Here we come, walking down the street*

Maya's figured out that Parker gets walked on a leash, and now she wants to be the one holding it.  So I devised a 2 leash system that lets her "walk" him from the stroller, but lets me be in charge (just a little sprinkle of uncommon sense) . . . poor Parker is slightly confused about where to walk, but he's figuring it out. 

Here's what it looks like:





I feel a little bit like I'm operating a sled dog team with the stroller in one hand and the leash sticking wayyyyy out in front of me with Parker walking near the front of the stroller . . . I can't imagine what people are thinking as we walk towards them on the sidewalk.  But if Maya can't see where Parker is, she keeps twisting around in the stroller . . . and I'm trying to introduce the phrase "With Maya" to tell Parker when to heel to her.

*If you watch the video closely, you'll also get a glimpse of my fun new puffy magenta coat, and one of the new Starbucks cups in action.)

**Tomorrow December arrives, the most fun month of all.  Stay tuned for a walk down Holiday Card memory lane, starting with Maya's first holiday card (2008).
***If you see an empty space with a play button, just click it and the video will appear.

****If you took the time to read all of these stars, you get 7 points. 

Beauty is in the details . . .

My cleaning out has sputtered a bit this week . . . the apples that took over the kitchen clamored to be cooking into applesauce and apple bread (recipes to follow), the fridge is nearly overflowing with CSA veggies to be processed and enjoyed.  I only have a few free hours when Maya is napping, and they've gotten eaten up by more routine chores. 

But as we clean out, we are taking the time to make small upgrades, too.  Why wait?  There's no point in putting off fun little adjustments that make such a nice difference. (Speaking of upgrades---did you see my fun new clogs on the Facebook page?  When you get rid of old, broken shoes, you get new fun ones!)

I hung a bulletin board (that I've been intending to hang since we moved here . . . 2.5 yrs ago), but it looked too school-bulletin-boardish, so I gave it a quick sloppy coat of plum/wine colored paint . . . much nicer.  A free, tiny adjustment that makes me smile when I walk by it:

I've been trying to find a home for my glass vases (previously they were in a kitchen cabinet, but I want to free that space for more pantry stuff).   Finally, I decided to home some of them on the bookcases in our living room (we have three, with glass doors----two in a media center, one as part of a hutch).  At the craft store this afternoon I scored some pumpkins, gourds & pincones, which fill the cases are create a nice autumn touch---the hutch is done, now I'll have to figure out how to arrange the others. 


Doors open:                                                                      Doors closed:

I'm excited to swap these out with other seasonal stuff----my mom always has nice seasonal decorations . . . it just makes every time of year feel special  :)  And since these displays will all be behind glass doors, they will stay simple and out of the way.  No clutter!

In other news, Parker's therapy dog classes start tomorrow night (and I'm nervous!).  He's definitely been practicing here at home . . . his patience and obedience are tested daily by little Maya, who now like to give him hugs and kisses:

Maya: I love you, Pa-pa!  Mwahhh!

Parker: Oh brother.                         

Seriously, though, their relationship is so cute.  I need to get some videos and pictures to show off here----he runs to her with his little tail stump wagging and licks her ears and head and she giggle, giggle, giggles.  She yells "Ma ma!" (which is how she says Pa-pa, her best attempt at Parker) and he's learning to come running when he hears it (again, more giggles).  We don't know if we'll ever fully use him in a service dog capacity (who knows what Maya will need in the long run), but he's certainly her therapy dog, 100% of the time.  He's been everything that we were hoping for :)

Clean, Play, Cook

1.  Operation Clean House is still in full effect here.  We just cleaned out the top shelves in the closet, which consisted of: unwearable old clothes, clothes with tags still on them, framed pictures that hung on the wall of our old apartment (yes, about 3.5 years ago).   Oh, and three bottles of colognes---different ones.  So we sprayed all of them to see if any smelled good (FYI, not the best idea to spray 3 bottles of men's cologne in an unventilated closet). 

2.  Here's a taste of our morning:  Maya, Parker & I hit the playground for a bit.  It's getting easier to manage both of them on my own at the playground, now that Parker is older and more obedient.  We have to adjust ( or avoid) depending on how crowded it is, but today he just hung out on the side while Maya climbed around.  He'll watch birds, and kids running by, without moving at all---but when people approach him or talk directly to him he'll get up to say hi---we're working on that.

3.  We finally got some ground beef---for the first time in months.  This ground beef is fresh (well, frozen, but whatever) from Lewis Waite Farm, a local farm that raises grass fed, grass finished beef.  It's certainly pricier than regular ground beef, but it looks better and smells better (like a LOT better) and is better for us.  And supports local (and responsible) agriculture, cuts down on fuel for transporting food cross country, etc. etc.  (If you're into food stuff/local stuff, some good reads are Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, or anything by Michael Pollan.  Or you could take the easier route and watch Food, Inc.  Everyone who buys or eats food should really check out that movie.)

