Happy Mother’s Day… said the tired mom

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Kalalilys

So, I have this thing. Hallmark probably hates me, but I hate them too, so it works out. I hate many holidays, and I am not even so keen on my birthday. Why? Well, they are all so full of expectation, even when you try to just blow it off as “just another day” you have the well meaning friends and such who are all “sooooo, what is so and so gonna do for [insert holiday, birthday or anniversary here]?!” Then… well, you can’t help but start to think about it. Worse, you may even hear rumblings about what those well meaning people, ahem, loved ones, may INTEND to do, but it never really, well… manifests. So, again… holidays and the such, I just don’t like them. Now… the exception to this is the ones that I have control over, ie ones that have nothing to do with me being gifted or “honored” in any sort of way. I can throw one hell of a party for someone else and make em feel like a million bucks. And I don’t do it because I want someone to do it for me. Of course if it happened sometime before I die, that might be nice, but again its not why I do things for people.

So, then there is Mother’s Day. I told Richard all I want for Mother’s Day is to go to church in the morning (he was working) and then work in my garden. We are snug on cashola, so I said no extra money spent please… and no, that is not one of those “women mind tricks.” Did I expect the ABSOLUTE opposite of Mother’s Day? Nope. But that is what I got.

I headed upstairs, bright eyed and bushy tailed. A laid back Mother’s Day, wake up kids, make breakfast, go to church and relax. Yes. Or not.

“Morning!” Grumble…

“Could you please put your khaki pants on for church this morning?”

“Church!? Why?! Ugh! Khakis! I hate them, I am NOT wearing them. WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!?”

*sigh*

I went to go make breakfast. I had banana bread I had made a few days earlier, some fresh fruit from the farmers market and bacon from yesterday I had made, so I scrambled up some eggs with some cheese for the kids. I headed to the bedrooms and lil’ sis was in her pj’s on her bed playing with her toys.

“I told you to get dress for church..?”

“Oh. Sorry.” She sighed and rolled her eyes.

I looked into kiddo’s room, he was splayed on the floor naked except for his underware.

“I HATE pants, I will not wear them.”

“You know what guys… forget it. Never mind. It’s not Mother’s Day, it’s Sunday, that’s all, just do whatever you want.”

I went to the kitchen and toss their food on plates and put it on the table.

“Come get your breakfast before the dogs do.”

I walked downstairs and sat at my desk and just felt bad for myself. I admit I was grumpy for most of the day. Richard got home with flowers for me, his plan for the day with a card for the kids to sign. They were off playing with friends, he scolded them for being… unkind (I could use a number of other words here), but it didn’t really make a difference.

I didn’t get to church, it’s difficult to go to church with a preteen in her pj’s and a mostly naked 11 year old who refuses to wear pants. I spent the morning in the backyard pulling weeds in a very aggressive manner. Better the weeds than the kids I always say.

The larger part of my day doing the things that a mother does. I did laundry and cleaned the house, make meals for the kids, Richard helped with dinner. I got the lunches ready for the kids for tomorrow. Today is Sunday, tomorrow will be Monday. I am thankful that I am a mother and whilst I am grumpy that my kids really don’t seem to notice or appreciate now the idea of Mother’s Day or all that I do for them, I know one day they will. For now, I will wash their clothes and making lunches and keep my head down. Its my job.

Best Part of Waking Up

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Posted on May 3, 2013 by Kalalilys

Remember those Foldgers Commercials? You remember the ones…the alarm goes off and the husband gets up and heads to the kitchen grabs the can of mountain grown coffee, pulls the plastic lid back close to his face and takes a deep whiff of the heavenly aroma just as the “best part of waking up…” really starts to kick in? Yeah? I do too. This wasn’t that kind of morning. In fact, my coffee didn’t even get made until after the kids were on the bus. Oh, but I wish it had been a “best part of waking up..” kind of morning.

Instead it was a freaking-out-milk-on-the-floor-dirty-clothes-wearing-preteen-tantrum kind of morning instead. I find this hilariously ironic because YESTERDAY Richard woke up with the kids and let ME sleep in and the kids woke up (like it was the Twilight Zone or something) before he was up, made their beds, ate breakfast and were completely ready to go way ahead of schedule. For me… not so much. I woke up early because I was gonna make it a mountain grown morning. Yup, I was feeling all sorts of motivated to make it a wonderful day, despite the fact that I habitually sleep an average of 4-5 hours a night (part of my migraine related issues). I decided to make french toast for breakfast with fresh fruit. I had some fresh bread baked from yesterday and thought it would make some killer french toast and couldn’t wait to try it. The kids would love it! (Who was I kidding.) So up I went, opened the bedroom doors “good morning sunshine!” Grumble, grumble….thats ok. I would grumble too. Off to the kitchen I go to get breakfast going. I start to clean the coffee pot for my mountain grown aroma to start, ohhh, I can’t wait! Coffee! In comes the boy…

“Mom, I hate this morning. Today is going to be bad. I just want to go back to sleep.”

“Huh, well I am sorry to hear it sweetie. But I am making you a delicious breakfast. Why don’t you try to keep to your schedule and breakfast will be ready in just a few minutes.”

“Gaaaaaah.”

Stomp, stomp, stomp.

In comes the girl, dressed and looking loverly in a cute skirt and top I recently bought her. I have a plate ready to go.

“Is this for me?” “Yup, you can go ahead and eat. Your brother isn’t ready yet.”

Back in comes the boy. This time dressed and grumbling. Now I have his plate ready. He walks up to me scratching voraciously at his cheek.

“What is here?!”

“What?”

“Here! What is it?!”

“There is nothing… I teeny little bump.”

“Well it itches, it hurts… I can’t… I can’t.., it itches!!!”

He proceeds to scratch at it so hard that I think he is going to break the skin. I tell him he needs to stop, and sit down and eat his breakfast. I should have known better. It was not the appropriate thing for me to say. He was obviously preoccupied with the bite on his face and it was the ONLY thing he was going to think about. So what proceeded was my own doing. It is also my own fault that I did not get my damn mountain grown aroma.

So, he sits down and the girlie is telling me in a very upbeat smile how tasty the french toast is. Her brother on the other hand is pulling his shirt over his face, tightening the seam over the tiny bite on his cheek. Then he pulls it off and rubs at his cheek. When I look at him he pulls apart the french toast, he takes a little nibble but goes back to the bite on his face.

Meanwhile I am getting school lunches together. I looked at the hooks where their lunch boxes are supposed to sit but are not because they did not wash them. I looked over and said:

“You guys need to get a move on so you can get those boxes cleaned so I can get your lunches packed.”

