No Turkeys in this Family

My mother was born, and spent much of her youth living, in Hong Kong. Thus, many of our family recipes are asian dishes. When my mother moved to Canada back in the early 60’s there was not a whole lot of good chinese food available. Fortunately, we had a thriving Chinatown so the ingredients could be found with a bit of effort (these days, our multicultural city boasts some of the best Asian dining outside of Asia itself, and many “exotic” ingredients are available in local, commercial supermarkets), but it necessitated her learning how to make all her favorite dishes. She became, like her mother before her, an excellent cook. And because her father and my father were British, she also became fluent in the preparation of such yummies as Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, bangers and mash, etc. However, she never did take on the North American penchant for the Holiday Turkey. So instead, she developed a special recipe, her own version of Peking Duck.

Some of you may have had Peking Duck in a Chinese restaurant: usually you have to give them 24 hours notice if you are going to order it, though some fancier establishments keep the specially roasted duck on hand at all times. The traditional way to serve this dish is to start with a soup made from the duck carcass, followed by a plate of crispy, roasted duck skin. The skin is cut up into rectangles and served with “pancakes” – a sort of dry, soft tortilla-like crepe about six inches in diameter, with a mild taste of sesame oil. On the pancakes is spread a mixture of Hoi Sin sauce (a sweet, barbeque-like sauce) and honey (to make it even sweeter), then a sprig of green onion is added, a couple peices of duck skin, and then it is rolled up like a tiny burrito. Generally, you get two to four pancakes each. Then the flesh of the duck is served, usually stir-fried with vegetables and rice, as the main course.

Well, in our family it’s all about the pancakes. We make about one hundred pancakes, and the duck is served whole. We eat both the skin and the meat with the pancakes, and stuff ourselves silly. It is by far the most delicious meal I have ever eaten, and is my number one favorite. This is “last request” food, to be sure.

What is even nicer about our Peking Duck is that the preparation takes a couple of days, and the whole family participates. You begin by selecting a couple of nice ducks – we usually get frozen ones, but this year Mum got them fresh (plucked and gutted, of course). The first step is to hang the ducks. That’s right, you tie some kitchen string around the duck, under the wings, and hang it from a convenient place – usually the handle of an upper kitchen cabinet – and place a dish underneath to catch the drippings. You do this on the morning of the day before you plan to eat it. In the days of my youth, when we had friends over for Christmas, Mum would make four whole ducks (she had a huge, double oven as well). These days we use two. The ducks hang there for about 36 hours, all the while drying out. This is important – you want the skin to get very crispy, and you do that by making sure it is dry. On the day of the Feast, the ducks are dipped into a solution of ginger, honey, and spring onion every couple of hours. This adds a touch of “sticky sweetness” to the flavour. Finally, a couple of hours before dinner time, the ducks are put into the oven and roasted.

The Making of the Pancakes is also a well-loved tradition in our family. The secret is to get them thin, and that requires a rolling pin and a good lot of muscle, so it sort of became a role for the Man of the House. I don’t have any memories of my father making them (my folks divorced when I was 5), but when my mother remarried 7 years later my stepfather was taught how to make them, an honour that was probably more significant than the wedding, lol. When my brother was a teenager, he learned as well, and took over the duty when my stepfather got sick with cancer. The role of pancake-maker became even more solemn and honorable when first my stepfather died, and then 3 years later my brother died. By that time I had a long-term boyfriend, and he was recruited to do the pancakes (apparently, he didn’t appreciate the significance too much as he dumped me a couple years later). For Christmas 2000 the baton was passed on to DH, who did appreciate the honour and reciprocated with a wedding proposal the following Valentine’s Day. He’s been doing them ever since.

