Focalin, Yay!

This is the story of my sweet daughter Daphne and how Focalin has changed her life.  Daphne has ADD.  I call it ADD although the clinical name du jour is "ADHD, Non-Attentive Type."  She doesn't have the H, hyperactivity.  She is just completely out of focus, lost in space, most of the time.  So I call it ADD because, well, it just makes more sense for her.  Daphne is not a naughty child.  She isn't a bad child.  She is naturally sweet, charming, and fairly obedient (though she has a wicked sneaky streak).  Her behaviors have all tended towards simply not being present in her own life but living almost entirely in her head.  I have two other children.  So if you're quick to blame it on parenting, the facts point elsewhere.  My other kids seem to have no troubles obeying, listening, following instructions, remembering things--at least as much as kids that age do.  Whatever Daphne has, it is biological.  It is REAL.  And it needs help.  Enter Infuniv and Focalin. 

Daphne was diagnosed in Kindergarten.  Although she had 2 years of preschool and knew all her letters and sounds, and was put into the more advanced Kindergarten class, within weeks her teacher had called me to say that Daphne was falling behind.  The class she was in had reviewed letters and sounds and had moved on to reading, but Daphne could not keep up.  She never paid attention, was never on task.  At first I thought, "Well, she's 5.  It's pretty normal for a 5 year old to be off task."  But when we discussed it more, the teacher said she was "SIGNIFICANTLY more off task than any other child."  So they moved Daphne to the slower class.  But even here, Daphne floundered.  She just didn't seem to be able to stay focused on what was around her, not even for a few minutes.  When I went in and observed her in the classroom, she had a glazed look on her face. At home she was very lively and chatty, and I expected her problems in school to revolve around getting in trouble for talking too much.  But to my surprised, she never made a peep.  She sat there almost in a coma, her mind obviously elsewhere.  When they sang, she was silent.  When they read a story, she didn't look at the pictures.  When the teacher asked a question, Daphne, my little know-it-all, never raised her hand.  And the look on her face said it all:  I am not present.

So we reluctantly took Daphne to the pediatrician.  He gave us some tests to fill out and one for Daphne's two teachers.  When we brought them in, it was confirmed.  Daphne had ADD.  She also was low on the spectrum for ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder).  I hadn't heard of this one, so I looked it up.  What it basically comes down to is the inability to perceive authority as something different from one's self.  In severe cases, it can mean a lot of worse things--really destructive, awful things.  But for Daphne what it basically meant was that she wasn't hardwired like most people to perceive that a teacher or a parent or a policeman or anyone else was a figure of innate authority who should be slightly feared, definitely minded.  To her, all people are on equal footing to herself.  So unless what they're asking makes sense to her and fits her own desires, they can be ignored without consequence.  This makes parenting/teaching/otherwise disciplining VERY challenging.  Where my other children, and the other children I've taught as a teacher, innately understand that you should follow adults, she doesn't.  Everything must be explained in a logical, rational way and it must be brought to coincide with her view of the situation, or else it is disregarded.  This includes matters of safety!  If she decides that nice strangers are OK to talk to, the rule about not talking to strangers is disregarded.

So, moving on, we talked as a couple about whether or not to put Daphne on medication.   But two factors ultimately made us decide to try.  1) My mother has severe ADHD for which she has taken medication for about the last 10-12 years or so.  She spent most of her life without it, without knowing why life was so hard for her.  Once the diagnosis was made, and medication ensued, her life changed.  She could think, learn, perceive...function!  Meds were not a cure-all, but the difference between her on and off meds was remarkable.  2) Daphne simply wasn't learning.  At all.  She wasn't learning and she was struggling socially.  She wasn't self-aware enough to realize she was behind or "different."  But others noticed.  She didn't make friends at school.  She had a hard time keeping friends in the neighborhood.  Her ADD was already having a huge impact on her life, and she had only just started school.  We knew there were possibly other methods of dealing with ADD--not med related--but we felt time was of the essence with her, and the longer we let it go while we experimented, the further behind she would get and the harder it would be to catch her up.  So we started, with some reservations, on the pharmaceutical path. 

Med #1 was Adderall. Adderall is a stimulant.  I don't know the whole chemical background of ADHD and medication, but I know that there are chemicals missing in the brains of ADHD people that most people have.  And these meds stimulate the production of these chemicals.  Well, Adderall turned Daphne into a monster.  Within 2 days, Daphne was frustrated, angry, emotional, irrational, confrontational.  She also completely stopped eating, had no appetite at all, and couldn't fall asleep at night, which undoubtedly only exacerbated the emotional symptoms.  She was so mean and aggressive that I would go to bed in tears every night.  After only a week of the proposed 4 week trial, I stopped giving Daphne Adderall.  No benefits at school could outweigh these side effects.  Within a day of going off Adderall, Daphne's side effects subsided and she returned to her normal, happy, pleasant (though distracted) self.

Med # 2.  Tourette's Syndrome runs in our family.  And one of the minor side effects Addreall also caused in Daphne was tics : squinching of eyes, squeezing of hands or doing gestures with her hands, moving her lips or tongue in odd ways repetitively.  And since my mother has Tourette's, which is aggravated by stimulants, we chose to try a non-stimulant med next.  My mom had had good success with Strattera, so that's what we chose.   The Strattera seemed to work well at first.  We watched Daphne closely for signs of the aggression, irrationality, and mood swings, but none appeared.  Her appetite and sleep were also seemingly not affected.  So then I waited to see if there were any positive effects from the med.  A couple of weeks after she started it, her teacher reported that Daphne had improved dramatically at school.  She was participating, staying on task, completing work, and learning!  So this was great news for us.  Unfortunately, over the course of the next 6 months, the negative symptoms we had seen with the Adderall began to occur with the Strattera.  They came on much more gradually.  But by the end of the school year, I almost couldn't live with Daphne anymore.  She was so hostile, so emotionally fragile--the slightest little thing would send her to wails and tears--argumentative, and hard to deal with.  She also began to have trouble sleeping and eating again.  I started withholding the medication on the weekends just to give Daphne's body a chance to sleep and get calories in, and I noticed that on those days, she was so much more pleasant and rational.  So I made the tough choice to take her off meds.  Within 3-4 days, Daphne was back to being happy, cheerful, cooperative, and loving.  Man, what a difference!!  And since it was summer break, I wasn't too worried about her focus issues.

Med # 3.  Flash forward to 1st grade.  We started Daphne at a new school, a second-year charter school.  We knew that new charters often have some growing pains, and we were prepared to be patient as the school worked out the kinks.  But we weren't prepared for a school that was a complete and utter mess.  A combination of radical educational theories (no homework, "green" learning - no books or papers, multi-sensory learning--kids having to spend part of each class up and moving as they learned, and class rotating like they do in high school) as well as a terrible teacher and a complete lack of curriculum meant that Daphne's opportunity to learn was severely compromised.  Add to that that she was unmedicated for her ADD through most of the year and it meant that Daphne lost an entire year of school.  Over the summer, before 2nd grade, Daphne had her 7-year check up, and the pediatrician recommended a new medication, Intuniv.  Intuniv, he said, had a very low side-effect profile.  It was new.  But we might want to give it a try.   Since going off Strattera, the worst of Daphne's bad behaviors had subsided.  But she was still far more difficult to deal with than her siblings (due to her ODD) and was still struggling to hear me talk to her and complete any small task I asked of her.   Knowing that she had a new school year coming up, I decided to give it a try.  Intuniv was a success!  Of sorts.  It did not, unfortunately, affect her focus much.  She was still very inattentive and struggled to complete even the smallest tasks.  But the Intuniv had a marked affect on her ODD.  Daphne became much less argumentative.  She began to listen to her mom and dad, to consider our requests as actual options, and to obey.  Her teachers at church remarked that she was so much easier to handle.  She didn't become docile or boring; she retained her lively spark.  But she just became more...."normal" in terms of being able to follow instructions like other children.  So that was a great blessing.  Being Daphne's parent suddenly became a positive experience instead of a constant tug-of-war.  Daphne has been on Intuniv about 9 months now.  It continues to help her ability to listen and obey and we have noticed few side effects.  (At first it made her VERY talkative.  She seemed to have a motor mouth that we could hardly shut up.  But that subsided.  It also made her VERY tired at first.  We knew that would happen, but it took trying different dosages and different times to give it before we found the best one - 2 mgs taken at 4pm, or , along with Focalin, 1 mg at 8am and 1 mg at 4pm.   She does still have short wakeful periods at night that she didn't have before, but overall the side effects are way less than the positive effects.)  So Yay for Intuniv!!