Anyway, the ground beef pictured above was turned into meatloaves, which were cooked & frozen in slices.  (And although I find the name "meatloaf" kind of digusting, I swear it's really good.)  That's a whole bunch of easy lunches/dinners.  And I have a great meatloaf recipe----I think it came from Gourmet magazine . . . but I cheated with a few things (we don't need ground veal, so I just do ground beef for the full meat amount), so it's "Almost Gourmet" Meatloaf:

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground beef (or whatever meat or blend of meats you want)
1/4 cup minced green pepper
3/4 cup minced onion
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
2 tbl horseradish
1 tsp dijon mustard (or whatever mustard you have)
ketchup
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
2 cups fresh breadcrumbs (or whatever breadcrumbs you have in a can)
2.5 tsp salt
pepper
4 slices bacon (uncooked.  I like to chop up a few more slices of bacon and add them into the mixture, too)

Instructions: Combine everything except for the bacon slices.  Knead it all together.  Put it into a greased loaf pan and lay the bacon slices on top.  Then coat the top with a thin layer of ketchup (on top of the bacon and the whole thing).  Bake at 400 for 50 minutes, let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Freezing: After it's totally cooled off (like in the refrigerator for a few hours), slice into, well, slices.  I freeze the slices flat, then load them into a gallon sized ziploc bag after they're frozen. 

Eating: A dinner would be 1 slice of meatloaf, plus potatoes and 2 types of vegetables---so one meatloaf can really last for a lot of meals.  It makes an easy lunch too.

Parker has an evaluation tomorrow!

I'm beat and don't have much of an update in me . . . but my mom now has a working laptop in the hospital, and I don't want to hear any crap from her about not updating, so here you go: (Love you, mom!  Keep feeling better :) )


Tomorrow afternoon at 1:45 (send us good vibes) Parker & I will be meeting with a dog trainer for a large therapy dog organization in the greater NYC area :) 

His temperament & basic obedience will be evaluated to see if he would make a good therapy dog, and if we're a good team. (I think we are.)  If he passes we'll find out about attending the therapy dog classes, and what the therapy dog commitment would be (if seems like it will be an hour per month of volunteer work). 

We took him to IKEA with us today, here are 2 pictures:

Happy Father's Day!

To all the dads out there (including my own--Happy Father's Day, Dad!) Happy Father's Day!  Dave got cards this morning from Maya & Parker, and we celebrated with a ridiculous shopping trip.  For $2.16, we got all of this stuff (at the Container Store, Williams & Sonoma, Athlete's foot, and Gymboree).  Woo hoo!  (We had "free dollars", a gift card, and 2 exchanges.)  It was awesome.

(that's a pink toddler chair, 2 storage containers, one pair of Crocs, a t-shirt from Gymboree, and a Calphalon 10" pan)

It was also Parker's first trip to the Container Store, and the mall.  Earlier this week I summoned my best "fake it til you make it" courage and took him in to the bank and the post office here in the neighborhood.  Although the lady at the post office initially jumped off her stool to call out "Ma'am, ma'am, you need to get that dog out.  There are no dogs in here!"  I calmly replied "He's a service animal.  He has his vest on."  (Legally, the dog isn't even required to wear a vest, but it certainly helps make things easier) And she quickly said "Oh, I'm so sorry.  How can I help you?" 

(it says "Service Dog in Training")

The mall was pretty similar.  A security guard, trailed by the head of security (both with walkie talkies) were on us after we were in the mall for about 1.5 minutes.  They asked me to remove the dog, but after I explained and they saw the vest they pleasantly left (and they must have radio'd out to everyone else, because no other security spoke to us).  At Williams & Sonoma we went through it again.  We also got many interested looks, and served as quite the conversation starter for the people we walked by. 

Parker was a champ.  He was nervous and wanted to walk slowly, but some gentle reminder tugs got him to keep pace.  He did fine in all of the stores, and even the food court.

I'm having a hard time not feeling like a total imposter when we bring him out.  Since we've only done this twice, I'm assuming that I'll get used to it eventually.  My philosophical issue with it boils down to this:  He's not really helping us yet.  He's not "serving" or "working" when we're at the mall.  And I'm still not sure what needs/functions he will be trained to help Maya with, since we don't know what the scope of her delays/disabilities will be. 

However, if we don't start acclimating him to these situations early, then it will become much more difficult to do as time passes.  And since we want him to pass the public access test, he needs exposure and habituation to as many scenarios as possible.  While shopping today, he had his first exposures to: shopping carts, racks of clothes, smells of stores (think of all of the smells at the mall!), a parking garage, smells/sounds of a food court, iron food court chairs shaking and sliding on the ground, waiting in checkout lines, walking past walls of glass windows where he kept seeing our reflection, echos, larger elevators, etc.  There's no way that I can mimic that without bringing him out. 

I think I'll feel better about it when we start working on more service-y things.  Soon, hopefully.  Obedience stuff is progressing really well.  Tomorrow he's going to his first bbq (thanks for welcoming him, Sarita!) :)

To finish this off, a salute to Dave.  A fantastic dad, who loves to spend time with Miss Maya, and does the not-so-fun stuff (like diaper changes and difficult feedings) with the same enthusiasm that he does the fun stuff (like swimming, tickling, and making up silly songs).  He's the best.  Even though sometimes he doesn't know his own strength: