My New Years Inspiration

My middle daughter (for those who do not know) was diagnosed with Autism right before she turned two. That was nearly twelve years ago. She is mostly non-verbal and does know some signs and can do verbal approximations of words for items that are common in her life. She is also a life long fan of Blue's Clues. She still watches the episodes on her iPod Touch. Trust me, there have been many times that I have wanted to ditch the dog and Steve/Joe for something more age appropriate ... but honestly, have you watched tween programming lately? Anyway, Sierra has learned many "scripts" from Blue's Clues. She has never been able to vocalize them, but she will often do the body motions that go with them. They are often amusing to watch and you can just see the pure joy in her face when she does them. So, on New Years Eve, I was sitting in the living room, playing on Pinterest (I am a Pinaholic) as she ran back and forth between her room and the living room. Suddenly, something caught my attention. She was talking! She was scripting - verbally! I watched in amazement as I saw her not only vocally script, but I was hearing her talk with more than one word at a time! She has never been able to do that. But here was several small sentences coming out of her mouth!

"Me. Ewe. Boo. Na Do, Uh Na Na, Uh Na Na Na Do." Okay, so there, it doesn't look like much. But what it represents is "Me, and you, and our friend Blue. We can do, anything, that we wanna do."

And this is huge, and I mean like TITANIC HUGE when you consider that normally her responses are one word answers. Even more huge when you think that just a few short years ago, this child couldn't say letter sounds, everything was a grunt or a cry! I had to record the next time she did it, which is the great thing about her scripting - she will do it several times over and over! So I grabbed my smartphone and recorded it to send to my husband who is currently away. 

So, I was sure that was going to be my New Year's miracle, just a few hours early. However, not so fast. 

Last night, as the day was winding down and I was about to get the girls to bed, Sierra comes bounding out of her room in typical Sierra fashion. She is side skipping around, holding her iPod in one hand and flapping her new scarf which was around her neck in the other. I turned around to tell her it was time for bed when I stopped. I head these words coming from her mouth - "Bye! Wuv Ewe!" OMG, did I hear that right? Blue's Clues never says love you. Not like that. OMG! I had to call my husband as her sister and I stood here, listening to her say it over and over. He got to hear it. We got to hear it. It was almost as sweet as the day last summer when out of the blue (no pun intended) she turned to me, pointed and called me Mom for the first - and so far only - time in her life. She was repeating something that I have been telling her all her life. Something I often wondered if she understood. While I can't say that she understands what she is saying necessarily, I can take hold of the fact that she has heard me - not just with her ears, but beyond that. She has heard me saying those words and she is able to repeat them. We have never worked with her on saying those words. We focus on functional words like "touch" (iPod), "TV", "eat", etc. We never went for words that couldn't have a picture attached to them. Yes, we have done emotions - she knows the difference between happy, mad and sad. But love is such a complicated emotion for those without special needs to understand, how could I teach this to a child who didn't want to have anything to do with "our" world for so long?

Well, I guess I taught it by example ...

New Year, New Start

I have piddled with this idea of a blog for several years now. The focus of the blog has changed several times. It seemed like the focus was too focused at times, making it difficult to keep the ball rolling. So I revamped the blog into a broad spectrum of topics but I just didn't follow through.

Since that last posting, a lot has happened. We have moved into our home and gotten most of our goals in the home done. There are plenty more ideas on the backburners, It is just a matter of time and money.

As far as the kids, they have blossomed so much. In a few short weeks, I will have an adult daughter - a scary yet happy milestone. We have been working hard on getting ready for college and preparing her for life outside of our home in a few short months. We are all excited to see our little birdie leave the nest and see what kind of wonderful young woman she becomes. Her two younger sisters have made strides of their own in various aspects of their lives - social, academically, etc.

Finally, the real reason I have made the return to the blog. I have had several things happen over the last few months, most notably I was diagnosed with Diabetes. It was a very hard pill to swallow. More than a few swear words and tears happened during those first few weeks as I struggled with all the finger pricks and food changes. But after the initial shock, I was able to embrace the changes and I was rewarded. For years I have struggled with losing weight. These changes have lead to weight loss of 19.8 lbs in three months (actually in two months as I "took December off" due to so much sickness in our house).

As I have seen this transformation of my physical being, I wanted to do something for my emotional being. I was recently sharing a posting that I had written on my personal Facebook page with some loved ones. They told me it was so well written and so forth. That was when one of them reminded me that I always loved to write growing up and often dreamed of becoming a writer when I grew up. So there was the a-ha! moment.

