How a kid's passion can fuel education

So, Star Wars has captured Brady's imagination more than anything I can remember for a long time, maybe ever.

I have mentioned previously that drawing is not Brady's favorite thing. But he drew this during church. It is the scene when the Emperor is shooting lightning at Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader turns to the good side right in that moment and saves him.

Wow, maybe that's a good thought for church. I like that he is showing emotion in the faces and even wrote a word!

He is using Star Wars in his drawings at school and in sentences. It is motivating him to do these things he's not crazy over.

He told me this the other night after taking a LOOONNNGGGG time to brush his teeth:

"I'm sorry. I got distracted and was pretending that the toothbrush was C3PO and the lid to the toothpaste was R2D2."

And here he is with a Giant Lego Star Destroyer he made chasing a Mini Lego Millennium Falcon. The top part of the destroyer is the command deck!

I am starting to realize his passion for this one thing - and who can resist an epic space battle of good vs. evil - can transform how he looks at things he doesn't even like, like drawing or reading or writing (he'd be happy if school was all math and recess).

Next up in this saga: I'm going to order those old Star Wars books I used to read and we'll read them together. If he sees that there are exciting things to read in the world, he just may change his opinion about it. 

What inspires your children? What passions do they have that could fuel their education and learning?

Success! Egg-free pumpkin pie

My success story!

So, as I've said before, Brady is HUGELY allergic to eggs. This can at times make for some challenging cooking.

There are a variety of egg substitutes, from mashed banana, potato and pumpkin, to corn starch, applesauce and oil. Different ones work better for different recipes.

Last year, I made pumpkin pie with applesauce instead of egg. Below is the resulting pumpkin-pudding-in-a-crust: 

My epic pumpkin pie fail!

For Labor Day, I tried again using the one pumpkin I successfully grew in my garden and combined a Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie recipe and this egg-free, milk-free recipe from Kids with Food Allergies website.

And here's how it turned out:

It was beautiful and stood up perky and proud. Everyone raved about it and said it was the best pumpkin pie they'd ever eaten. I'd have to agree. It was really good, nice consistency, great flavor, nobody would know it didn't have egg.

And here is the combined recipe:

Egg-free pumpkin pie

2 cups canned pumpkin (2 cups fresh and mashed in my case)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1-1/2 cups evaporated milk
6-1/2 Tbsp corn starch

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients. Cook over medium heat until the mixture begins to thicken, stirring constantly. Pour into pie crust. Bake 30 minutes or until firm. Cool on wire rack.

It's important, I think, to watch it close and bake longer if it needs it, or increase or decrease the temperature. The Libby's recipe says bake at 425 for 15 minutes and then reduce to 250 for 40 to 50 minutes. But the corn starch one has already been cooked some on the stove and doesn't have the same requirements.

It takes a little while to make sure it is baked properly, but if you have an egg allergy, it is so worth it.

When natures trusts you

Sorry about the picture quality. I have an ANCIENT phone.

But nature amazes me. It's so unpredictable. And this little guy chose to trust me. I put out my finger and he hopped on.

We shared time and space for about 2 minutes. Isn't he adorable? Look at his delicate antenna and his little feeder. He kept probing the tip of my finger to figure out what I was.

To be trusted by a fragile creature is a gift.

Rice krispie treats & free book? Double score!

I made a glorious discovery the other day. If your family likes rice krispie treats like mine does (my boys get very mopey if we run out) you can both have a treat AND get a free book.

I signed up for one already and am ordering another today.

These are on the 18-count boxes and maybe other Kelloggs products as well. You buy the box, then go to Kelloggs and enter a special code from inside the box.

I've ordered Finding the Titanic and April Fool's Surprise. They say it takes 4 to 6 weeks to get them.

Treats and a free book? Double score!

Small-town Tuesday: Afternoon bike ride

This is the first in a new series here, called:

Small-Town Tuesdays

It's my goal to include little slices of life from our less-than-1000-person town. Things are different here. Life is slower. It's quirky.

It's a unique lifestyle and I'd like to share it.

I'd also like to invite anyone living in a small town to share their own stories for future installments, either by leaving a comment here or leaving a post or message on the Facebook page.

Here's the first installment.

We ride our bikes through town a lot. Some weeks every day. And we never know who we'll see.

Most times we hit our garden down at my father-in-law's old home place, then the park, sometimes get a pop on Main Street, sometimes down to the river, and usually end up going to see my mother-in-law at the other end of town.

Mostly recently, we encountered some 4th-grade school friends, both of which Brady met his very first night in this town 2 years ago. That day the girl had said some not-so-nice things about the boy.

Brady on this recent night: "Wow, I didn't know you guys were FRIENDS!"

The boy: "We're not!"

The girl: "He's going to put that frog in the storm drain!"

Boy holds up the frog in his hand, mere feet from the drain! ACK! Swift intervention was needed! 

Me: "Oh honey, please don't do that. It'll die down there. It can't get out. It's one of God's creatures too, you know (he goes to our church, I thought that might help). Why don't you go put him in that ditch over there. I'll bet he'd love that."