Med # 4.  FOCALIN!   Although Daphne's Intuniv helped her ODD and the negative behaviors that go with that tremendously, it did little to nothing for her inattentiveness.  We still struggled to get her to do any sustained activity for more than a few seconds, and the more "painful" activities, like trying to read or do a chore, were impossible.  Every attempt to get her to sound out words ended in tears.  Her Sensory Processing Disorder also was making life miserable.  She would only wear one pair of shoes (heaven help us if she misplaced them!) no socks, no jeans, very few pants, and only shirts with no embroidery or embellishment of any kind (they bothered her skin).  Getting her dressed every day was a nightmare.  Tears and screaming always ensued.  This is what eventually drove me to a new pediatrician, one who specialized in psychiatric issues.   While visiting the NP, Helen Aoki, she honed in on the fact that Daphne was so terribly behind in school (we had started at a new school by then and she was more than a year behind her peers).  She wanted to focus more on fixing that than the sensory disorder because the consequences of Daphne getting even further behind were much more severe.  (Daphne had been put in a remedial reading group with a speciality teacher, and even in that she was below the lowest child.  Essentially she was at the level she was when she started Kindergarten.)  So when she suggested a stimulant medication, my first reaction was to revolt.  But I heard her out, and she explained why Focalin was different than Addreall and the other stimulants.  In basic language, scientists had managed to isolate the particles that tended to cause the side effects, and Focalin was only the pure essence of the med without the side effects.  I was skeptical, but I absolutely knew that Daphne's lack of focus and inability to learn at all in school was extreme and would cause her to fail school ultimately.  (I had been in to observe her again, also to guest teach in her glass, and even when I was there, she couldn't manage to pay attention to me at all.)  So we tried the focalin and....

IT IS WONDERFUL!

I had her teacher carefully observe her.  Earlier in the year, the teacher had created these half sheets she'd send home daily where she'd assess Daphne in 6 areas where she struggled (behaviorally) and would give her a smiley, middle, or frowny face for both am and pm.  Daphne typically would get between 1 and 6 smileys a day, a few middles, and the rest frownies.  Well, the first day on Focalin, she had a perfect score--12 smileys!  The second day, 12 smileys!  The third and fourth days, 11/12 and 12/12 smileys.  I called the teacher to ask her about it--I wondered if she were being more lenient because she knew I was expecting results.  But no, she said, Daphne seemed surprisingly focused, was where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there.  She took correction much better and apologized immediately for being sassy.  She was finishing her work in class and getting along better with the other kids.   Needless to say, we were thrilled!

It has been about 6 weeks now since she started the Focalin.  She has never had less than 10 smileys on her teacher sheets since then.  Her test scores have improved, her all-around behavior has improved, and her ability to get along with other kids and teachers has improved.  I don't see the affects as much at home because the pill only lasts about 8 hours.  It's wearing off about the time she gets home from school.  But even with that (and on weekends, where sustained focus isn't as prevalent), I still see positive improvements.  And remember that sensory processing disorder?  It has come much more into the normal range.  She still has issues with all the things she did before--socks, shoes, tags, seams, jeans, etc.--but she is rational about them now.  You can calmly explain to her that sandals are not appropriate for winter, and that stockings must be worn to church, and more often than not, she'll comply.  There are still occasional melt-downs over shoe choice, and she still refuses to wear jeans (more out of habit than anything, I think), but we're making progress.  And there are far fewer come-aparts over clothing (or anything else now).  Daphne has become pleasant, cooperative, happy, fun, and is channeling her vast imagination and creativity for good instead of evil, LOL!

So anyway, I'm very happy to say that the combination of Focalin and Intuniv have been a godsend.  We could not be more thrilled with the results and are carefully monitoring her for any ill side-effects which may crop up.  But so far, there haven't been any of note.  So if anyone reading this is on the fence about trying Focalin, I highly recommend it.  Of course, everyone's body chemistry is different.  And a pill that works for one person might not work for another.  But this one has been so good I think it would be worth giving it a try.  The positive effects on Daphne socially and academically (as well as to our relationship as mother and daughter) far outweigh any small negatives associated with the meds.  Having a happy, productive, socially accepted child with a positive self-image is the greatest thing a parent could ask for.

I Snuba, Doba Youba?

I know I said I wasn't going to brag about our awesome trips in December.  But I do have to just mention one little bitty tiny thing we did that was amazing: SNUBA!

What is snuba, you ask?  It's a cross between snorkeling and SCUBA.  You get to go down about 20 feet under the water with a regulator, like they use in scuba diving.  But instead of carrying a big oxygen tank on your back, you have a long hose that connects you to your tank, which is floating on a raft on the surface.  If you're lucky, you'll get tethered to a timid couple who will swim 20 feet behind you the whole time and you'll get to pull the raft along like you're in the ocean Iditarod.   There is no certification necessary.  They give you a 1/2 hour training, and you get to see whether you're prone to claustrophobia or hysterics! 