Mum makes the dough: just flour and water and a dash of salt. It is given a good kneading, then a good rolling, and then a cookie-cutter is used to make about 100 three-inch circles with scalloped edges. The women take these in twos and “glue” them together with a brush dipped in sesame oil. This “sandwich” is then handed back to The Man, who rolls each one as thin as can be. Each is then placed on a hot, dry pan: and Magic happens! As the oil between the two layers heats up, it forms an air bubble. The bubble gets bigger until it breaks through the side, at which point you can separate the two, now paper thin, pancakes (this requires delicacy, as the escaping steam can singe your fingers). These are stacked on a plate to cool, then either frozen or put in the fridge. On the day of the Feast, they are steamed in a giant, metal double boiler, until they are soft and pliable. We generally end up with about 100. It is an assembly line, of sorts, that the whole family can participate in. It is my favorite part of the holidays (besides eating them!).

There’s something about the ritual of making Peking Duck that has proven to be the one stability in a family that has changed alot over the years. Once, we were four, then three, then it was just me and Mum. Along came DH and a Man was back in the pancake making business. Now, with our two children, the assembly line has a few more willing pairs of hands. I suppose this is our own little Circle of Life, and it makes my heart both sad and joyful to see my Mother in the kitchen, surrounded by a family of helpers once more.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Blessings in whatever way your family celebrates them!

Potential speech diagnosis for DS

This past Friday DS had a chance to go to Speech Therapy. Technically he is still on the wait list but an appointment came up so we took it. The speech therapist says she thinks he has apraxia, which is a motor control issue. In other words, he can understand language, form thoughts, but cannot get them out as sounds. He has been making progress lately, but her diagnosis is consistent with my own observations that he seems to be making an effort to make sounds, and the sounds he makes are not the usual sounds other children make when learning to talk.

I wasn’t upset by the diagnosis; in fact it felt good to have an explanation of what was going on. I suppose I worry too much about my kids getting some fatal illness or disease, because to me a speech issue is nothing to worry about. Sometimes I worry that maybe I should be more worried, lol.

I believe being a homelearning family, with an emphasis on unschooling, has played a major part in my lack of concern. I’m not concerned about him being made fun of or bullied. I’m not concerned about him getting the appropriate attention in school. I’m not concerned about him not learning to read or write on the State’s timetable. Even without a speech delay I could care less if he doesn’t start reading until he’s 7. I don’t define “success” as being able to get a PhD some day. Success is what fulfills him and makes him happy. Besides, it is obvious he is a very bright kid, so his options won’t be limited IMO. The best part of homelearning is I can gear his education to his exact needs and abilities, and I don’t have to follow someone else’s idea of when he should be doing a, b, or c. He may have difficulties with certain things, but we’ll take it slow and figure out what learning style works best for him, and I’m confident we will be just fine. With that said, however, it is still early on in the game: too soon to know how bad this will affect him, but early enough that therapy stands an excellent chance of success.

Finally, in reading about apraxia and viewing a few online discussions, it would seem that DS’s condition is not that severe. It appears that many such kids have other fine motor issues, and he definitely does not – he’s physically quite skilled. He also does not appear to have any (other) learning disabilities – he’s known his colours and alphabet for some time now, for example.

I’m confident that with speech therapy he will make great progress. If he isn’t talking perfectly one day, so what. We’ll deal with that. At least he is healthy and happy and to me, that’s all that matters. So maybe I should be worrying about this, but I’m not going to.

the Great Apartment Re-Arrangement has begun

I recently wrote about our plans to rearrange the layout of our apartment. I hesitate to call it a “renovation” since there will be no structural changes of any kind. But we’re only halfway through it and already it feels like we’re living in a new home.

DD was very excited about getting her own room, and one where she and DS could “make messes”. The living area has now been reclaimed by the adults, and already I love it. If you picture our living area as a rectangle, on one end is the kitchen, in the middle is now where the dining table is, and the other end is the sitting area. Before it was basically one big playroom. We still need to get the bookshelves, which will run along one long wall (one tall, the rest about waist height, with some pretty glass doors). And a chair for one corner (our little sectional sofa seems to have survived the children). I also want to paint the walls and get some curtains. This cushion fabric is my inspiration. The walls will be the light shade of blue, our sectional is the burgandy colour, and the curtains will hopefull incorporate one or two of the cushion colours as well.

