I hereby declare tomorrow Pajama Day. We will not be attending soccer, we will not be scheduling a playdate, we are going to be one with our jammies and couch. Or floor. Or bed. Or whatever somewhat comfortable surface strikes our fancy.

Hopefully this will pull us all out of the funk that has enveloped our lives the past few days. Or else it will lead to an emergency outing post-nap to restore us to our regularly scheduled life. Tune in tomorrow to see…

(And B, if you need to drop E on the way to ballet feel free, just be forewarned that he will have to bring jammies to fit in with the cool kids.)

When asked on the Today Show this morning why Internet video clips like this one gain popularity so quickly, an “expert” (on what I am not sure) said, “The average American worker can only spend so many hours a day playing solitaire, on-line poker and Scrabble. They need something else to fill up their day.” Did anyone else pick up on what is glaringly wrong with this statement?

SCRABBLE? You’re telling me that the average American worker is playing SCRABBLE as part of their daily time-wasting routines? Obviously the times have changed since I was in the workforce. If folks are playing Scrabble at work perhaps I should think seriously about returning to an office. Hey, had I known Scrabble was an option, I may never have left.

It’s raining yet again here, a nice windy, driving rain. What does General (our not so smart cat) decide to do? Bolt outside when M leaves for work. Then cower under the car howling at the top of his lungs.

C: “Mommy….General is sad.”

Mommy: “Yep, I bet he is. It’s raining and he’s outside.”

C: “Maybe he wants you to go get him.”

Mommy: “Yep, I bet he does.” Long pause, uncomfortable silence.

C: “Are you going to get him?”

Mommy: “Nope. Are you?”

C: “I might get wet.”

Mommy: “Exactly.”

General: “AWRRAGGG. AWRRAGGG.”

Mommy: “Dumb cat. Where’s the umbrella.”

C: “In the car.”

Mommy: “Dumb cat.”

After General had been retrieved, dried off, and fed a nice meal, what did he decide he wanted to do? Go outside again.

General: “AWRRAGGG. AWRRAGGG.” Expectant look.

C: “General, Mommy doesn’t make the same mistake twice. If you go out there you’re on your own.”

It’s scary to here your sayings come out of your children’s mouths. And no, Mommy didn’t make the same mistake twice. General is still prowling from door to door hoping that one of them is the door to summer. If only he could walk through walls.

Karaoke on Demand. Who knew. A good hour of entertainment for everyone. C and A got to dance around watching Mommy make a fool out of herself, and I got validation that yes, indeed, I made the right choice in never agreeing to do this in public.

I’ve noticed that a fair number of people stumble upon my blog looking for information on apraxia. I stopped blogging for a while after my post on C’s diagnosis, which probably leaves you all rather curious to see what the rest of the story was. I feel badly that there isn’t more coverage of the whole saga on here, so I thought I would give a cliff notes version for those of you interested in the topic.

After C was diagnosed with apraxia of speech, which is I believe where I last left off, we quickly entered into the world of speech therapy. We lucked into an amazing therapist, who while not my particular cup of tea personality-wise, turned out to be an amazing woman who accomplished more in two months than we as parents had been able to do in several months of hard work. Let that be lesson number one, even if you don’t believe therapy will make a difference (I didn’t), it will. A sub-set to that lesson, make sure you find a therapist who knows what he or she is doing. I’ve run across many people who have not had as good an experience with their therapists, and from what I can tell, it becomes very clear very early on as to whether the relationship is going to work out or not.

We saw S twice a week for about seven months, and got pages upon pages of homework after each session. Lesson number two is: do the homework. The weeks we didn’t because life got in the way, it showed. She did a whole range of different exercises with him, many of them picture based. We worked on one letter at a time, starting with “b” and moving in a seemingly random pattern that was actually based on the sounds he was able to make that she could pick up on but we could not. She also worked on teaching him ways to make sounds based on the tongue movements he could and couldn’t do, which, while not the correct way to make them, made him more intelligible to outsiders.