We did our dive at Coki Beach, on St. Thomas, with Virgin Islands Snuba.  Our guide, Tammy, was awesome. She was very patient and thorough in training us.  She waited until we were comfortable with each part of the process (learning to breathe with the regulator, learning to clear our ears, learning to hover in the water, learning how to get the sand out of our shorts, etc.) before we went on with the next step.  It did take a little getting used to: having those loud bubbles going past your ears, and breathing V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y, and equalizing your ears as you submerged.  But once you got down there, you just forgot about all that and surrendered yourself to the amazing world around you.

It just so happens that I have a totally irrational fear of open water.  Well, maybe not so irrational.  It probably stems from the three or four times we ALMOST SANK while sailing in Lake Huron growing up.  ("Hey, Ari.  Go below and see if there's any water filling up the galley." My dad literally said those words to me. On more than one occasion.)  If you haven't sailed in Lake Huron, let me tell you: You might as well sink in the North Atlantic.  It's about that big, and definitely that cold.  Standing on a rocking bow during 15 foot swells trying to change the sail with nothing to hold onto and waves lapping over your feet every time you crashed down a wave's trough might just give you a slight fear of open water.  MIGHT.  Well, that and SHARKS.  No, there are no sharks in Lake Huron, it's true.  But I've watched enough seasons of Shark Week to know that you can't even wade waist deep in the ocean without advertising your thighs as appetizers.  So anyway, if I've been a bit nervous snorkeling before, you would understand, right?  It's easy to get carried away by the beautiful fish and coral and then to suddenly realize there could be a shark coming straight for you and start flailing about hysterically.  Not that I have.  No, I'm just saying one could and it would be understandable, right?  Well, I never got that feeling when snuba-ing.  Somehow, being under the water where you can see your enemies coming at you makes being in the water a lot less terrifying.

And, as it turns out, the only enemies that came at me on our dive were some angel fish and a remora.  A remora, in case you don't know, is one of those parasite fish you always see sucking onto a shark, or sometimes a whale, cleaning off all the slime for them.  This one had no shark attached, thank goodness.  But it was very big and very intimidating anyway.  I managed not to scream under water and flee to the surface.  I hear the bends isn't so fun.  So I just kept swimming.  (Away from the remora...you know, just in case it decided to go shark browsing for a shark.)

Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend you try SNUBA next time you're somewhere tropical.  It's all the fun of a dive without the training/certification.  Although, you could say I got bit by the dive bug, because I think I'm going to have to sign up for real dive certification classes.   They do that here in Utah, right?   'Cause Lake Huron is definitely OUT.

Christmas-ish News Letter

I sent out probably my suckiest Christmas card in years this year.  No offense to Big Daddy.  He was a champ in making it up exactly to my specifications.  It was a cute card, don't get me wrong.  But #1) we had no official family photo to put on it.  Granted I was spared the usual histrionics that take place when I say it's time for family photos.  And the kids were glad to miss out on them too.  But it's still nice to have at least ONE picture in a year where all five people are looking in the general vicinity of the camera.  But this year, it just never happened.  Instead I took some pictures of Big Daddy and the kids in the yard after church one day when the leaves had fallen and the light was golden and no one had spilled spaghettios on their church clothes yet.  And then they turned out so good I made him take a picture of me...in vaguely the same area of the yard, somewhat out of focus, and 1/8 the size of the ones I took of the rest of the family.  But whatever.  So the picture I sent out is actually one of the rest of the family... with me photoshopped in.  Thank goodness Big Daddy is a photoshop genie!  Thank goodness we happened to be wearing semi-matching clothes!  Too bad Pippa wouldn't look in the general vicinity the camera.  But you take what you can get when your photographer is you and you have 30 seconds before everyone wanders off in search of spaghettios.   B)  I forgot to write our names.  I mean, the card said "Merry Christmas.  Love,  the T_____s."  But that's it.  No list of my kids' names, no ages.  Nothing.  Not even a personal note.  I kinda forgot that part in my rush to get the cards mailed out.  See, we were going out of town twice between Dec 4th and Dec 19th on two amazing trips that I'm not going to tell you about because, come on,  I'm not here to brag (but , oh my gosh, St. Thomas was  totally AMAZING!!!)  and I knew if I didn't get them out before we left, they would never get out at all.  At least not before they became Valentine's cards.   3) There was no Christmas Newsletter.  I like the Christmas Newsletter.  Some people don't.  I do.  Christmas cards might be the only thing I hear from you or you hear from me all year, so you might as well tell me how old your kids are now and list all the great achievements they've made in the last 12 months so I can tell you how smart my kids are and how many more achievements they've made in return.  But this year there was no time for a Christmas Newsletter.  I had to get the Christmas card in the mail before we left, which means I would have had to do that on top of doing all my Christmas shopping ahead of time, getting Beck's birthday stuff done ahead of time, decorating for Christmas, and packing for 4 people.  Ya. Nope.  The Christmas Newsletter just didn't happen.  But lucky you!  You get to get it now!