They proceed to yell at each other about who is closer to the other at the table and I say again louder:

“I said you need to hurry up and get those lunch boxes washed!”

The boy stops his bickering and face scratching jumps up from the table arms flailing tossing his large glass of milk flying to the floor and yells at the top of his lungs:

“FINE, I WILL WASH MY LUNCH BOX!”

… as milk drips off the table to the floor. Of course my reaction to this debacle was less than calm, I was pretty upset. At these moments I need to be calmer and cooler and its something I have worked on and gotten better at, but I think I could still use work. I was louder than I think I should have been, but honestly what parent doesn’t get angry when her kid screams at her?

I said, loudly (moderately yelled) to him:

“I told you to sit and eat your breakfast and hurry to clean your lunch box. I didn’t say to jump up and leave the table now. You know that.”

After that I said nothing because I knew that what happened was all due to him being upset to begin with because of the damn bug bite on his face and because I had ignored it to begin with it perpetuated the whole situation. I went and got a tube of hydrocortisone and rubbed it in his cheek and told him that that should help a little. Of course he said that he was certain it would do nothing. He refused to eat or drink anything for breakfast, but again, I sort of knew that was coming.

He went off to finish his bedroom which includes taking care of his lizard and I finished lunches. Before we leave he has to have his brushing and joint compression so I went to his room to do it and found his room a mess and he was wearing another set of clothing, dirty ones from the day before that he thought were more comfortable. AHHHH!

“NO. You have to wear clean clothing. This is not a compromise, you HAVE to wear clean clothes. Choose another outfit or I will have to choose it for you.”

He didn’t argue with me about it, but wasn’t happy.

I went to his sisters room to check on her as she was topping her cute outfit with a hideous hot pink cheetah print sweatshirt she has.

“Oh… why don’t we put on something, nicer… maybe something that… matches?” “Like what?” “How about this jean jacket, its really cute!”

So on went the jean jacket and she looked so nice! She refused to changed her tennis shoes, but I can’t win them all.

So then back to her brother, clothing changed and therapy done, we are finally out the door to the bus stop. The girlie is refusing to even look at me, walking ten feet ahead of me the whole way. She normally is a chatterbox with me and loves to be with me till she gets on the bus. So we stand in silence until I said finally

“Well, I am just gonna go because obviously you don’t want me here… unless you can tell me what the problem is.”

Finally after more prodding, she says under her breath that she hates the jacket. She said she prefers the cheetah print one. This is from my daughter who tells people I have no fashion sense. The nerve. Well, that’s just fine.. I will not send her to school wearing a cute outfit and an ugly sweatshirt. UGH.

The bus came and I got no hugs or kisses or “have a good day,” but whatever… I am a mom, I have thick skin. Plus I get to go home and smell my mountain grown aroma, finally.

He is Ausome #AutismPositivityFlashBlog2013

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Kalalilys

I spent a lot of time this week thinking about last years Autism Positivity Flash Blog and the theme “I Wish I didn’t Have Asperger’s.” As I sat at my dining room table on Tuesday morning sipping my coffee after the kids made their way into the world, it hit me like a big cheese school bus: my own kiddo may have at one time searched that very phrase.

I think perhaps last year when thinking about that theme I did think about that, but it didn’t really click to me truly that he may REALLY have searched it. But he has his own computer, he Googles things all the time. He is wicked smart and when something like genetic engineering pops into this cranium, he Googles away and looks for answers. So WHY wouldn’t he search something like that?

This week has also been a bit of an eye opener for me because I have thought a great deal about my perspective as a Nuerotypical parenting a kiddo who can’t really know exactly how he feels. And to that extent, how can I write about 1000 Ausome Things About Autism? Do I have the right perspective to be able to talk about it? Isn’t that sort of like a man telling a woman what she should be doing with her reproductive organs? (I know, I know, that is a whole other can of worms to which you now sort of know my feeling about…) Different, but sort of the same.

Saturday is Doctor Who Day. Since every other weekend the kiddos are with the other parental unit, we have a makeup Doctor Who to watch. Yesterday we decided to do a Doctor Who-thon at Grandma’s house with BBQ and some yummy desserts I made. On the way home Richard and I were talking about the 1000 Ausome Things About Autism and as I poked at kiddo earlier in the week about it to get his thoughts, I asked him again while talking with Richard.

Kiddos first response, as always:

“Well I am glad that I am so much smarter than everyone else in my class….but that is all, there is nothing else…”

So Richard and I looked at each other and of course started to come up with things, not just for this blog post but because my kiddo is an awesome (AUSOME) kid and there are so many more thing that he needs to know that are great about him, that he doesn’t recognize. The thing is that most of those things are his quirky oddball things that are a result of his being Autistic, but that is what I love about him.

So really to be more pointed than anything this is more 1000 Ausome Things about… my kiddo, because, I know my kiddo and I know he is awesome and his is autistic. So… if you make those connections, you could say that I am writing 1000 Ausome Things as well, if you choose because that is truly MY perspective.

Honest and straight-forward: Sometimes I envy kiddo for being able to just say the things he says to or around people without having any embarrassment about it. Of course, the other side of that is that I, as his mom am terribly embarrassed, but it’s ok, sometimes people just need to hear it!
Incredibly Smart and Pragmatic: I have never questioned his intellect. Even when he was speech delayed I could see his mind at work taking everything in, inventorying. When he is focused on a subject, he is THE EXPERT and he will teach, whether you like it or not.
An Engineer: Fine motor? Recently tested at a level of a 17 year old at age 11. Not an issue! The things he comes up with in his mind with building blocks and Legos blow my mind. He looks at the manual once and then goes on from there. Incredible.
So Mature: I never feel like I am talking to a child when I talk to kiddo. Sometimes I have to remind myself that he is only 11 years old. Sometimes I wish he could be a little ‘younger’ so that he could feel like he fits in better because I know kids feel like he sounds weird when he talks and such. But he is who he is and I wouldn’t want him any other way. He just fits in with a slightly brighter crowd.
Fast Learner: He can learn things so incredibly fast it babbles me. Video games of course are a no brainer and are SO not my area of expertise. I have heard the “mom just let your guy sit by a rock and I will go beat the level” more times than I can admit. But more than video games he picks up new things and just runs with them.
An Elephant’s Memory: While I know they say that autistic have issues with visual memory (and kiddo definitely falls within this category in school IEP issues) standard memory is not an issue. If you tell him you are going to do something, well by God you had better follow through with it because he is NOT going to forget. I love and hate this. I love it because he holds me accountable to my word, I hate it because sometimes things just don’t work out and that is hard.
Rarely Lies: Kiddo rarely every lies. I will not say that he NEVER lies because there is the occasional lie but not nearly the number of average lies you would expect from you average kid. If you ask him a question, for the most part I always expect the most blunt honest answer. If he says nothing, it’s because the answer sucks, but he won’t lie.
Loyal: Kiddo is incredibly loyal. He may have issues with social situations and may seem like he could care less about the people around him at times, but those are his people and he wants them to be cared for and respected. I think his loyalty is actually a form of his love.
Interesting: No matter how regimented we keep things to maintain our schedules, kiddo keeps things interesting because he is the most interesting kid I know.