The challenge was whether we could keep the kids out of the main living area, and so far it seems to be following our plan. Since the kids’ toys, the DVD player, and their books are all in their room, there is not much for them to do in the living area, except bounce around on the sofa now and then. I’ve also found it very easy (knock on wood!) to redirect them back to their room. Which isn’t to say that they are “banned” from the living area – last night we all watched the Incredibles on the big screen – but it isn’t the main “hanging out area” anymore. This should help to maintain a decent level of cleanliness, as well as allow me to display some knick-knacks on the bookshelves, and have my XM Satellite Radio unit out where I can actually hear it (DS used to crank the volume every time I turned the darn thing on). The Christmas tree has even survived so far!

A neat surprise has been how easy it is to now use the dining table every time we eat. Even for a snack. I’m not exactly sure why, though I suppose it’s because there are no distractions now of toys and games. But we’ve been eating all our meals there, snacks too. And that’s nice.

Now that DH and I have our own room, he can go to bed when he needs to and not be disturbed (much). The one down side to all of this, of course, is that when DS wakes in the night (which he usually does at least once), it is no longer a matter of just leaning over and shoving a boob in his mouth. Now I’m unaware that he is stirring until he gets to the point where he cries out for me, which jolts me awake and then I scramble out of bed before he wakes too fully. Then, just as I’m settled into his bed, he’s asleep and I am faced with the choice of a convenient, yet very cramped spot in his bunk, or going back to my spacious own bed, wondering how long I’ll get to sleep before he wakes again (if he does). But I knew this would be the price and so far I think it’s a nice tradeoff.

I’m finally getting to decorate, and put together a home that I would not be embarrassed about having people (who don’t have small kids at home) visit!

This is almost comical

Last night the kids didn’t go to sleep until 1 am. They’d woken up at 9:30, which isn’t the latest they’ve ever gotten up. And DS fell asleep at his usual time (2 pm) on our way to DD’s gym class. He only slept for an hour; usually it’s 1.5 hours or even 2. And yet try as I might the kid would just not sleep, despite several attempts in a darkened, quiet room.

I did get to sleep in my own bed for most of the night. DS woke once and I returned to my bed after a brief, nursing session. Then I returned again in the early am and stayed there (partly because DH was snoring too loudly!).

I just woke up a few minutes ago: at ELEVEN A.M. The kids woke up about 10 minutes later.

This is so ridiculous it’s actually funny.

(next week DH is off work, and I’ve decided to try waking them up at 7:30 am for a couple of days to see what happens; maybe with help the tantrums and meltdowns will be easier to deal with)

Sleep…Again

I seem fascinated by the subject. It’s reassuring to hear from other mamas I know that some other children out there are nightowls, too. I don’t know anymore how much of it can be conditioned (coercive parenting not included) and how much is just the inner biorhythms of the child. But I find myself constantly wondering if there is something I can do, and not finding any answers.

For two days in a row DS has fallen asleep at 4 pm and there was nothing I could do about it (in a stroller or a car). So he was up until midnight, and so was DD. And yesterday they hiked their tails off all day in the park – so much for wearing her out! Yesterday I had to wake them up at 9:15 to get out the door, and today DS woke up at 10 and DD at 11:15!!

I’m blaming it all on DS. He needs to stop napping!!! Today I decided not to go out this afternoon because I knew DS would fall alseep. So it’s 5:30 pm right now and I can actually look forward to putting him to bed early tonight. DD, on the other hand, is going to be up late given how late she woke up and the fact that she’s been indoors all day (busy, but not physically active).