The T_____s Christmas Newsletter 2012-ish

Big Daddy:  Big Daddy might just have had the best year of his life.  I think he got to go to Cancun, and the U.S. Open, and on an all-expense paid trip to play Pebble Beach and the other two, not-quite-as-brag-worthy golf courses nearby, AND got to go to St. Thomas with his hot wife and no kids.  PLUS, he got to start working twice as many hours, commute 4x as many miles, and move our entire house for the 2nd time in two years.  Lucky guy!  He squeezed a bunch more free golf in there too, so don't feel too sorry for him.   Plus, his invention, the CutterPillar, has really taken off.   Please, Someone, buy him out for millions of dollars so we can sit on a beach in St. Thomas and sip piña coladas for the rest of our lives!

Me:  Well, my year was...um...lets see if I can remember anything.  I swear, by your third child, it all starts to blur together.  I can perhaps at least get relative with 2012: Fewer diapers, more crayon on the walls, less getting up in the night, more getting spaghettios off the ceiling, less driving kids to and from school, more kids in school, less weight, more hair, less square footage, more character, less carpet to vacuum, more tile to scrub, less weeding, more bathrooms to scrub, fewer leaves to rake up, more stairs to climb.  Cheese Fantasy Camp (awesome).  Stained Glass Class (awesome).  Also, I gave up on ever having straight hair again and embraced the curl completely. 

Daphne (AKA: Mini-Lorie), age 7 1/2: Daphne is our incredibly imaginative, creative, artistic, utterly unfocused, unruly, unconventional, interesting, one-of-a-kind child.  She is crayon/marker/pen in hand about 95% of her waking hours.  And she is good!  She really captures things amazingly well for a girl her age.  She's observant and sneaky clever.  She's tiny, but bold.  She absolutely LIVES for all things animal (particularly if they have unusually large eyes).  People? Meh.  Daphne loves to talk.  And talk.  And talkandtalkandtalk.  She'll gab your ear off unless you wander away while she's distracted, or run away pretending to have diarrhea. Not that I have done that!  Or would ever do that.  Ever.  Really.  I'm just giving you a good out in case you ever need it.  (USE IT!)

Beck, age 6:  Beck is our resident smarty pants.  He takes after his mother, (blush) .  Ok, AND his father.  Really he has the best of both of our brains--he memorizes everything instantly, just like me, and he wants to know everything about everything around him, just like me, and he loves school and pleasing his teachers, just like me.  But he's not retarded at math like me.  He got his dad's genes for puzzles and numbers and working things out in his head.  He likes to take things apart and know how things work, and, just like Dad he can put them back together (unlike his mom).  He could read before he started Kindergarten this year and reads at a 2nd grade level now, half way into the year.  He's a mama's boy, which I'm absolutely 100% fine with.  He ruthlessly teases his baby sister and his big sister and doesn't stop until somebody screams and then mom screams. But otherwise, he's endearing, and quiet, and sweet, and utterly charming and lovable.

Pippa, age 1 1/2:  Pippa is a busy busy child!  I want to say she walked for a week.  She learned to crawl, eventually learned to walk, and a week later she was running full speed.  She climbs all over everything, leaps from couch to couch, throws herself on the ottoman, bounces off, and begins again.  If she falls, she doesn't bother to stop and cry.  She scales the toilet to get on the bathroom counter and play in the water.  She's figured out how to drag things around that she can climb onto to get on the kitchen chairs, to get on the bar stools, to get on the bar, to dump out all the salt!  Despite the tornado that she is, she is SOOO cute.  She's our fairest child, with that strawberries-and-cream skin she did NOT get from sallow me.  She has strawberry blond hair and some shade of eyes I cannot describe other than to say it's NOT brown.  It's sort of greyish, greenish, hazelish, beige.  She jabbers a lot.  She loves to dance (ask her to do her Just Dance impression of Avril Lavine's "Girlfrend."  You'll die at how good it is.).  Pippa loves to copy her siblings.  And parents.  She carefully watches everything we do and then a minute later, she's trying it out too.  We have to be careful what we do and say in her presence!  Pippa is fun and sweet and a holy terror all at once.  She will be our most adventurous child, we're sure.

Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for our new carpets), we lost Flossie, our cat, this year.  Lost her to the pound, that is.  Don't tell Daphne.  She thinks Flossie lives with another family who is taking really great care of her.  But Flossie's 2-year, urine soaked nervous breakdown from our last move meant she couldn't move with us here.  We all cried, and we'll miss her. Sort of.   But the kids are mollified by the promise that when we build our dream house, it'll be filled with, to quote Daphne, "two dogs and two kittens and a turtle and a parrot and gerbils and a sugar glider." (Never heard of one?  Trust me, it has huge eyes).  Ha!  Maybe a turtle.  We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, we're loving it here at our new house.  This part of the valley agrees with us.  It's quaint and old but more cosmopolitan than our last two towns.  It's got a great library, some wonderful local restaurants, lots of big, shady trees, a grocery store with plenty of spaghettios, and a cheese island the size of Manhattan, some very nice neighbors, and it's close to the freeway (although not near Big Daddy's work.  But what does that matter with a cheese island that size??).

We love you all.  And we miss most of you.  Call us. Email us.  Come over for a game night!  Come over and dance to the Wii with us.  Come over for dinner!  We're having lots of great cheese....and spaghettios. 

Merry Christmas!

Love,
The T______s.

Les Miserables et Les Horibbles

So here's something I do want to blog about: the new movie of Les Miserbles.  Has anyone seen it yet? 

It's excellent.  I loved it!  I have a kind of personal stake in it being done well because in high school, as part of my school choir, I performed it.  Not the full play, just the music numbers.  While we were learning it, as a surprise, my father took my brother and I (who also sang in the choir's production) to see Les Mis at the Ford Theater, in Detroit. It was so awesome, seeing the musical on stage and getting a real feel for what the songs meant as we learned them at school. 

I never got to see the musical on stage again.  But when the movie version came out a few years ago, I wanted to love it.  And it was OK.  But it just wasn't right without the music.  So when the musical as a movie version was announced, I couldn't wait to see my beloved Les Mis on the big screen!

And, as I said, it was fantastic.  Mostly.  Hugh Jackman as Valjean was brilliant.  Brilliant acting, brilliant singing.  Absolutely embodied the character.  Have I mentioned that he was brilliant??  Samantha Barks, as Eponine, was amazing.  Her voice is so heavenly.  Her waist is so tiny!  She was perfect for the role.  Sasha Baron Cohen was born to be Thenardier.  Slimy, detestable, clever, and funny.  And his singing never distracted from his performance.  Those three were the best, for sure.

Honorable mention goes to Marius, who was a bit strange looking, but who had a wonderful voice.  If only his vibrato didn't make his whole head shake like he had Parkinson's!  And both Helena Bonham-Carter and Anne Hathaway did great job in their acting and adequately in their singing. 

But then there's Russel Crowe.  True, I've never been a Russel Crowe fan.  And that's putting it mildly. But I went into this movie with a totally open mind because I love the play so much. I was willing to completely revise my opinion of him if he did Javert justice.  But alas, there was no justice for Javert.  There was only betrayal.  Crowe's voice was OK.  I mean, it lacks some skill, but the tone is rich and pleasing.  It was his ACTING that was the problem.  FLAT.  His expression was flat in every scene.   Look at Hugh Jackman--in one scene you can see his face express 20 different emotions.  He uses his eyes, his eyebrows, his mouth, his cheeks, his head, his shoulders...all of them change the nuances of what his character is feeling.  Russel Crowe?  His expression changes between irritated and annoyed the entire movie.  He never quite reaches angry, fierce, passionate, brutal, or driven--all the things you'd expect from Javert.   There's just this sort of half dazed, half mad look on his face in every scene.  Such a disappointment!

And Amanda Seyfried...why oh why did they give that part to her???  There's NO ONE in Hollywood under age 30 that can sing better than her?!?  REALLY?  I find that so hard to believe.  And yet they chose her.  She looks the part.  Her acting is fine.  But her voice--that hummingbird vibrato that sounds like Woody Woodpecker on speed!  It brought to mind the Lollipop Kids from Munchkin Land more than a love-sick Parisienne.  Such a pity!!!

Anyway, despite those two, the movie was excellent.  It was all I could do not to sing along with the movie, but I guess everyone else around me was too chicken cause no one else was singing.  Not even Big Daddy, who just happens to be as big a fan of Les Mis as me.  So I kept it all inside.  And now I'm paying for it.  Javert, Valjean, and Fontine are in my head in the morning, in the shower, when I'm trying to nap, when I'm cooking dinner, and most especially when I'm trying to sleep at night.  I love that score, but, sacre bleu, I'm getting tired of it fast!

What did you think of the movie?