So with the new year coming on, I sat down and wrote out a list of goals for the next year. I wasn't going to resolve to do generic items that I had failed to do in years past. Nope, I was going to be specific. Here is what that list consisted of:

• Putting myself first
• Learn to say "no"
• Date night out with the hubby once a month
• Girls night out with friends once a month
• Lose at least 35lbs
• Drop at least 2 pants sizes
• Participate in at least 4 Fun Runs
• Get more organized & stay that way
• Eat healthier (already been doing that but going to work on the family too!)
• Stay in touch better with family and friends

Putting myself first includes making time for things that I enjoy. My schedule is usually so jam-packed with therapy sessions, doctors appointments and social events for the kids that I literally have little time to do much else. After so many years of putting everyone and everything else first, I am reorganizing my priority list. The diagnosis of the Diabetes brought this need front and center. I had researched every little thing about the girls and their various special needs and fought to give them each the fullest, most successful life I could that I had neglected to give myself that same option. Not that my life isn't full and successful - totally the opposite! But I had often stepped away from opportunities or had opportunities slip away because I had to put the girls first and foremost. However, I believe that my girls have thrived so well in the last few years that the time is definitely right for me to start working hard on what I am going to be besides the advocate and primary caregiver. They each have their own levels of independence and don't require the extreme level of care that some of them required just a few short years ago. I have also realized that I do not have to do it all. There are plenty of others around us that are willing to help, all I had to do was ask. I had to relinquish some of the control that my control freak personality demanded that I have. And you know what? The girls are fine. I am fine. Nothing catastrophic has happened by letting others take bits of control in small aspects of their care and their lives. 

So, this is where I am. Ready to take control of my life and make myself #1. Okay, so that isn't totally true. The kids will always be #1, but I will not always allow that to overshadow my desires and needs. I will consider myself equally as important as their needs and wants. 

Plus, I can also use this blog to hopefully inspire others with anything from my life. Not only do I have my weight loss journey and the recipes that I will be posting, I have my girls accomplishments. 

Like this. 

Read the next blog entry to see what I am talking about ... 

Recipe: GF Beef & Veggie Meatloaf Muffins

I have previously made Meatloaf Muffins for my family and they always love them. However, I was looking for a way to lighten them up a bit and add some veggie power to them without totally affecting the taste. I ran across the Turkey & Veggie Meatloaf Minis over at HungryGirl and thought that maybe it would do the trick. It was time to taste out this theory last night ...

GF Beef & Veggie Meatloaf Muffins (inspired by HungryGirl's Turkey & Veggie Meatloaf Minis)

Ingredients 

• 1 small onion, grated
• 1/4 cup GF ketchup (I use Heinz)
• 1/4 cup GF BBQ sauce
• 3 lbs lean ground beef
• 3 cups bagged dry coleslaw, pulverized* 
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats **
• 4 tsp. garlic powder
• 2 tsp. salt
• Worcestershire sauce, to taste

*I ran the cole slaw mix through my Magic Bullet because my family would freak out if they saw large chunks of slaw in their muffins. The recipe calls for a rough chop but I needed something a bit more.

** Some people do not consider oats to be GF but I am going with Oats as A-OK for now in my book until I do further research. You can probably substitute the oats with a GF bread if you are oat-free or concerned otherwise.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Using a box grater, grate onion into a large bowl. Add 1/4 cup ketchup and all other ingredients. Stir until thoroughly mixed.
3. Line cups of 2 12-cup muffin pan with baking cups and/or spray with nonstick spray*. Evenly distribute beef-veggie mixture among the muffin cups, and top each with 1 tsp. ketchup. *I did not spray my pan (oops!) but did not have any issues with sticking. I used an ice cream scope to scope them into the muffin tins and then flattened the top into a small indention for the sauce.
4. Bake in the oven until firm with lightly browned edges, 30 - 35 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

The Taste Test

I was in the middle of playing a video game with my husband and some friends when the muffins got done cooling, so I asked Caitey to plate for herself and her sisters. (Bad mommy moment? No, mommy was having a rare adult interaction!) The only reason I mention this is that normally I try to taste the food before anyone else so if there is a "weird" (aka healthy or veggie) taste to it, I can have an excuse at the ready! Anyway, Caitey ate a couple, said they were good but didn't have much taste (which I don't know what she was eating because mine had plenty of taste). Lindsey wouldn't eat hers without additional BBQ but she did eat it and liked it. Sierra had gotten to a meltdown point waiting for the food so she ate some noodles before and didn't touch the meatloaf muffins. 

Now, when I finally got to taste my creation, I was VERY surprised that Caitey had said they had no taste. The numerous muffins that I ate (both last night and leading up to this posting) all had a distinct but not overwhelming coleslaw taste to it for me. But it was SOOOOO yummy. I love me some coleslaw! Brian ate them and said they were good, so the taste must not have been overly offensive as I had feared when I had my first bite. He really is pickier than the girls sometimes (but I love him!) so he was the one I actually feared would not eat these.

I still have leftover beef & veggie mix to cook into muffins today. So upping the meat in this from the original recipe (1 1/4 lbs which only made 9 muffins) makes more than 24 muffins (probably 30-36). This is great for us because this is one of those meals that I can make and freeze to pop into the girls' lunchboxes or for a quick lunch when I am home alone during the day. So if you half this recipe, it would be great for anyone not looking for a freezer food or feeding a smaller crowd.

And the only reason I went with beef instead of the turkey in my initial making of these was I was afraid the coleslaw taste would be too strong and wanted the beef to help mask it (if that makes sense to anyone). I will be using turkey the next time around.

Verdict

It appears we have another keeper!

JRenee