I know that its hard now and will be for a long time for my kiddo to accept who he is and even longer for him to appreciate the things that I see in him as being the AUSOME things about him. I hope that projects like this Flash Blog and others can help my kiddo and any other kids, adults, parents, professionals or anyone in the Autistic community assure an Autistic person that THEY are truly AUSOME.

Autism Mom: Sometimes It Stings

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Posted on April 26, 2013 by Kalalilys

“Mom, you disgust me. I just hate you.”

I felt like I had been stabbed in the chest for that one moment when my eyes locked with his. I turned away very quickly as the tears welled in my eyes. We were on the way to the surgery center to check in and were a few minutes late. I suppressed the tears and forced a smile.

“Well kiddo, I love you and today is going to be fine, you’ll see.”

This year has been a particularly rough year for kiddo not only in just dealing with autism issues with school and such, but medically as well. It’s been a little over a year now that kiddo has been gluten-free and with that we not only saw improvements in some of the depression and anger issues but it also took some of the bite out of some of his more intense sensory integration issues. But medically the biggest things we saw were that his weight not only stabilized but he started to finally begin to gain and grow and his reflux finally started to decrease without use of medication.

Since kiddo had been two years old he had had a feeding tube placed. He had reflux (Gastroesophageal reflux disease) that was so bad that it had severely damaged his airway to the point that he could not drink or eat and breath at the same time. So he stopped eating and drinking. Two weeks after his second birthday he got his feeding tube and for the next several years he was close to 100% tube fed. By the time he was in kindergarten we were at about 50% tube oral feeding, but he really needed to increase that. So he attended the Kluge Rehabilitation Clinic’s Encouragement Feeding Program at UVA. Upon discharge he was at about 80% oral intake and 20% supplemental by tube.

For the following years, 6 years old to 9 years old, he kind of hovered in that 20% range. Whenever he would get sick, the weight would just fall off of him. We needed to supplement by tube to keep the calories on or he would lose too much. In 2011 he was diagnosed with Autism and we talked a great deal about his medications and diet. Over the last year and a half since the change in diet to gluten-free his weight stabilized and his GI and nutritionist both agreed, it was time to lose the tube.

So that was one procedure that we had to get through, unfortunately sometimes there are complications though. As one might expect, when there is a hole in place for 9 years, that hole does not want to close on its own. So after a month of leakage, we had to return to the GI, schedule for the first of two surgeries of this year.

The second surgery was something completely different and we found out it would have to be scheduled when he was examined for the first surgery. I was blindside by the news and tried to not let kiddo know that I was nervous/scared/upset. I won’t talk about the details about the procedure, just to say that it was something more serious, because it’s a more private matter.

I did want to write some about it though because though I have really tried to just “get through,” it has been difficult. I can only really know what it is like for me in this situation, his parent. I can’t even fathom what it would be like if I was a child in his place because I am not autistic and my mind doesn’t work like his does. I wish I understood better and I am still trying to and I know that is only the best that I can do. So many things I wish I could know more to help him navigate this time better, but there is no real guidebook, each person and autistic is different. I continue to try to educate myself with friends, professionals and the experts themselves, other Autistics.

But I suppose what I did want to share with other parents is that it’s ok. There is a sting sometimes in being a parent to an autistic child. This year, going through these medical procedures, that sting has been very present. Kiddo has a very hard time understanding why life is so difficult just in general. Why people dislike him and why he can’t understand things the way others do. So when he has that already and then in goes a large helping hand of medical complications, my poor kid has too much to deal with. From my parent’s point of view, my kiddo cannot navigate these complex emotions and thoughts so he gets very angry and says and does things. Usually its blame and directed at me. That is hard. But I know the things he says are out of pain and fear and anxiety, not out of hate. I know he doesn’t know how to deal with what he has inside and needs to release it and I have to be able to let it slide off me because I know he loves me even though it doesn’t show in hugs and kisses. His love is a different love, but a love no less and I love him and will do all I can to help him get through this pain and fear to be sure he can be healthy.

And today, thank God, today my kiddo is healthy. With the grace of God yesterday’s surgery will be his last for a very long time. His doctor said he now is in the clear and looking very good. Now it’s just recovery for my grumpy kiddo and grumpy I will take

Gluten-Free Key Lime Pie

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Kalalilys

Gluten trials and the pie it made

Several months ago we put kiddo back on gluten-full foods to be able to run blood panels and do a behavioral check list. We needed a solid 6-8 weeks, after 2 weeks I was ready to commit MYSELF.

Kiddo on the other hand was pleased as punch to be able to eat any old thing. Unfortunately it really made a years worth of effort getting him mentally in the right gluten-free frame of mind worthless.

Just about every facet of life was effected by the return of gluten. Medically, kiddo’s reflux returned and was much worse than it had been in years. He was now waking in the night, sleep walking even. His appetite was decreased and sensory integration off the charts. In school his behavior and grades were steadily declining. At his annual appointment I was concerned about his wieght and behavior and the pedaitrician and I agreed it was time to move back to the arena of the Develpomental Pediatrician but we did head over to have all the blood panels ordered.

The following week kiddo had been sick and we were back in the pediatric office, he was down another 2 pounds. I emailed with his teacher at school to see his feelings about the grades and behavior declination and the diet change timeframe. He agreed, things really did change considerably when kiddo’s diet changed. That was it, gluten was done.

Two weeks back on gluten and a weight check in with the pediatrician and kiddo is back up over a pound in weight. Behavior will take longer to see, but I am pretty sure that we will see the changes there soon as well.

The complaints came back too of course “mom you can’t make everything I love gluten-free!”
Me: “Try me.”
Kiddo: “Hmm… I have to think what I want more than anything in the world. Oh I know!!! Key Lime Pie! You can’t make gluten-free Key Lime pie!”

