bountifulplate

One thing that kids teach you is patience.  When they are babies and cry, you have to try and figure out why they are crying.  Since babies can't tell you why they are crying, you have to try and guess. Are they wet, need a hug, want a bottle, to be nursed?  A lot of times you can tell by the type of cry what they want.  As they get older and learn to walk, you have to be patient as they toddle, then fall, toddle then fall, until one day they walk or run right towards you.  As they get even older (tweens and teens), if you ask them how their day went and they say, "fine" you have to be patient and hopefully they will REALLY tell you what happened in their day.  When you are a parent of a special needs child, you really learn the meaning of the word "patient."  Milestones are much, much harder to achieve and sometimes they never are. Right now, we are dealing with an issue with Dominic that is really testing our patience. After months of really hard wor...

One of the characteristics of Autism is the difficulty in social interaction. A constant challenge for Dominic is initiating communication from others. He still has difficulty with the back and forth of a conversation.  I love when the hubby comes home from work and I hear Dominic spontaneously say, "hello, daddy!" It's a HUGE thing that he does that.  For the past couple of days, Dominic has been initiating communication from me.  Even though he is way past the age an almost 9-year old would want to play with a baby toy, Dominic really loves this set of Fisher Price rings: What he's been doing, is to put the blue one on the bottom and then he'll take the very top one and put that one on next, even though he knows that's not right.  He'll then look at me and wait for me to say or do something.  I say, "no, no, no, that doesn't go there!" and he'll start laughing like it's the absolute funniest thing he has even heard.  It is very...

A handful of months ago, someone found a check of mine in a parking lot and took the time to put it in an envelope and mail it back to me. I was sincerely touched. Well, a few weeks ago when I was coming out of the grocery store, I noticed there was something under the windshield wiper of my car. Upon closer inspection, I noticed it was a utility bill in an envelope.  I think what happened is, somebody found it on the ground, near my car and assumed it was mine, so they tucked it under the wiper.  The bill looked ready to go, it was addressed, had a return address, was sealed up and had an uncancelled stamp on it.  Since the grocery store and the post office are pretty close to each other, I zipped over and put it in the mail box. I guess I could have tossed the envelope on the ground, but that's not my style.  I felt since someone a few months back took the time to mail me back my check, I needed to take the time to mail this bill that was under my wiper.  I re...

I do all the laundry here at our house.  I jokingly call myself the "laundry staff."  For the past two or three weeks, my husband has been bugging me about a sock.  He generally replaces his socks when they get huge holes. This one particular sock he was looking for was part of a pair that he recently bought.  At the beginning of the week,  he started asking me again in earnest about the sock.  I decided I really needed to find it. The hubby was kind of becoming like a dog with a bone - he wouldn't let it go!!!!! This past Thursday morning, before he left for work, I told him that I would try my absolute hardest to find the missing sock.  First, I emptied out the two baskets of dirty clothes. I actually looked through both baskets twice.  Nope, didn't find it in there.  Second, I went through all of Dominic's clothes.  I had begun sorting the clothes that didn't fit him a few weeks ago and had it on piles on a couch in his room.  Bu...

I rarely watch afternoon talk shows past 2:30 p.m., usually because I'm shuttling the kids around somewhere.  I happened to be watching Anderson Cooper's talk show this past Tuesday and they had a panel of people on talking about moms who need medication for anxiety or depression to help them care for their children.  I found it kind of fascinating, because they had two moms sitting side-by-side.  One mom has been taking medication on and off for several years (since before she had children) and the other mom was totally against medication.   On Anderson Cooper's show, people were tweeting in and giving their opinions.  Wow, one person tweeted something along the lines of, "if you need medication to help with your kids, you aren't a very good mom." How incredibly judgmental.  I read Brooke Shields book called, Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression , shortly after it came out. The actor Tom Cruise went on the Today Show around th...

Ever since Dominic went to a playground a few weeks ago and was able to do the monkey bars, he has been trying to do the same thing on our swing set.  Lauren has been spending some of her free time going outside and encouraging him. I didn't ask her to do that, she did it on her own. She's such a great sister :)  Dominic knows he can do it, but if Lauren even lets go for a second, he starts saying "la-la, la-la."  That's his nickname for her.  She has been giving him a lot of positive praise, but he wants to be able to do it for himself.  Dominic is very determined!!! We keep magnetic letters on the fridge.  Dominic requested spaghetti recently, so I asked him to spell it on the fridge for me. I told him the correct spelling and then he did it.  Over the weekend, he tried to spell it himself without me telling him and he spelled it wrong.  I told him so and then I proceeded to use the magnetic letters and spell it correctly. Domi...

A few months ago, I was asked to contribute a page to a book.  The author is writing a book about moms from all over the world and all walks of life. He wanted me to write a page to my children sharing my deepest and truest thoughts about being a mom.  How is it possible to only write one page?  I could write much, much more than that :) The words flowed easily, but it was hard to condense all that I wanted to say into a short amount of space!  Below is the page of "love" that I submitted.  How about you?  If you were asked to submit a page about your children, what would it say? To my stepson: From the very first time that you and I met over 22 years ago, I knew that I wanted to be your stepmom. One of the happiest days of my life was when I married your dad and I “officially” became your stepmother. I have watched you graduate from high school, college and graduate school. You have worked hard at your career and I am super proud of you.   ...

Two months from tomorrow I turn 50.  I have spent some time this week reflecting on that.  Down in our basement, I found my baby book that my mom made.  Given that I am the firstborn, she wrote down in great detail, the first two years of my life.  On the "favorites" page of the baby book, she said my favorite first toy was one of her gravy mixers. Somehow that doesn't surprise me, given how much I love to bake and cook.  I didn't find any pictures from my first birthday party, but I did find these pictures from when I turned two. I love the picture on the bottom right, I'm in the background already eating my cake, while my guests had to stand in front of the table and wait! Well, I was the birthday girl after all :) Inside the baby book, I found two pages of notes that my mom had typed up on my "progress" at the end of my second year. Two sentences in particular caught my eye. The first one was, "her negative opinions became qui...