced or something? ...We have a table. We have no chairs. I'm not picky in the slightest, if it clashes too severely with our dining room, that's what paint is for, and I can do simple repairs too. I'm willing to drive out of Springfield for something to sit on!"
I didn't expect much - chairs that went in a basement or attic because they needed some sort of basic repair, then the person got rid of the set and forgot about the one in storage, etc... I expected to put in elbow grease at the least to clean them up, IF anyone had chairs to get rid of at all, and was bracing for some basic carpentry and painting to get them into shape. I didn't even think to ask GOD for chairs, I mean, that's such a basic silly little thing. You don't ask God for chairs.
Well, He got involved anyhow. Carpentry? Painting? Wood glue? It was Friday the 2nd that I put up a Wanted for any chairs, any condition, anywhere, and I now have THREE chairs, and they are beyond what I had ever thought to hope for. The first I got is a lovely red-blond shade, wooden, in great condition with a curvy design carved out of the back. Gorgeous. The two I picked up this morning are, get this, THE SAME WOOD. It's the same red-blond, this time with a geometric design on the back. And pads. On the seat AND back. And arms!!!
Kittyboy's booster seat is on the one with the curvy back, and we have the ones with arms. And more and more, every time I walk into the dining room today, I think about how God really DOES give in abundance sometimes. I mean, that's really it. All I needed was something to sit on. Stacked milk-crates would have fit the bill. And I didn't even ask God for milk-crates. And now I don't just have chairs. I have BEAUTIFUL chairs, no work required. They even look nice together, and with our table. I have more than I dreamed of!
And boy, am I thankful!

New Year's Resolutions

Why, may I ask, do we arbitrarily select January 1st as the date for making changes in our lives? Why not the first day of spring (spring cleaning in a metaphysical sense!) or on Thanksgiving when we're counting blessings (and we could then come up with ways to make our lives even better...), but instead we just go with the first day of the next year. Personally, I think that the way we mark time seems QUITE arbitrary, especially what with scientists now adding "leap seconds"... but that's beside the point.
I'm calling this a New Year's Resolution because it "resolves" an issue I encountered while sending Christmas cards, so this is the first chance I'm getting to DO something about it. And, if I write here, "Hey WORLD, I'm going to do this!!!!" chances are better that I actually WILL.
I'm compiling a list of older relatives, friends, etc, who do not have e-mail. Once a month, I will write each one a letter, and send it by US Post. I would resolve to call, but a phone call that lasts any length of time is punctuated by an ongoing monologue of "NO! Put that down. No, no throwing. No, I can't read that right now. Leave the cat alone..." etc. You get the idea. And apart from my parents, I don't actually LIKE talking on the phone. That's why e-mail is a lifesaver for me! I can type in between playing games, while reading a book (that's a trick you should try sometime, it helps when the book's memorized), or with Veggie Tales cranked up loud. I can start an e-mail when I have a thought RIGHT NOW, then save a draft and come back to it when Kittyboy's asleep or something. A long e-mail (or blog post!) can be written over the course of a day, in little minutes here and there. Phones don't work that way!
So, I'm going to write loooong, chatty letters, by hand, on notebook paper if nothing else, and they're actually going to get mailed, too. I've always been bad at keeping in touch with people. That really is a fault of mine. So that's my project! Nine is my favorite number, so the 9th of every month is now dubbed Letter-Writing Day.
And thank-yous! Thank-yous are getting sent this year. Cross my heart. Really. They are.