Deep Thoughts about Blogging.

It's ironic to me that when I first started blogging, 5 years or so ago, no minutia of my life seemed too small to write about.  I could blog 2 or 3 times a day at my peak.  And now I'm lucky if I find one thing in a month worthy of writing about.  Why?  Is my life more boring?  Is it just that kids dominate my life more?  I do have one more now.  Maybe it's the lack of reciprocity to drive me?  I don't know.  But seriously, what did I write about then??  And why don't I write about it now?

Maybe, for example, I could write about how I have been working out like crazy at the gym and am in the best shape of my life right now.  Weights.  It's all about the weights.  Well, and the fact that I joined the country club of gyms doesn't hurt. 

Or I could write about how I took TWO fantastic trips in December, one to Texas to visit my sister (with kids) and one to St. Thomas with my hottie husband (SANS kids!).  I could even include the part about the lady who decided to have a baby on the plane so we had to make an emergency stop in Denver, causing us to arrive at our home airport at 2am, so you wouldn't be jealous.

I could write about Pippa,  She's 19 months now and doing all kinds of super cute and super naughty things.  Usually they're naughty but also cute simultaneously, which makes discipline a challenge.  It's hard to yell "NO!" sternly when you're secretly busting a gut.

I could write about the adventures of raising a mini version of my mother, with all the brilliant creativity and vivid imagination and total lack of social skills that make you laugh at a 7 year old (but not so much at a 70 year old). 

I could even write about the delicious foods I've made lately: the amazing cinnamon almonds, the bacon-sausage-apple cornbread stuffing, the cranberry apple salad.  They're good recipes, I swear!

But...I'm not.  WHY?  I don't know.  And I'm not sure anyone reads my blog anymore, so who cares?

Making Your Life Easier - Meat-wise.

I don't remember where I learned these tips.  Maybe I saw them on TV or read about them somewhere?  But for at least 6 or 7 years, I've been following these little tips when I buy fresh meat to keep it fresher, make it easier to freeze and defrost, and to utilize it better in recipes. 

A little background:  Growing up, my mom usually bought quantities of meat the size of a small elephant and then threw them in the freezer just how they came.  I remember having to defrost giant 4 lb blocks of hamburger just to get out the 1/2 lb that I needed.  And making that harder was the fact that it was still wrapped in plastic wrap around a Styrofoam dish or in a big wad of waxed butcher paper, meaning it would leak all over as it defrosted.  I continued doing this myself my first few years of marriage, not really knowing what other options there were.  So when I came across these ideas of how to process and freeze meat more easily, I jumped on them. 

Here is what you will need:

• Several medium (quart size ) Ziplock freezer bags.  (I Recommend Ziplock brand.  In my experience, the store brand ones leak, allow freezer burn, and do not zip well. This is one thing I won't cheap out on.  It means ruined meat, and meat is just too expensive to waste to save a few cents on baggies.)
• A kitchen scale (optional)
• A permanent marker (Sharpie-esque)
• Meat.  (Fresh, not frozen)

Step 1:  Gather all your items before you start!   Once you start touching the meat, you don't want to go searching through the drawer for a Sharpie or baggie -- it spreads contamination.

Step 2: Cut open the plastic wrap on all your meat at once.  It's easier if it's all ready to grab. 

Step 3:  If you want to weigh your meat so you know exactly how much is in each baggie, this is where you would do it.  I generally eyeball it.  For chicken breasts, I care more about how many there are in a bag than the weight.  Or if I buy ground meat, I'll divide it in 2 or 3 sections (1/2 lb or 1 lb each, approximately) depending on the total weight I bought, which is how much I use for spaghetti sauce, tacos, and hamburgers, respectively.  But if you want to measure it, take a plate, place it on the scale, zero it out (most scales have this function--where you can reset it to zero after placing a container on it so that it doesn't include the container's weight), and weigh each amount.  Once weighed, move on to Step 4.

 

Step 4:  Get a Ziplock bag and turn it inside out.  Place your hand inside it, like it is a mitten. 

Step 5:  Grab the meat you want with the baggie mitten.  Think about how much you generally use for your recipes.  You can grab 2-3 chicken breasts at a time this way.  If you want more per baggie, put a second baggie mitten on the other hand to help stuff the first baggie.  If you are using a weighed portion, grab it off the scale with the baggie mitten.  Then, using your free hand, grab the lip of the baggie and pull it up, right-side out, around the meat.  If you do this just right, you can get all your meat put away without ever coming in contact with it!