Every time I stop and think about it, it seems insane to me. But I honestly don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve tried everything. On the bright side, I’ve started going to bed around 9:30 or 10 and reading a book. It’s a nice luxury for me, and the kids come in and out. DD has started bringing books to bed, lying next to me reading, which is really nice. And at least I get to sleep in. But on days when we have to get up early it sucks, and even on days when we have nothing planned I feel like I’m wasting half my day.

It will be very interesting to see how the Great Apartment Re-arrangement will affect their sleeping behaviour. Their own room, where their beds are in the same room as the DVD player. And where I will be putting a new CD player and buying some bedtime story CD’s. At that time I will be planning two things. First, to include said story CD’s in our snuggle time. And second to try and establish a bedtime that simply means “I don’t care what you do, just stay in your room”. I have no idea whether this will work, but at least I’ll have a tidy living room. 🙂

Insecurity

Today we met up with friends at the Park. They suggested we have lunch first and then go for a walk. I rarely take my kids to a sitdown restaurant because DS is not quite ready for that sort of environment yet. But it sounded like a nice idea and I was hungry. There was hardly anybody in the cafe and soon after DS had eaten his fill he got down and wandered around the cafe. DD then joined him, and I didn’t think anything of it until my friends insisted that their kids stay at the table. Suddenly, I felt very insecure and the effect was disastrous.

First I started scolding DD to try and get her to come back to the table. The things coming out of my mouth were pathetic. I actually heard myself say “you better be in that chair by the time I count to three”. Un-freakin-believable. DS managed to get around the back of the service counter and I got to him just before he grabbed a display of muffins. I kept bringing him back to the table but in a fit he smacked his hand down and broke a plate, sending food flying. I was mortified, frustrated, and even more insecure.

Finally I gave up on DS and he was standing over by the window and their poor little guy wanted to be with him. I know it was hard for them to explain why he couldn’t, and I dreaded hearing: “people do things differently, but in our family we sit at the table because restaurants aren’t playgrounds”. I felt like my kids were out of control. I felt like a totally permissive, wimp of a parent. I said stupid, ineffectual, ridiculous things to my kids. I felt flustered and angry.

I shouldn’t have felt that way.

I should not have agreed to eating at the restaurant. For starters, my kids were up past midnight last night and DS was *tired*. I rarely take the two of them to a sitdown place because DS is just really not ready for that yet. But I wanted to be with our friends and I was hungry. It was my mistake and I took it out on the kids. Second, even though H. and DS are only 2 days apart, they are worlds apart in development. H. is way more verbally advanced than DS. This makes reasoning and discussing and talking about expectations possible. There is no such thing with DS, as he simply doesn’t have the comprehension for that sort of thing. H is also alot more “mature”. He doesn’t take off. He’s been without a stroller for months. And….and this is a BIG and…he weighs about 20 pounds soaking wet. I could restrain him with one hand tied behind my back. DS on the other hand is a solid, whopping 38 lbs and there is simply no way in hell I can physically control him. Trying to get him to sit still was asking for a temper tantrum of violent physical proportions, thus the plate getting smashed, etc. And yet despite the fact that I was conscious of this even while it was all going down, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling “on display” and so terribly insecure about my children’s behaviour.

Fast forward to later in the day. I was soooo tired. I told my friends about my hellish night (DS napped at 4, so they were both up past midnight). Their kids go to sleep at 8:30-9:00 every night. Either one of them can put them to bed. When K comes home from knitting group her children are asleep and her house is quiet. When I come home they are always both up, even if DS hasn’t napped that day. For whatever reason, DH cannot get them to sleep.

K is telling me how she would just never let that happen (them being up until midnight) and I ask “what do you do? how do you force kids to sleep?”. She says she brings them both to bed and stays with them as long as it takes and if they get up she brings them back to bed. If I tried this, I would be sitting there getting angrier and more resentful as the hours ticked by. I mean, DD is just simply nowhere near tired, and DS can’t sleep when DD is bouncing around the bed. K. says that she yells at them, that she cannot handle them being up late, she gets mad at them. I said I basically turn into a screaming meany at around 10 pm but it just makes everything worse. The more I yell and get mad, the more DD acts up and gets mad and yells back. Finally K admitted that her son is quite sensitive and doesn’t like it when she is upset at him, so she feels that is ultimately what works. DD doesn’t like me being upset either, but she doesn’t try to appease me in any way when I am, she fights back.