I knew I wanted to go with a graham cracker crust for this Key Lime pie, and wouldn’t you know last week when the kiddos had been out of school I had gone to the ends of the Earth (ok… it was the ends of our county.. but honestly it was at least FIVE grocery stores!!!) to find some gluten-free graham style crackers for S’mores on our new fire pit. I did find one box… but then I nearly choked on my tongue and peed my pants simutaneously when I saw the $7.50 price tag. No thanks. I finally found Kinnikinnick’s S’moreables and grabbed two boxes that day so I was sure I had enough left to make a pie crust. Next was the limes. I happen to be a purist when it comes to Key Lime Pie. I really think Key Lime Pie needs to be made with… Key Limes, makes sense, no? What is that you say… you live no where near Key West? Neither do I. My best friend has this citrus tree and grew Key Limes for a while…
though I think possibly she may have killed that wee little Key Lime tree. Either way, I never profited a Key Lime from my Floridian friend. I do however buy them when I see them in the produce aisle and freeze the suckers. BUT and here is the but… squeezing the juice from those little guys is arduous work, take my advice here and supplement if you can with a little help! Believe me, its worth it in the end and you will have all the wonderful Key Lime tartness you want, with a little less effort.

Despite whether you do or do not use the bottled Key Lime juice, I do however reccomend that you have at least a handfull of Key Limes to be able to get some rind which adds an amazing depth to your pie! I use my trusty microplane to grate the Key Lime skin (JUST the very surface of it) into tiny bits that will go into the actually pie filling. Any extra that you have makes a wonderful garnish at the end as well.

Now, if you have been following the blog, you may have seen the last post here about my, err, incident. So, I highly recommend using a food processor to do your crust work, I actually bought one shortly after the… umm, ER visit.

The one thing that I have noticed after making a few of these graham cracker crusts is that some of them rise a bit and decrease the depth of the actual pie cavity. I am not sure about you, but I like a nice deep pie. (Somehow that sounds dirtier than I intended) So, to correct this problem, I have created a slight method that I call “pie shell nesting.” When you pull the pre-baked crust out of the oven, if the crust looks a little shallower and want to correct it, first grab a square of parchment and press it into the cavity.Then grab a second 9″ pie plate and press it firmly and EVENLY into the pie plate/crust that you just pulled from the oven. Allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes before removing the nested pie plate. When you removed it, twist it from side to side and it should slide free pretty easily. Then you have a nice deep pie shell to be able to pour your filling into!

Gluten-Free Key Lime Pie

20 Gluten-free Graham Crackers (Kinnikinnick S’moreables)
1/4 C Brown Sugar
6 Tbs unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

1 1/2 Tbs. Key Lime Lemon Rind, grated
3/4 C Key Lime juice
3 large egg yolks
1 3/4 C condensed milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In the bowl of a food processor, blend the crackers until they are finely ground. (Alternately you could use a ziploc bag to crush them, but please for the love of Pete stay away from sharp objects! )
3. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add sugar and butter and mix until everything is well blended and looks wet.
4. Evenly press the mixture into a 9″ pie plate.
5. Bake the crust in the pre-heated oven for about 8 minutes. If your crust has risen a bit too much, use the “pie shell nesting” method to give yourself a deep crust cavity. (see picture above)

6. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the lime rind, juice, yolks and milk.
7. Mix on medium-high speed for about a minute.
8. Pour the contents into the prepared pie plate.
9. Bake pie for 15-20 minutes, until the filling no longer moves.

Enjoy!

IEP Burnout

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Kalalilys

It sat there on the counter, ready, waiting. It’s metal gleaming, the cord still tightly wound from the night before. I wanted so much to snatch it up and use it like any other morning. Yes… a smoothie. It’s about 75 degrees this morning a smoothie would be wonderful. But it sits there, staring at me. It knows what it did and my finger throbs in confirmation of its crime. I divert my eyes, busy myself. It’s an object after all, it has no control over me! I grab the bananas and some frozen fruits from the freezer, some chia seeds, honey, my protein powder and probiotics, yes an excellent start for the day. I look at the bounty that will be my smoothie on the counter and smile. But I can feel the glare of the machine behind me.

Somewhere in the wee traces of my mind I want to believe that it was a total manifestation of Stephen King’s Maximum Over Drive and this Hand Mixer, my and MacLeod’s previously adored Boom Stick (see here where eggs are no match for it) was possessed, but I know with the rest of my fully functional brain (mostly) that that is not the case.

The truth is it’s been a very rough few months in Special Needs world for us with therapy and school and with kiddo’s IEP, which has seemed to take the latter part of eternity to work out this year, I think I am a little strung out. I spent last weekend pouring over 16 IEP’s from Pre-school through 4th grade, numerous diagnostic studies, follow-up clinics, feeding clinics, report after report and study. I filed until my eyes burned. Then I cried till my eyes swelled shut. Looking at so many years of reports and studies you can see patterns and things that you don’t see otherwise, things I wish I had seen. I have never been in denial about his need for help, never. But I have never seen the full picture either and looking at everything, I do. I think I have spent so much time in the daily grind pushing for services and pushing for services I haven’t sat back and studied the results enough. The people who are providing the services have not paid enough attention to the results because otherwise the services would have been provided in a manner different than they have been. In many cases the recommendations in many of these reports have been clearly ignored. I feel that I have failed to advocate strong enough for him.

So how does that get me back to that evil Hand Mixer? Well, yesterday kiddo was evaluating with a new occupational therapist. In addition to that it was his regularly scheduled OT and Speech Therapy day. SO getting home he had a good amount of homework. The rule of thumb, because we have BIG meltdown issues with homework, is that he is to complete a minimum of a solid 30 minutes of work. If I can get him to work 30 minutes and he does well, I try to reward him and ask him to go longer. If it is not going well I don’t push. Last night it was bad. Meltdowns, throwing things, hitting himself, tears and talking about how he would rather be dead, etc. Grandma was here trying to help, but he was in a really bad place. I was desperately trying to throw something together for dinner as well, queue Hand Mixer. They were on the deck and I was in the kitchen. I was popping in and out trying to redirect him and puree meat with the Hand Mixer. Now… before you say… “Kathy, why were you pureeing meat with a Hand Mixer anyway”… I know, I know it was not a smart move already. Hindsight, folks, hindsight.

Richard walks in the door about 30 minutes from work early. Queue distraction number 3. (I love you hon’ but my brain was a mile a minute) “What can I do… what can I do…” Me: “ummm….”

*ZZZZZRRRRMM… pop*

(that is about the sound the mixer made as the blade caught my finger as I tried to move meat out from being stuck in the blade)

*Shreik maybe heard by dogs and dolphins*….Oh my God, Oh my God…..”