After the first couple of months she began working with him on trying to get his tongue to make a full range of motion. When we started the process, he could only move his tongue in and out of his mouth. He couldn’t touch the roof of his mouth or either cheek. As of right now he can touch the roof of his mouth and the right side, but not the left. This was probably the hardest part of the process for C as he got so frustrated that he couldn’t do what she wanted him to do. There were many tears on the way back from her office.

In August, seven months after starting therapy, she retested him and he came in at an age appropriate level and she advised us to give him a break for a bit and to come back when he turns four to get tested again. Based on where he is now I’m guessing that we will end up going back into therapy, but the improvement that has been made to date has been truly astounding. Because he made progress so fast, we were skeptical of his diagnosis, and at our last session with S we asked if she was holding to her original diagnosis. She said yes, but she felt it was a much milder case than she had originally estimated. The inital treatment plan had called for two plus years of therapy, and we were able to “catch up” in under a year. For which we were very grateful.

So there you go, while I imagine this is not the type of information you were looking for when you came here, I hope it helps a bit. If you have additional questions or want to get the unabridged version, feel free to email me

In reality, there is not much else to tell about last night’s escapades. The answering service at our pediatrician’s office left a lot to be desired (it took them an hour + to get back to us, at which point we were already in the ER), the local pediatric ER was lovely (and we were in and out in less time than it took the pediatrician’s office to call us back), and C didn’t shed a tear during the whole procedure.

As a result of his tearless visit and normal boyish charm, he was showered with hugs, stickers, treats, and toys by the nurses and doctors. Meaning that the take-away from this whole experience as expressed on the way home was:

“I like the hospital. I think we should go see the doctors there more often. They’re almost as nice as Dr. S. She’s got a better waiting room though.”

While perhaps not the take-away I would have chosen, I suppose it beats developing the deep-rooted fear of doctors and needles that I have.

We just got back from our first trip to the ER with C. As he jumped with glee when it was announced that ravioli was now available on the kitchen table, he also took a flying leap off of the stool on which he was standing to inspect the bread offerings, and landed chin first on the open kitchen drawer.

I will recount the details later as my sushi just arrived and after watching my son be stitched up by a woman much younger than myself (have I mentioned that I generally faint at the sight of blood???), I seemed to have developed a need for much food and wine.

So during the blissful two hours that my children were out of the house this morning (C at school and A at Mother’s Morning Out, which is, I suppose, glorified group babysitting but we like to call it pre-pre-school around here) I communed with my kitchen.

The results are as follows:

One loaf of rosemary olive bread, courtesy of Rebecca’s breadmaker;

Pumpkin tarts, thanks to Phantom Scribbler’s crust recipe;

and Elegant Beef Stew, thanks to my crockpot.

Thanks to everyone who caused my mother to remark upon her entrance to my home that something smelled good. Now if only it tastes as good as it smelled….

My mother swoops in today on the train from Boston. The arrival of “Nana” is always the cause of much activity in the house. M tries to finish up all the little projects whose lack of completion might reflect poorly on him. I take several trips to the grocery store to stock up on food and then cook and bake bread so there is a plethora of dining options. C collects items which he believes will please her and stores them in zip lock bags on the dining room table. A runs happily around the house calling “Nana, Nana, Nana” at the top of her lungs, a little unclear on what the excitement is all about but quite sure that it is reason to scream.

The various activities associated with this trip have included:

The repainting of the downstairs bath for the fourth time;
The removal of the beer making equipment from the kitchen;
The weeding and cleaning of the flower beds (along with a mistaken chopping down of the lilac bush in the name of aggressive pruning);
The washing of the futon covers to erase all signs that the kids colored somewhere other than the kitchen table;
The making of three loaves of whole wheat and multi-grain bread, one vat of Cider House Lamb Stew, one pot of Elegant Beef Stew and two spinach and cheddar cheese quiches; and
The collection of one can of diced tomatoes (no-salt added), two silver forks (unpolished), three black crayons (unsharpened), and assorted stickers (used)

I’ll leave it to your imaginations to decide which activities belong to which individual.