More Baby-Sign News

Kittyboy has the sign of the cross ALMOST down pat, except he does it backwards (the Catholic way). Obviously that's because he's following the movements of our hands as if in a mirror, so that'll straighten out with time. We were eating in a restaurant with friends once shortly after he'd started doing it regularly, and I forgot to cross myself before eating. He looked at me, said "Mm!" and crossed himself. He then was so taken with his first taste of fried okra that he crossed himself before every bite. Books that have icons on the front, he points at and crosses himself. The little photo album in which I have his icon cards is getting beat up and will need replacing at some point. Signing for Jesus is going nowhere, though he may have put together that the Baby in Mary's arms is the same person as the grown-up man by the same name, because when I point out a picture as Jesus, he signs Baby. That's partially owing to me arranging his icons in the photo album as diptychs, where the Theotokos and Child (Mary and Jesus) on one side are directly opposite the one of Jesus as a man. The Baby's name is Jesus, the man's name is Jesus, so when he does sign, he does Baby for both. We're putting the pieces together, albeit sort of backwards. Signing for Mary, he has figured out, although it's very close to the way he signs Cat, so if you're in a store and he does it, it might be that he saw a cat on something, or it might be that you're passing the Nativity displays. Context is key. Joseph doesn't need a sign - after I'd spent some time sitting with him at the manger scene going over "Jesus - Mary - Jesus - Mary", he picked up Joseph and SAID "Dadd-n!" (Daddy).
Horse and Cow we're also seeing, though he doesn't differentiate between the two. And both are very close to Hat. He stood by a set of shelves by the door and pointed, then put his fist up to his head. I guessed, "Hat? You want your hat?" because he does have a favorite hat he likes to wear around the house sometimes. He put his hand down, and then did it again. "Horse?" He turned and pulled the donkey from the manger scene out from behind the shelves. We've been calling it a horse because, well, it LOOKS like a horse, and when I called it a donkey, he signed Dog (doggie). Angels are still Birds, which I suppose follows a logic similar to signing Baby for Jesus.
I can't imagine what people did with really late talkers before they started sign language with babies. Were it not for Toilet (diaper change), More, Eat/Drink, and Night-Night, life would be sooo much more complicated than it is. With signs, we'll be able to start toilet-training without him necessarily talking yet, as soon as we get the skill of pulling underwear up and down. If we were waiting for him to talk, I have no idea WHEN we'd be starting. And he's learning the basics, the name for things, and how language is used, NOW, so that however late he talks, he'll already know all that.
Oh, and just now I may have seen him sign Jesus (he'd brought me the photo album to look at), and it's sort of a vague mid-level sign he does for a lot of things. A LOT of signs look like each other. But it's a start!

My Son Has No Tastebuds

Actually, I think he's tastebud-disabled. Admittedly, you could say the same for me - the first month of my pregnancy, I ate wasabi paste straight from the tube. I'm addicted to wasabi peas, dried anchovies, smoked oysters, etc. Always have been. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when I have to eat my wasabi peas out of his sight, lest he demand that I share. Ditto for dried anchovies, oysters, all the rest of it. And there ARE things he doesn't like - he is not convinced that raw mushrooms are a food, for example. Anything really, really mild, there's a chance he'll hold it in his mouth, forget it's there, then gag and spit it out. He used to do that ALL THE TIME, which is why we used to put chili powder on everything he ate. So he does HAVE tastebuds, they're just, well, "differently abled".
Sometimes, though, I do wonder. Today, I was peeling him an orange, and he decided I was taking too long. He picked up that white membrane that goes down the center of the orange and started eating it. Okay, not too weird, it's edible. Then he picked up a chunk of skin, nibbled experimentally at the edge, and apparently he liked it, because he then CHOMPED. Big bite of orange peel, chewed and swallowed.
Is it just me, or is that bizarre?
Assuming he has tastebuds, I think they've been dropped on their heads a few times too many. Or he's burned them off with wasabi in utero.
Generally speaking, he's an easy kid to feed. He likes vegetables, and in particular will eat anything in a hollandaise or cheese sauce. He's got all the toddler favorites - cheerios, mac and cheese, bread and peanutbutter - but he'll also eat things containing squid and tofu. The only catch is that the first bite of almost anything that isn't a bread product will involve a fight. BUT, if you can pin the hands down and get him to swallow what you force in his mouth, he will then eat the rest of it. I know not why this is, I'm just glad that once the first bite's over, we're usually home free.
If we HAD a food battle, it would be over meat. We went through a phase where meat had to be ground and concealed in something. I was celebrating the week of Thanksgiving when he had his first Happy Meal and ate two out of four chicken nuggets without a fight, because I once bought a box of frozen popcorn chicken with the intention of using it as quick and easy protein for him, and he would not eat those no matter what. Back then, the speech therapist said he wasn't chewing, and so he gagged on it, and being a quick study, he figured out what it was that gagged him and rejected the entire food group. If I held up a bite of pork chop, chicken, or a chunk of a hamburger, he would instantly dissolve into tears as if I'd offered him a nightshade salad with hemlock dressing. "Mommy, how COULD you!" Since then, thanks to hot dogs, crunchy raw fruits and vegetables, and some very tender steak, he has been getting better at chewing and it's not an issue. He's not that much of a carnivore, but he has an uncle and a cousin both who are not that into meat, so there's a precedant for that. I have no problem with him getting his protein from beans and peanut butter, so long as it's his own choice and not because he thinks he'll choke otherwise.
Orange peel, though. Huh. That's a new one on me. Hey, we know he'll never starve!