Richard: “Come here, get it under water.” (So calm! He was a Boy Scout, ya know.)

Grandma: “Holy *#$%, what did you do!? Towel, pressure, get it up!!!!” (not as calm.)

So I am not one of those wusses who flees to the ER often, but by the looks of the blood flow and such, I though perhaps it warranted a trip. We packed up the foods, thank goodness no blood got in my chicken and headed to the ER.

Three hours and that many stitches later and I was back home with my painful finger and remaining feelings of idiocy. Grandma stayed with the kiddos and they were tucked away when I got home. I was gree

ted in bed by a note from Lil Sis that said that she hoped my finger felt better. She has such a good heart.

I, of course do not blame anyone for my distraction and being dumb enough to get my finger caught in the blade of a moving mixer. Not kiddo or McLeod. I think the culmination of everything has left me just not really that present or maybe trying to be everywhere all the time, and I can’t. I feel like I need to slow down and speed up all at the same time to keep it all together.

The one thing I do know is that now, after seeing all I have seen in all kiddos IEP’s and with his upcoming meeting, things will be better for him, that I will make certain.

So, in the end I did make my smoothie. I have to admit that when I first hit the button and the thing spun and whorled the first time after whipping around my finger last night, my stomach flipped a little. Damn you Stephen King.

New Beginnings Part 2: We Party!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Kalalilys

MacLeod, the kids and I had been living together for about six months in our home before he officially asked me to marry him. Because kiddo is on the spectrum it is something we have discussed in great length for a very long time, much like we discussed long before we all moved in together. For a long time after the divorce the kiddos had a really hard time accepting the fact that their father and I would not be getting back together again. So when we talked about the possibility that we may get married, we asked kiddo very gingerly what he thought. He was elated, his sister wanted to start planning the party. From then on it was a lot of fun getting their perspective on details for the wedding.

Lil sis went dress shopping with me and one of my bridesmaids and had the time of her life. Kiddo on the other hand hates shopping within an inch of his life. He had very specific input on what the cake should taste like and what shade of blue the photo booth actually should be. MacLeod’s children, living in Tennessee with their mother, couldn’t be a part of things, but did get to talk about some of our plans when they visited for the holidays.

So to give a good understanding of the mechanics of the reception, sort of like how the script and all worked for the game in the ceremony, you have to know some of the background work that went into the reception. To begin with we had an amazing wedding coordinator, one of the only ways were able to juggle the mess really into place. But again, I am jumping ahead, let me start at the beginning.

So, about six months ago I contact a friend of mine from my old neighborhood up north who’s husband is the lead singer of an awesome rock cover band called Say Something. I asked if she thought they might play our wedding, but had a special request. I actually was trying to play two songs in the wedding myself. I knew it sounded like a total Bridezilla request, but was hoping they would entertain the thought. So we started chatting via email and eventually I got together with them for band practice. Thing was I was actually LEARNING to play the guitar at the same time. WHAAAA?! Yeah. Me? Crazy? Yes. So there it was, I was taking guitar lessons, voice lessons (to be on the safe side… who wants a singer’s voice to crack at the wedding!?) and doing band practices all under the nose of my unsuspecting groom. Oh and then I was planning the rest of the wedding too.

If you remember from the previous post, when we first decided to get married we knew that the first thing that we wanted to have at our wedding was a photo booth and that that photo booth would be a TARDIS from Doctor Who. So MacLeod decided that he would construct the photo booth himself and had started to look at numerous tutorials online and created blue prints. He had plans on top of plans for this thing, it was impressive.

I was way over my head with the number of things that I was trying to do. No one would call me back for food for the wedding. I had a photographer but she repeatedly canceled our appointments so we really didn’t have a photographer. The kids had what seemed to be five million things going on at school. My hair was standing on end.

To make matters worse MacLeod was slacking on actually starting the TARDIS. I was freaking out. I mean I was about to get Matt Smith on the phone and see if he could pull some strings for me. When I mean things were getting to the wire, I mean that paint was going on that sucker on February 22…we were married on the 23rd people.

So the TARDIS wasn’t exactly being built to MY timeline, I was doing a million and one things, I couldn’t get a caterer to commit to food for the wedding to save my life. We did have a venue and alcohol, so we thought worst case scenario we all come together grab some chips and drink? That was it, I called in the big guns(Becca Bee Events of Fredericksburg, Va). I found a great wedding coordinator to work with who led me to some great people and the best possible thing she could have done was take the entire load of the day of planning off of my shoulders. I am not sure if she grasped the concept at the time of what that would entail given the complexity of our wedding, but she did an amazing job.

So with my coordinator in my corner I was breathing again and back to work. I had a caterer, a wonderful local BBQ company AND an ice cream sundae bar! We discussed at length the need to make the foods gluten-free and he did clear with me that he in fact used not one marinade that contained gluten. I would NOT spend the days after my wedding in bed.

One of my best friends had secured a wonderful bartender for us, so that was done and the band was set, live music with a DJ on the side! We had a projector to play slides of all our silly photos that we have taken over the last few years (we have some very, very silly photos) for the entertainment of our guests.

Because of the gluten issues, I didn’t want to mess around with the cake, I ran a bakery for years and I know, I know… “make your own wedding cake?!” Yes, I did. Again, I didn’t want to sit in bed for days after my wedding. So I decided to make my own wedding cake, plus, kiddo had some specifics about flavor, as did MacLeod. So there, I made the wedding cake. Judge if you will, it was delicious.

You may wonder…”what the heck is it?” Well friends, you have figured out by this point, we are nerds. So we decided that our friend G1(Generation 1) Devestator would be attacking our wedding cake. I made Devestator out for white chocolate over about a week and a half, a labor of… umm, love (you could call it that.) Notice the background for the cake is the original poster for Transformers animated movie (you know you just sang the title in your head… I know you did) released in 1986.

So there it was the day of the wedding. Much to my oober stressful dismay, the TARDIS was NOT complete and MacLeod was still working on it whence I arrived back home from running errands with my mom on Friday afternoon (when said TARDIS was supposed to be AT the reception location). So, instead of simply delivering the wedding cake the morning of the wedding…. we were delivering the TARDIS, all its photo booth components AND the wedding cake. HOLY MOSES.

Then there was the issue of getting my guitar secretly to the reception site or with the wedding coordinator in time to give it to the band without MacLeod seeing.

I could have killed him.