K has never said “you’re too soft”. She has never criticized me. I’m sure sometimes that she’s thinking it, but she’s too sweet to say anything if she is. The insecurity is coming from me. Bringing my kids into that situation was setting them up to fail. Next time I need to listen to that inner voice.

But I think I also need to ask myself why I am so insecure about this. Why am I constantly revisiting the idea of limits and putting my foot down and basically getting my way? 99% of the time I don’t feel there is a problem here, which tells me I don’t need to change anything. The other 1% of the time I worry and second-guess myself. Is it societal programming? Is it my mother’s voice nagging at me? Or is it my own voice speaking? I honestly don’t know.

Mama, who do I look like?

Back when DD was 2 years old we made friends with K and her son A. DD and A quickly became good friends, as did K and I, aided by the fact that we lived 4 blocks apart. A liked to pretend to be various characters and was known to get upset if he wasn’t addressed properly, so we began asking “who are you?” before making a mistake. Well, DD seemed to get the idea from this that one could pretend to be someone else and she has been doing it ever since.

She would say “Mama, who do I look like?” and I’d have to say the name. I believe her first was “Permie”. This is her own funny way of saying “Hermie”, as in the little elf from the classic movie Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She used the “P” because his name reminded her of sperm. Yes, you read that right, sperm. One of her early fave books was “How Babies Are Made”, which used to be mine as a child, and through that she learned about eggs and sperm. She thought the sperm looked cute, and she couldn’t say “sp” so it came out “permies!”. Somehow, the little elf ended up with that same name.

For months on end it was “Permie!”. She would be swinging madly on a swing at the playground, calling out gleefully “Mama! I’m Permie! I’m Permie!!” and she’d laugh and laugh. The other kids and parents would look questioningly at me, with a smile, and I’d say “she’s pretending to be a character from a movie”. This would go on several times a day, for what seemed like months. Gradually she began to experiment with other characters. When she first saw Finding Nemo she was Nemo (or, as she says it, “Lemo” – I have no idea why). She was Zelda for a long time, after playing the Nintendo 64 game of the same name. Then when we got the Fraggle Rock DVD set she was Gobo Fraggle for a long time. Lately she is Wubbzy, a character from the Nick Jr. cast. We don’t get Nick Jr. here, but she knows of Wubbzy through the Nick Jr. website, where the kids play many computer games. Regardless of who she is, it’s always the same theme: “Mama, who do I look like?” and I have to answer (for the thousandth time that day) “Littlefoot”, or whoever it is. If I don’t answer, or worse, if I answer incorrectly, I am loudly corrected, lol.

As an extension of her pretending to be a character, she has started assigning characters to the rest of the family. During her Fraggle obsession she was Gobo, I was Mokey, DS was Wembley, and DH was the Big Trash Heap. These days she is Wubbzy, I am Widget, DS is Walden, and DH is the Big Chicken Robot. Over and over I hear “Mama, who do I look like?” followed by “who do YOU look like?” and “who does TaTa look like?”.

Most of the time I don’t mind this obsession. I can quite mindlessly repeat the names and not even really think about it. Lately I’m a bit miffed that I have to “speak like Widget” which means putting on my best southern drawl accent. But mostly I just wonder with mild amusement what this is all about. What part of her psychological development is this represented by? Is she experimenting with concepts of Self? Is she exploring her ability to create a world for herself? Or has this just been going on so long that now its habit? I don’t know. But it is definitely one of those quirky things about DD that set her apart from other kids. And so I love it, because it is so uniquely “her”.