That seemed to work as they headed off to the ditch.

No sooner did we break off from them, we ran into Brady's sitter's brother, also in 4th grade. Brady and this kid act like brothers themselves sometimes and argue. Then they usually make up by swapping their gaming devices, a Kindle for a DS. So boy, isn't it?

The kiddo rode up to us on his bike.

Me: "What are you up to tonight?"

Him, very serious: "I just finished my homework and I had to ride off all of that brain stuff."

As we ride away, Brady: "You know, he's WAY different at school than at home. At school he's very serious and stern. At home, he's just crazy!"

Ha! 

How strangers see special needs kids

Two stories about special needs kids have touched my heart lately. One is awful and broke my heart. The other is beautiful and gave me hope.

The first probably most people heard about, the bitter hateful letter to a Canadian grandmother of an autistic boy. The anonymous letter basically said the child was useless because he wasn't "normal." You can find the text of that letter here.

The second I heard on K-love Christian radio station the other day and it made me tear up as I drove. An anonymous stranger paid for the meal of a North Carolina family whose 8-year-old was having an enormous meltdown in the middle of a restaurant.

The person couldn't possibly have known, but the boy has a severe form of epilepsy and cannot communicate verbally and sometimes the frustration is just too much for him and he melts down. The mother has been told she shouldn't take him in public, but if you have ever had a kid who was "different" or if you know someone who does, then you know sometimes the family desperately wants to do what everyone else does and feel just a little bit normal.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. On this day, for this family, it didn't and a kind, wonderful, beautiful soul paid for their meal and wrote this message:

"God only gives special children to special people." 

It's the most wonderful pay-it-forward I've ever heard.

This is the sad dichotomy of our society. Love and beauty and kindness, next to hate, fear and imagined superiority. One family was beat down, the other built up.

How can they both exist at the same time in our world?

I will keep these stories in mind when I'm out in the world and encounter something unusual. I will remember that I shouldn't assume anything or take anything for granted; that I can't know the challenges of someone else's life; that I should seek to build up, not tear down; that I should practice understanding and graciousness because Lord knows I need it in return. 

Funny things Brady does ... sneaking Star Wars

As I mentioned last week, Brady isn't allowed to talk about Star Wars during lessons at school. But you can see above that he found a way to sneak it in.

This was an exercise on exclamations! First sentence is Super Mario related: "I got a power star!" and the second is: "We destroyed the Death Star!"

Sigh. That little guy.

Try something new Thursday: butternut squash

Because of so many years living with an undiagnosed egg allergy which basically induced nausea or vomiting, my kiddo is understandably picky.

In many ways, this is not bad. He is such a healthy eater. He likes whole food: meats, dairy, whole grain breads, potatoes, fruits and veggies. He wants to KNOW what he's eating without a lot of stuff mixed together.

His preferred sweets are straight chocolate, rice krispie treats, jello and pudding. Not the worst of the worst.

However, trying new foods is also crucial to a healthy relationship with food and eating.

To minimize fusses during the week, we have a scheduled new-thing day. And that is Try Something New Thursday.

This week it was butternut squash, the only one that actually survived my garden this year though four more big ones are now growing. Below is the recipe.

He liked it so much that, I kid you not, after he tried it, he put his hands together and said, "Dear God, please let the rest of the squashes make it."

Told me it was "DEE-liscious!" Here goes:

This recipe comes from here, though I make a few changes to it, the most major being butternut instead of acorn squash. Adjust the measurements based on how many squashes you have.

Honey Spice Butternut Squash

1 medium to large butternut squash
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
(recipe calls for ginger, but I did not use it)

In a bowl, combine honey, butter, salt and cinnamon. Cut squash in half, discard seeds. Fill the bowl end of the squash with the mixture. Take a knife and cut several holes in the long part of the squash and brush some of the mixture of it, allowing it to seep in.

Place in a greased baking pan. Cover (I used foil) and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour or until squash is tender. Uncover, bake 10 minutes longer. While baking, periodically lift the foil and brush the mixture from the bowl part across the long part of the squash again.

The squash will be so tender you can just scoop it out with a spoon. It's almost like eating pumpkin pie, yum, yum, yum.

Frugal tip: watch for super berry sales

Isn't that a beautiful bowl full of raspberries?

Since I've started shopping frugally, I check four grocery ads without fail every week - two local stores, Aldi and Dillons.

In this case, only two weeks after they had blueberries on sale for 99 cents a carton, Dillons had raspberries - normally $2.99 per carton - on sale for 99 cents. I bought four.

I savored them on top of my fake granola sundae. I ate them raw. They would have been great in a dessert or in yogurt. I should have bought more and frozen them (D'oh!).

So keep your eyes open for a good-for-you treat that is suddenly a little more affordable, stock up and enjoy.

A marriage: Then and now

What a difference 20 years makes, though not as much as I might have thought back when I was 20 and 40 seemed ANCIENT. And for the record, between the first photo and second photo, we spent 16 years apart, in different states. Broke up at age 23 and reunited at age 39 :)

20-ish and thought we knew it all.

40-ish and finally sure that we don't.