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Views from Passover 2009

Posted on April 14, 2009 1:06 pm by TheAngelForever

Each year Passover preparations begin long before the holiday is actually here. We are religious enough that we change out our pots/pans and from pure laziness use disposable silverware/plates. We put all of our chametz into one area and use certain cabinets that have been readied for Passover. This year we thought about what to make for Seders in case we had them at home. It was a good thing since we found out the Sunday before that we would be doing them at our house. Our boys have no clue what is done behind the scenes for Passover. I have to admit that I did not realize much of this until I met JL. Sure, my relatives did all of these preparations, but I only recall going to their homes for the Seders with the rest of the extended family.

When all was said and done we were ready to go for both of the Seders last Wednesday and Thursday. We made chicken, sweet and sour turkey meatballs, oven roasted sweet potatoes, cauliflower and the traditional items for the seder itself (hard boiled eggs, gefilte fish, and charoset). We ran out of time to make matzah ball soup, but added an amazing quinoa dish for the second night.

Now I welcome you to our table to see how my family celebrated at our Passover Seders last week.

Here are two views of our table.

A closer look at our Seder plate all set with the tradiational items:

The boys are lucky. Aunt S and Uncle M bought them some amazing fun items to have during the Seder. Check out NHL’s place at the table and a closer view of the kid’s Seder plates.

Check out all of the extra items that they also received. There are the Passover Ten Plagues Finger Puppets (great to go along with the 4 Question Finger Puppets that we already had), Passover counting book (adorable for JSL), Passover Memory Game, Bag of Plagues, Flip Frogs, and 10 Plagues masks. More about the 10 Plagues Finger Puppets coming tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday.

The boys enjoyed trying most things. Here they are eating the celery dipped in salt water.

While NHL was busy getting the 10 plague finger puppets in order for their part in the Seder, JSL had fun playing with the 4 Questions. NHL even started singing in Hebrew showing us that he has learned a lot at Hebrew School already.

Our only little glitch in the Seder was when JL got quite ill. He had a little too much horseradish along with his wine and turned quite white with massive hot flashes. We finally turned on the fan and he felt better. Of course this photo taken earlier is a little funny looking back at it.

Overall, we had two nice Seders at our house. It was great ,having our boys, Nana, Papa and Aunt T here with us. Still, it will be nice in the future to be able to celebrate with more of our extended family.

Categories:
family holidays interesting jl jsl nhl photos

Ready or not, here comes Passover

Posted on April 2, 2009 8:41 am by TheAngelForever

No matter how much I am in denial, the reality is there. Next Wednesday night is the first Passover Seder.

Over the last month or so we have been slowly gathering more healthy recipes to use for Passover. Of course also with that we have been ~~going into debt~~ buying Passover items before the stores run out. This year JL and I promised each other that we would not buy as much of the prepackaged Passover foods, mixes and things. We have our own baking pans for Passover and bought ingredients that can be used to bake the boys some goodies. Of course we did buy some Rainbow and Bon Bon cookies because those are quite difficult to replicate.

Here is the cabinet in our kitchen completely filled with all of our non-perishable Passover food/baking/spice items.

My biggest dilemma with Passover is breakfast. Most morning I eat instant oatmeal. It is filling, low points and keeps me energized for the morning. Sadly there is no really good option with this for Passover. The boys will likely be eating a LOT of matzah and cream cheese. Yummy indeed, but it is not really an option while being good. I seriously do not want to undo the weight loss that I have done, especially given the commitment to work outs that I have been doing. Since Sunday, I have already done 16.5 miles of work out with Leslie Sansone (not including today).

One option is trying this:

According to JL, it can be used as a hot breakfast cereal of sorts. Has anyone tried this and have any suggestions? Trying to come up with some more options for Passover. We have yogurt, although not one that I really like since it is Kosher for Passover. There will also be egg whites, which are great if I have time to cook them. And of couse I could also do cottage cheese and fruit.

If you have any other suggestions for healthy Passover meals, especially breakfast and even lunch, I would love to hear them.

There are a lot of past postings where I talk about Passover. Just do a keyword search for Passover. Here are my posts from the Seders last year: Happy Passover 2008 – Seder 1 and Seder Part Deux – 2008.

Categories:
decisions holidays jl photos

Four years of physical therapy

Posted on March 30, 2009 8:10 am by TheAngelForever

About four years ago I made a very difficult phone call. JL and I decided it was time to have NHL evaluated with Early Intervention. Our little guy had been talking sentences for quite some time, but he could not walk on his own. He had no real ability to balance if a finger was not held by an adult. After a while, daycare convinced me that it could not hurt to see what happened.

For weeks we worried. Was there something more wrong with NHL’s legs. We went to pediatric neurologists to rule out many different items. They all agreed that it did not present itself like CP or MD. Instead, they believed that he was hyperflexible and had low muscle tone. Their thought was that with some major physical therapy he would not only be able to walk, but eventually catch up to his peers.

NHL has been receiving physical therapy for almost four years. He walked on his own just a few weeks after starting (fluke) right before his second birthday. Soon he was running, jumping came quite a while later and just this weekend we added bike riding to the list.

If you saw NHL with a group of his peers, you would never know he had low muscle tone. These days the only thing that lets us know is gets tired more quickly than other children. This is because his body works extra hard just to stay upright and balance – without adding walking/running/jumping into the mix. We often forget about this and do not understand why he gets tired and a little grumpy after a long day at school or when we go running around on errands.

Here is NHL getting ready to test out his new bike at home for the first time. Helmets are a must before getting on.

Even JSL was happy to be outside in the gorgous weather to watch his big brother. He loved following everyone in his "car car" after being cooped up in the house for the week.

Next thing I knew, NHL was off . . . riding his bike down the block.

The smile on his face made us feel so great. We think that secretly he had always wanted to ride a bike, but was too frustrated to ask. Finally his dreams were coming true thanks to all of his hard work in physcial therapy. NHL was so proud and wanted to show everyone his new bike.

At first he asked for a few pushes to give him some momentum. Then he teased JL, asking for help and then riding off just as he arrived at the bike. Yes, he really was riding a bike and kept it up until the sun was going down.

Now NHL hopes that the rain will stop and it warms up so he can enjoy the so-called spring with his new bike and little brother following along in his car.

Thank you to all of the therapists that have helped NHL to come so far!

Categories:
daycare decisions jl jsl looking back my boys nhl photos weekend

Where is the adult-parent line?

Posted on March 19, 2009 8:12 am by TheAngelForever

As a parent, I understand what my responsibilities are for my children. I also realize that as an adult, when around other children, it is my "job" to keep safety a priority. If another child is doing something that is not safe, I feel that I can step in and ask them to stop. If the child selects not to do it, that is where my boundaries end. I would never think of threatening them with a consequence, I would get their parent and explain the situation for them to take care of.

Sunday afternoon at my nephews party we had an experience where another adult at the party over stepped the adult-parent line. TechyDad did an amazing blog post about this experience when it was very fresh in his mind. You can read that here.

To this day I am still floored with the behavior of the other person at the party. Please note that there were only four children at this family party, my two boys and our two nephews. This woman’s children are adults and she is NO relative of ours.

What would you have done in this situation? I was too busy picking my mouth up from the floor to reply properly. How would you help to prep your child IF you go back into a potential environment like this again?

As sad as it is that my boys may not be close to their two cousins, it makes me even more determined to make sure that we continue to be close to my brother and his family.