I’m back

This past Friday I got hit with a wicked stomach flu. I’ve been very busy and have been neglecting my blog. But I’m hoping to do some catching up over the holidays as DH will be off work for a week between Xmas and New Years. I have many blog topics in mind and hope you faithful readers will be patient with me and keep checking back.

I had a fabulous day today. When my Mother’s Helper arrived I took my girlfriend K. with me to do Xmas shopping. We spent a glorious 6 hours!! out without children. We ate lunch at a sitdown restaurant and revelled in not worrying about how soon the food would come and would the kids lose it before then, or having to feed two little people in between shovelling bites in our mouths, knowing that at any minute we might have to high-tail it out of there before the children’s heads start spinning around.

On a down note, my Mother’s Helper is leaving us at the end of the month. She’s moving to the Island to shack up with her boyfriend. It should be a good move for her and I’m happy for her, but I’m loathing finding someone else. I’m in denial, hoping I can get by without one for a bit, but I know I will have to cave in eventually and start the search for a total stranger who I can trust to be with my precious children one day a week.

So, since I’ve been away most of the day I must get back to the children….I promise to start writing regularly again, dear readers!

Snow in the City

This past weekend it snowed heavily. We don’t usually get much snow here, so it’s a blessing and a curse. It’s a lovely treat, but nobody here knows how to deal with it very well. The city tends to shut down, classes get cancelled, traffic snarls and transit bogs down. We spent the weekend indoors, then went out with my friend K., her DH L., and their two boys to walk/play in the snow as we headed up to the Mall to get some snowgear items that the kids had outgrown. It made me once again appreciate living in the city – when you are “stuck at home”, you are stuck in the city where everything is accessable on foot!
So basically we’ve been laying low, spending time indoors, with the occasional foray out into the winter wonderland. Finally today it seemed the temperature was rising and slush was forming. Likely the snow will be gone soon and that will be the end of the white stuff for us this winter. Ah well, when Spring comes in February it’s hard to complain! 

Psyched about next year

Today I was able to attend our homelearner’s preschool drop-in event. Usually my Mother’s Helper comes on Thursdays so I can work, but she is off this week. We had a good time, even though DD had several “crises” that needed dealing with. She doesn’t do well with big groups of kids, and so there were several social interaction issues that came up. She had been doing much better this summer but lately we haven’t been socializing with larger groups and it was as though she were “out of practice”. After the dropin session a bunch of us headed off to Science World, and there she seemed to get along with the other kids much better.

I really like the group of moms at the HL group. They have all been very inspirational for me. Some of them brought their portfolio books today for the Silverdale program. It is run by a local school district. From their website it sounds very technical but actually it is very unschooling friendly. You get $500/year for K and $1000/year for Gr. 1 – 12, and all the classes are free (arts, science, French, etc. arranged through local organizations and designed for homelearners). You submit a portfolio three times during the school year.

Some hardcore unschoolers argue that this is still “too schoolish” for them, but in talking with the moms doing it, it really isn’t. None of them are doing anything more than they would be anyways, since so many of Life’s day-to-day activities can be counted in certain categories. Grocery shopping is Math. Building snowmen is Interacting with the Environment, etc. And I have to say that the idea of a portfolio has always appealed to me, as a way to guage our progress, and a reminder that we are *doing* something, even though there are times when I panic briefly and worry that I’m not doing “enough” with them.

And, I’m one of those spreadsheet geeks who LOVE organizing stuff in charts and binders, etc. So the portfolios really turned me on. The moms had incorporated photos, artwork, stories, etc into them. Heck, it’s basically Scrapbooking for Homelearners, lol.

It was good to go today. This week I’d been feeling guilty about my kids not being in enough activities. Now I know that next year we’ll be doing more stuff and I should just enjoy the free time we have while I can! Seriously though, as DD gets older there are more and more COOL things we can do together. Even DS is starting gymnastics class this January. So today was a big dose of inspiration and motivation and excitement about what lies ahead.

I’m going to ask D if she could work for me on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays so we can keep going to the dropin.