Alas the TARDIS was indeed assembled and worked perfectly. Wow, did it ever work perfectly. There was a sign inside the blue box to help guests know how to use the iPad’s app which airprinted to the Welcome Table. We had put a bin inside with costume wears for all the guests to be able to use, including a Hannibal Lector mask… who knew people would use that one the most? Huh, lol. At the Welcome Table was the Guest Book, each guest was to leave one strip for the book (one per page) and sign the page as their entry. The finished product was absolutely perfect!

So while we were getting the photos done at the church after the reception, all the guests arrived at the reception and used the photo booth and got to snack on little boxes of popcorn (for the crazy movie theme) tour the A. Smith Bowman Distillery and enjoy the cocktail hour.

When we arrived everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time, which made us feel like we did really pull it off. The reception then went on and the “wedding stuff” went under way, speeches and dances. We went over the ceremony game and awarded the prizes to the guests, first second and third places. Then I was called up by the band to give my groom my “wedding gift.” All the months of preparation and sneaking around and the time was up. I sang and played “Head Over Feet” by Alanis Morrisette first, a love song, something I thought maybe people might expect from me… though honestly I don’t think anyone expected me to perform. Then we

went into “Kiss Off” by the Violent Femmes, so much fun, I loved it. I think MacLeod was surprised, he certainly had no idea that I was going to be doing that for him. I told him that he trusts me entirely too much, well with all the “appointments” I had around town for the last few months.

The rest of the night I could finally breathed easy and we danced and enjoyed our family and friends. It was the happiest day that either of us have had in a long time.

Spring and New Beginnings Part 1: We Wed!

Quote

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Kalalilys

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month already, I guess time flies in paradise? Eh… yeah, sure that’s it. I think we just jumped right back into the day to day (not to mention an IEP month) hustle and bustle and then BAM… suddenly it’s been a month!

Though our blog is about our lives living as parents in an Asperger’s world and eating gluten-free, we would be remiss to not share something so momentous as our wedding, especially because it was something that we planned as a family. The kiddos were as much a part of all the silly plans as Richard and I were, so we want to share it with you. Believe me, it’s something of a fun read… it certainly was something interesting to live through. We are breaking it into two posts, because, well… the reception was TOO much fun to not tell about it too! Plus, I, Kathy worked on a rocking wedding gift for Richard and he worked on well…something big too!

DISCLAIMER

I apologize in advance if I offend you by making fun of things that you have in fact had in your wedding… these are simply things that we do not like because we are odd people and fancy an unusual type of humor, ya see?

I always thought it was somewhat silly when people had those darn cocktail napkins that said “Today I Marry My Best Friend” or jam jars that were labeled “Spread the Love”…. eh, gag. Oh I think the worst was probably a box of mints labeled “Mint to Be.” Wow.

Richard and I definitely were out of the box thinkers when we started talking about our wedding plans and honestly it really had little to do with wedding and more to do with a big party. Sure we knew we had to do the ceremony stuff and some of the traditional things like favors, but we had some big ideas that we wanted to have come to fruition. For the most part I think we really pulled it all together even though close to the end we both were pretty sure it was all going to fall apart.

Richard and I first met when we were in middle school (where I signed his 6th grade yearbook, that lucky dog!) and lived in the same neighborhood throughout our childhoods. We were in the same First Communion class at our Catholic

Church (now both converted Baptists) and attended the same high school. He met his wife in high school, I met my husband during my service in the United States Marine Corps and that’s where things went awry. Everything happens for a reason they say, right? We talk a lot about what things would have been like had we actually started our relationship in high school and not fifteen years later. Would we have been the same people? Of course not. Who knows what it would have been or not been. But at the end of the day we both know that we definitely are supposed to and were always meant to be together. It just took a little longer for us to find each other… the scenic route, if you will.

The things that made us realize that it was always one another were the things we talked about in our all night conversations and even things we still discover about each other. My first car a classic 1969 Ford Fairlane 500, he owned a 1953 Ford F100. We loved the same music and ridiculous humor and best of all got each other’s terrible references to obscure movies and shows.

We were dating for about six months when we started to plan our wedding. It took us (Richard!) a year to get engaged (ahem) and then the actually wedding planning began. The first thing that we knew that we wanted to have was a photo booth and we knew that we wanted our photo booth to be none other than the TARDIS of the famed Doctor Who. We felt this was extremely befitting because 1. we love Doctor Who, not just MacLeod and I, but the kiddos too 2. It is the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. How can that not be a good omen, am I right? Our marriage is bound to last the test of time (And Relative Dimensions in Space….eh?) For a while we just reveled in how awesome that would be.

One day we went to a bbq festival and came across a distillery in our area, they directed us to tours they were just starting. A few days later we toured the facility and met the kindest master distiller known to man, Truman Cox. He said “someday” they were planning on having weddings in the distillery and quoted us a price. I don’t think he planned on entertaining us so soon, but that is when everything came together.

Everything came together, yes…well, it was chaos, and insanity. But that was the start. We had out venue for sure. Two months later, we called the distillery back and talked to Truman and he agreed to rent the space to us, ever so skeptically given the crazy theme of our wedding. See my friends we decided that our wedding was indeed a theme wedding after all. Because MacLeod and I had been through hell and back with our previous marriages, custody issues and continued problems. Before we did the fancy party, the standard walk down the aisle, the cute little “mint for each other” crap. So our theme was “It’s All Been Done Before”, and we would walk down the aisle to THAT track by The Barenaked Ladies.

But that is jumping ahead a bit. Let me back up.

So the theme was “It’s All Been Done Before.” Our guests had lots of warning that this was not a “normal” wedding. We sent out the Save the Date which told them first what to expect a bit and directed them to our Facebook page for additional details if they were Facebook savy. Then the invitation came. The invitation included the actual invitation which on its own was the invite to the event and reception. Then there was a second explanation of our unusual wedding plan which went like this;

Dear friends and loved ones,

As you also probably know, both of us have been through this all before so we decided that we were not going to ever do it all the same again. In doing so, our invitation to be a guest at our wedding requires a little explanation.

Our ceremony will be something of a game, when you arrive you will receive a sheet and a pencil with spaces to fill in your answers. During the ceremony there will be some obvious, some not so obvious reference to movies that we love. You may see a guest or member of the wedding party dressed like a person from a movie or you may hear lines spoken
directly from some amazing flicks. You have to keep your eyes peeled and ears perked as you try to find all the answers to fill your sheet. To help you do this we are including a list of movies you should really consider familiarizing yourself with before the wedding- and don’t be a schmuck, join in!

