December 28th, 2008

Well, I had a few minutes so I thought I'd post to the blog.

Calvin's doing OK the past couple days... he woke up early, so he and I walked over to the outdoor market which is up and running before dawn, I think. It's on a tiny street that wraps around a supermarket, much to small to hold all the vegetable and meat sellers... I bought some millet and fruit, and four bottles of fresh squeezed orange juice from a man who was selling orange juice, grapefruit juice, and pigs hooves at his stall. It's an interesting life...

So, I spent some of the afternoon with Rhiannon making stewed tomatoes in vinegar.

It's become a staple for us, especially in tomato season. In winter, it can be made with cans of tomatoes (I work near a restaurant supply store, and we can get them there), but fresh is better. I buy up as many discounted packs of cherry tomatoes as I can find over a week, this time I had about five or six dozen of the things... Rhiannon and I sliced them in half (to make peeling easier after cooking), put them in a pot with about half a cup of oil, a cup of vinegar, salt, pepper, Italian spices, and paprika. Cook that all together for a couple hours in a 190 degree Celcius oven. Meanwhile, mince one or two onions, and cook that for a few minutes in a little oil and a little vinegar on a stove.

When the tomatoes are delicious, take them out of the oven and peel them. It's quite messy... From there you can do two things with them. Add the onions plus a little minced garlic and put them over pasta. Or take the tomatoes plus the onions plus a can of tomatoes (to cut down that acidity) and blend them in a blender. The kids really like it, and the vinegar takes on a wonderful flavor after being baked in the oven. This sauce has been evolving over a year to this current version. I also use the larger tomatoes, quartered, but they're harder to find on sale here...

So, we have that over pasta plus some capers. Calvin, we found out tonight, loves eating capers. Eli spent the afternoon building one of his Christmas presents, a Lego car, while Rhiannon copied numbers from the calendar and practiced writing them. She also made some popcorn chains for the Christmas tree while watching some Christmas stuff on the computer.

We're letting the candles on the Advent Wreath burn slowly down, and added 12 tea lights to the center, and light a new one each day of Christmas. We're planning to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, and it's been nice marking the days of the season, not letting it be just one day of presents madness.

Anyway, just posting for the sake of posting.

Much Love.

December 25th, 2008

Well, we were hoping we'd be able to spring for a camera and I could get the blog up and running again, but it looks like that'll be after Chinese New Year. Hopefully for Easter.

But even without the camera, I thought I'd write a little about what's going on over here this Christmas Day.

The new job's going pretty well, I've been there a while now and I've pretty well settled in. No place is perfect, but I'm happy there and feel like I can contribute.

Gosia goes to therapy in the city and at the hospital three times a week (once at the hospital, twice at the alternative center).

The winter months are tough for Calvin. They were last year, and they year before, but he's much better than last year. So far, he's kept up his eating and has not been vomiting. His spastic muscle problem has gotten worse, though -- one side is stronger and the other weaker. This affects his swallowing and facial control, but I hope it'll pass after the Winter is over. I almost wish we could move to somewhere with a more stable climate for him. Even the moderate change here (the winter is like a cold Autumn) still has a considerable affect on him, and he loses weeks of learning, and even backslides. He can't use a straw right now, but like I said, I hope it'll pass.

He went back and forth between screaming and whining and temper tantruming for about two weeks straight... He barely slept at night, was miserable all day, didn't nap... after almost two weeks we took him to the hospital (a 5 am ER run, which I've gotten very good at) and got him X-rayed. He was extremely constapated, with the stools pressing against his spine... we've been giving him an enema a night (the brand we use here is "Atomic Enema", and it's true to it's name) and that's helped.

But I don't think that was the root cause of his misery. Supposedly, changes in seasons can really affect these kids. So, we keep chugging along, trying to keep him happy in his head. Gosia does an amazing job at home with him, cooks him four complete meals a day, gives him therapy and does so much with Eli and Rhiannon, too. She's really amazing, even when exhausted.

Eli and Rhiannonare doing well. Life with a screaming, brain-injured kid isn't easy, but we work really hard to balance their lives inside and outside of the house so that it doesn't overwhelm them. I'm able to take them to my job whenever I need to, and besides that, they take classes there twice a week in the evening -- so they're out of the house all evening till 10 pm on those nights. Plus, Eli goes to afternoon home-work school four days a week, and there's a chance Rhiannon may start that after she turns six.

Eli chugs along with his education, and Rhiannon's slowly atarting to pick up some reading. Eli's up to book eight of A Series of Unfortunate Events... he reads about a chapter or more a day, which is nice to see. A while ago we got into the home-schooling theory that you buy these books and things for the kids, and some day, not when you expect it of course, they'll get interested in them. We keep track of where he should be, more or less, and keep him on track with math and stuff like that, but he's way ahead of where he should be in science and grammar, and he gets a lot of spelling done in his classes with me. And beyond all that, he's interested in learning, which we consider the most important thing.

Anyway, these are the things that move and shake the secular side of out lives. These days anyway... Every day is different, each day brings new challenges and moods... so, on we go.

I enjoyed this chance to write a little, to spend Christmas with you. I'm not going to start this thing up again until the camera arrives, but I hope to put out another for New Year's and then again at Chinese New Year.

Much love, and Happy New Year!