Step 6:  Before you seal the bag, squish as much air out as you can.  If you're using ground meat, smash the meat wad as flat as you can and spread it out inside the bag.  This will make it way faster to defrost and also get rid of the air pocket inside.  Air inside causes freezer burn, and it makes the baggie bigger (i.e. takes up more space).   Now seal the bag carefully leaving no gaps in the zipper.


Step 7:   Write what is in the baggie.  Although it may seem obvious what is inside while it's fresh, after a few days in the freezer, it's hard to tell frozen pork from frozen steak, ground beef from ground turkey.  Some bags become total mystery meat!  Reading what it is and how old it is will quickly let you pick the right meat and make sure you use the oldest first.  You want to write: A) The contents  B) The weight, if desired  C) The date (month and year). 

 

 

Step 8:  Put your meat in the freezer, placing what you just bought underneath any meat that is already there.  You always want to use the oldest first (unless it's too old.  Obviously throw it away if it's more than 6 months old!)  If you  always throw new meat on top, you're likely to waste a lot of meat (namely the stuff on the bottom that you never get to until it's grey and mummified!)

 

 

That's it!  The instructions are way longer than the process actually takes.  I can buy a package of ground turkey, 6 chicken breasts, 4 steaks, and 4 pork chops and have  it all put away in correct portions in about 5 minutes.  Although it seems like more work to do this, when it comes time to cook, you'll be so happy when you open the freezer and there is the meat you need, already portioned out and ready to cook!  It takes less time to defrost when it's in smaller portions, and if it's free of packaging materials, air, and freezer burn, it's going to turn out way better too.

 Happy cooking!

Halloween Wrap Up

I swear, Halloween is the most stressful holiday of them all!  I love it.  It's my favorite, by far.  But it is also the most activity intensive for a mother with young kids because there are pumpkins to pick out and then carve (meaning I scoop out all the guts, they draw the face on, and then I do all the carving), class parties, costumes to pick, order, return when they change their mind and then reorder with express shipping, then tune up when they arrive to meet my children's exact specifications, trunk or treats to cook for and then attend,  make up to do, neighbors to "boo," miles of trick or treating to walk, and then, oh yeah, as an afterthought, it's my husband's birthday!  Poor guy.  He always gets the shaft.  So even though I adore Halloween, I have to admit I always breathe a BIG sigh of relief when November 1st dawns.

So here are the costumes for this year...

Sticking with the big cat theme from last year, Daphne was a leopard.  She wanted to be Marseline from Adventure Time, but once she found out she'd have to wear boots, that was off the table immediately.  Too bad.  It would have been so cool.

Trunk Or Treat Version...

 

School Version....

 

(The Trick or Treat version featured no face make-up at all!  She was totally sick of it by then.  Thanks a lot, pre-Halloween festivities!)



Beck was the Gold Power Ranger, otherwise known as the Hot Power Ranger, Antonio.

Oh wait, I guess you want to see Beck.  Fine.

The No-Masks-Allowed-At-School version...

The Wore-His-Mask-But-Mostly-On-The -Top-Of-His-Head-So-He -Could-Actually-See version...

Pippa was an angel.  Not behaviorally, just in costume.  I had picked out a really cute pig costume, but then I decided she could just wear Daphne's butterfly one from that age.  But then Big Daddy said that was lame, so I went to order the pig, but it was all sold out.  As were the other 15 choices on my list.  So we ended up with the angel, the only thing in her size NOT sold out the week before Halloween.  It turned out pretty cute, execept that she wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get a good shot!  Some angel.

 

This one isn't too bad, but the backdrop leaves something to be desired...

 Ah, finally.  Decent backdrop AND she isn't moving.  It'll have to do...

 

 

 

I dressed up in my old standby, the Zombie Prom Queen.  I volunteered to go tell spooky stories in Beck's class at school, so I thought it would be fitting.  But then I realized that Kindergarteners don't really know what a Prom Queen is, so I left off the sash and just called myself a Zombie Princess this year.  They still all thought I was a vampire or a witch.  Dumb 5 year olds.  (JK!)

For Big Daddy's birthday, he got a nice big serving of (leftover) chocolate cake (that was too chocolatey for him.  Weirdo.) with a star shaped candle on it (all I could find) that his son blew out (BECK!!) before we abandoned him with the baby to go trick or treating.  So, ya.  Pretty lame.  Like every year.  Sorry, Sweetie.  At least you got to golf with three of your best friends on the most beautiful Halloween on record, right?

So that about wraps it up.   I narrowly missed having a nervous breakdown, and it took me 6 hours to scrub all that face paint of Daphne, Beck, and myself, but it was all worth it.  Just, please, next year remind me to start getting ready in September!