When you arrive to the reception, your sheets will be collected from your tables and scored up and winners will be chosen! Yes, there will be a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize basket for our insane wedding game.
Is this a strange way to have a wedding? Yes! Will all of you agree with it or participate? Of course not! But “it’s all been done before…” so we are making this exactly the way we want it to be and we hope that you can have as much fun as we will. Then it included the movie list that they were to “study” to be familiar with for the insane wedding game. It definitely was an unconventional way to have a wedding, but we wanted to have a good time, and we did the stuffy church bells already.

So the idea was that our wedding ceremony was to be completely scripted sort of like a movie, Richard, myself, our pastor and some members of the audience or wedding guests had parts to play in this script to make the wedding work. The guests however did not actually know their parts until they arrived because otherwise they would not have been able to participate in the game. We wanted everyone to be able to play the game if they could. So the only people that could not play the game were those who attended the rehearsal.

I created the script, and our pastor was amazing and great to work with. He was hilarious and we talked a lot before the wedding and a lot of it was pretty fluid and easy to sort of ad lib. There were some parts that we talked about before that we wanted to include after the shenanigans. Of course, we wanted to have our ceremony in our church because we wanted to honor our faith and our God, therefore we wanted our pastor to talk about our Holy union and the seriousness about it as well.

The ceremony begun with the guests seating. While the parents were seating a video to the theme music of Star Wars played with a tale of woe of Princess Kathy and Richard Skywalker and their battles to escape their evil captors to find one another and ultimately eternal happiness. It played in a Star Wars crawl… this set the nerd theme of the entire wedding.

When the Star Wars crawl played out the Barenaked Ladies “It’s All Been Done Before” started up, the bridal party started their way to the altar. The final pair in Monty Python style, one with coconuts, ala Patsy and the other galloping “on horseback.” Finally the little ladies with the flowers headed down and then it was time for me and the kiddo, timing was everything so we had to wait for the music to do it and then ….”As you run down the aisle… wooo hooo hooo!!!” And we ran down the aisle, me and my little man, and he gave me away, my dad took my hand and then the ceremony proceeded into the script.

The first prize part, which was my dad’s part that he proudly took was from The Godfather, Richard had to bend down and kiss his big ringed finger, it was hilarious. Then my father handed me over to Richard and took his seat.

This is already a marathon of a blog post so I won’t write the entire ceremony out, but it was a great deal of fun, even the few parts we forgot from the original script, weren’t missed. I think all said and done my favorite part, aside of the best ever last line of a wedding ever and yes, I have to actually write for you my dear friends:

Pastor: “Well…. I’m not great at farewells, so, uh, that’ll do, pig” (Zombieland)

Kathy:”That’s the worst goodbye [we've] ever heard and you stole it from a movie.” (Zombieland)

Richard Kisses Kathy

Kathy and Richard Exit to: Nine Inch Nails, We’re In This Together

Gluten-Free, Casein-free Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas!!!

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Kalalilys

So it’s taken me a little bit to get this last cookie to you. Best for last? Yes.

I also had a wedding to finish planning and… well get married and all. More to come on that I promise! Then it will be back to business as usually, and I hope well much more than that. I have so much exciting things that will be popping up this year! But for right now, let me get back to the business of the Girl Scout Cookie, because we are still, in our house, in GSC high gear.

Since I already had my base cookie (remember the cookie used for the Tagalong here?) for the Samoa I didn’t even need to think about that. But the topping, that was something to think about and I had been. A casein-free caramel-like topping. Back in my professional baking days I had a German chocolate cupcake that I used to topped with a vegan coconut pecan cream topping. So I got to thinking about it and thought that minus the pecans if I did it just right that it might work out nicely for the Samoas. So I got to experimenting with the sauce that I had used which is a base of brown sugar and coconut milk. Rather than boil it together I decided to cook the sugar first like you would cook caramel and that was the secret ticket because viola’! I made caramel sauce completely casein-free and it was absolutely amazing. MacLeod got home and I sampled some to him and he asked me where in the world I got casein-free caramel sauce because he knew I had been looking for some (I had this ice cream thing several weeks back and no safe toppings which made me angry) and I told him that I made it he was shocked!

(Since I have made this caramel sauce, I have been using it an SO many things… it’s my new favorite thing!)

So then there is the final result of course which of course the kiddos need to try, the real critics. Well, they take the cookies in their lunch boxes to school and wave them in their classmates faces very obnoxiously and say “my moooom made these for me!” (I actually saw it one day, had I not had warm fuzzies about it I would have scolded them about it) So I think I have gotten the gold seal of approval from them. Additionally, I have shared them with others who are certified Girl Scout Cookie eaters and they say “omg, these are amazing,” at least that is what it sounds like through the mouthful of cookies.

Gluten-Free, Casein-free Samoas

Shortbread Cookie:

1/2 C Spectrum Shortening

1 1/4 C Gluten-free Flour Blend

1/3 C sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Coconut Caramel Topping:

2 C Organic Raw Coconut

1 C Brown Sugar

3/4 C Coconut Milk

1/4 C rice milk

1 Tbs tapioca flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze:

10 Oz. Gluten-free, Casein-free chocolate

2 Tbs vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Blend together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.

3. In a stand mixer add shortening and sugar and blend on medium-high until creamy. Add extract and egg.

4. 1/2 C at a time, add flour mixture to mixer and blend after addition until all the flour has been added. The dough will begin to lump together which is what you want to happen.

5. Turn the dough back into the medium sized bowl and press it together and work it with your hands a bit just to get a uniform ball.

6. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, even over night is fine.

7. Cut two pieces of parchment paper, place one on your work space. Cut the dough in half (its easiest to work with a portion of the dough at one time)and flatten the dough just slightly and press the second piece of parchment on top of it.

8. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/4″ thick. I actually put a ruler to it to measure this because I wanted to get a really nice thickness for the shortbread. A thin shortbread is too crisp. Try your hardest to keep a uniform thickness in the dough.

9. With a cutter (1.5″ round) cut round circles (OR if you have a cutter with the center cut out )then cut out small circles out of the center of the circles (I used a pastry tip, the bottom opening)and place on parchment paper on a baking sheet.

10. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/4″ thick. I actually put a ruler to it to measure this because I wanted to get a really nice thickness for the shortbread. A thin shortbread is too crisp. Try your hardest to keep a uniform thickness in the dough.

11. Bake for 10-12 mins. at 350 degrees.

12. Allow cookies to cool. Once they are cool from the oven, place the cookies into the freezer.

13. While the cookies are cooling start the sauce. In a small bowl combine the Coconut milk, rice milk and tapioca flour.

14. in a small sauce pan over med-high heat add brown sugar. Heat the brown sugar until it actually melts and starts to bubble. It’s a tricky place because you don’t want to burn it, but want to slightly caramelize it. So let it just start to boil.

15. Once the bubbling starts, add the milk and tapioca mixture and reduce the heat immediately to a simmer. Continue to stir vigorously until the temperature comes down and the boiling stops.

16. Heat a skillet to medium-high heat. Add the coconut and sauté it until you just start to smell the coconut and see it slightly browned. Remove it quickly so it doesn’t burn.

17. Add vanilla and the coconut to the sauce and let it sit to cool.

18. Once the coconut topping has completely cooled removed frozen samoa bases from the freezer about 4 at a time.

19. Fill your icing bag, fit with a Ateco #806 tip or something comparable (in a pinch a Ziploc Freezer bag with a corner cut off can work) with the coconut filling.

20. Pipe the filling around the edge of the cookie one at a time. After each filling has been added, replace the cookie to the freezer to set.

21. In a bowl, melt your coating chocolate at 30 second intervals being careful not to burn the chocolate. Add the oil to make the mixture viscous.

22. Once all the cookies are frozen (this is really important or your topping is going to just fall into your glazing chocolate) pull out about four cookies at a time.

23. With a dipping device (they sell these do-dads in culinary stores… I just use a carving fork, as you can see) dip the cookie into the coating chocolate by simply placing it on top of the chocolate and lifting it out and letting it drip.

24. Place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with all the cookies until they are all done.

25. With a smaller icing bag, or again, Ziploc bag with the corner cut, drizzle some of the remaining chocolate across the cookies.

26. Place the cookies in the refrigerator to set for about an hour.

27. Enjoy!

Gluten-free and Casein-free Girl Scout Cookies: Tagalongs!

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Kalalilys

Holy Virginian Peanuts Batman!

Ok… maybe that sounded better in my head than it actually looks on paper, but man do I love myself some peanuts and wouldn’t ya know if Virginia, my home state, is known for peanuts. MacLeod on the other hand, though he loves peanuts like no other is always wary because his nephew has a deathly peanut allergy. So we tend to keep peanuts close to the cuff, not something we actually keep in the pantry all too often. But when you talk Girl Scout Cookies, you got to talk about Tagalongs.

I knew going into it that with this cookie the challenge was going to be the “shortbread” or “butter” cookie part of it. Additionally I knew that it was going to be the base for my final cookie as well, the Samoa, so I had to get it right. My friends, there are literally hundreds of recipes for these “shortbread” cookies on the interwebs out there and I tried TWELVE of them. I kid you not, I tried TWELVE. What was that you ask? Did the first few turn out like rocks? Indeed they did. Were some of them not even edible? Nope they certainly were not. Oh yes, indeed the gluten-free flours are expensive all get out! UGH! But I was on a mission I needed to get these darn cookies right. To my surprise I did manage to come up with one batch of cookies that I have slotted into my cookie recipe bank as “Danish ‘butter’ Cookies”… you know those ones that come in those blue tins with the coarse sugar on them?? OH so GOOD! Yes, I made some that taste just like that, but not shortbread.

Anyway, thirteenth time’s a charm and I finally got my crumbly delicious shortbread cookie that I wanted. And they were ah-mazing, biting into them you would never be able to tell that these cookies were absent of any butter, its craziness! From there it was all about chilling, cutting and assembly.

Shortbread Cookie:

1/2 C Spectrum Shortening

1 1/4 C Gluten-free Flour Blend

1/3 C sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Peanut Butter Filling:

2 C Natural Creamy Peanut Butter

3/4 C confectioners sugar (this is to thicken and sweeten, if you want to forgo the sweetener all together)

Glaze:

10 oz. Casein-free Chocolate chips

2 Tbs vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Blend together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.

3. In a stand mixer add shortening and sugar and blend on medium-high until creamy. Add extract and egg.

4. 1/2 C at a time, add flour mixture to mixer and blend after addition until all the flour has been added. The dough will begin to lump together which is what you want to happen.

5. Turn the dough back into the medium sized bowl and press it together and work it with your hands a bit just to get a uniform ball. It may be a little sticky, that is fine when it is chilled it will come together.

6. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, even over night is fine.

7. Cut two pieces of parchment paper, place one on your work space. Cut the dough in quarters(its easiest to work with a portion of the dough at one time)and flatten the dough just slightly and press the second piece of parchment on top of it.

9. With a cutter (1.5″ round) cut round circles and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

10. Bake for 10-12 mins. at 350 degrees. As soon as you pull the cookies out of the oven with a spoon or ladle (as I used) push a small indentation into the cookie to create a little more of a space for your peanut butter filling.

11. While the cookies are cooling, combine the peanut butter and sugar and blend vigorously, you can do it in a stand mixer, but by fork does just fine, just be sure to blend it well enough to get all the lumps out and get a smooth consistency. When you first add the sugar it will lump together but as you continue to break it back up and mix it will thin back out and become smooth again.

12. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large round tip (a Ateco 802 or similar) OR you can use a freezer bag with the corner cut off with an ok result as well. (the piping bag is just a little neater and cleaner, but improvisation works and makes for a budget friendly kitchen!) With bag filled, hold bag upright over cookies, and squeeze enough peanut butter to spread to the edge of the cookie. With on offset spatula or knife, spread the peanut butter to the edge of the cookie. If you don’t like how the shape of the peanut butter looks (because that is what the shape is going to look like after they are chocolate coated) you can reshape a little after they are refrigerated).

13. Repeat with each cookie and place completed sheet of peanut buttered cookies in freezer (the freezer, kids, is a must. When these peanut butter cookies get dipped in the hot chocolate they NEED to be cold, do not skip this step) for at least 30 minutes.

14. Towards the end of the chilling, melt your coating chocolate at 30 second intervals being careful not to burn the chocolate.

15. If you want to reshape any peanut butter mounts, do so now or forever hold your peace. I am a perfectionist and can’t help but reshape them.

Before the After the Chilling Chilling

(and

reshaping!)

16. When the cookies have chilled, using a fork place the cookies in the chocolate and immerse them in the chocolate then with the top of the cookie facing up, scoop the fork under the cookie and gently tap the cookie’s side at the edge of the bowl to let any extra chocolate drip off.

17. Place cookies onto a parchment lines cookie sheet to set. Once all the cookies are on the sheet, refrigerate to help set the chocolate.

18. (Again.. unnecessary step, but I do it for looks)If you want the looks to look nice, you can simply take a paring knife to the edge to cut off any excess chocolate that puddle when you placed them after the chocolate dredge. But it’s up to you, the taste great just the same!

19. Add a moderate amount of milk… or in my case a dairy-free substitute and enjoy!