Ingredients- 2-3 large potatoes
- 1 egg
- salt and pepper to taste
- a bit of flour
- (optional) cheddar or mozzarella cheese, grated
Directions- Peel potatoes and grate with a fairly fine grater.Drain off excess moisture.
- Add egg, salt, pepper, a bit of flour and (if desired) grated cheese.
- Heat a bit of oil in a heavy skillet. Drop in a heaping tablespoonful and flatten with the back of the spoon. Fry until golden on both sides.
Back at the beginning of the second week of February, the kids and I discovered that there were
– four days of school
– then four days of long weekend
– then four days of school
– then four days until Laolao and Laoye would arrive
– and then four days until March.
The fourth four has now been accomplished. Laolao and Laoye flew into town late yesterday afternoon.
Now just the four days until March remain.
If only I could be sure that meant that spring was, like, just around the corner. But last year we had almost one metre of snow in the first eight days of March. Let’s hope history does not repeat itself. Still, it’s a step closer!
Mother’s instincts triumph again…
This morning I saw the psychologist who has been doing Mustang’s psycho-educational assessment, to review his findings. They show that, indeed, Mustang has a learning disability. She assesses very high (high average to significantly above average) in three areas of intellectual capacity, and very significantly below average in “working memory.” This type of inconsistency, coupled with lower-than-expected achievement in terms of school performance (and the lack of any other explanation, such as illness, depression, home environment factors, etc), is the hallmark of a learning disability.
Thankfully, the school has been proactive and has already started to take measures to address her learning issues. The psychologist will be making several recommendations that should have the effect, if followed, of reinforcing and extending the type of services available to Mustang through the school system. It may take until the end of this school year to get everything in place, but this will lay the foundation for continuing support and instructional modifications for future years.
I’ve known since early Grade 1 that things just weren’t clicking like they should. Now it’s official.
This past weekend, it was Mustang’s turn to be sick again, this time with flu. High fever, chills, fatigue (thankfully no vomiting). We had a quiet Saturday at home.
Button stayed home from skiing lesson as he developed a sore foot, the cure for which would have been for me to stay at the ski chalet as usual to “watch” him and our companion skier friend instead of dropping them off and coming back home to be with Mustang. As I wasn’t willing to leave Mustang with Nanny all day (on Nanny’s regular day off), his sore foot remained incurable and prevented him from having an active and fun outdoor day.
We listened to books on CD, read stories, watched a short movie, and did lots of puzzles. The latter were mostly done by Button and me as Mustang didn’t even have energy for much puzzling. She mostly lay on the sofa and listened to the stories on CD. We finished off Magic Tree House book #16, Hour of the Olympics, then listened to CS Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, and even started on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I called various church people to trade off Sunday School teaching duties and to apologize in advance for Mustang missing her choir’s performance of a song in the church service.
As it turned out, by Sunday morning the fever had broken and Mustang had a lot more energy, but we still stayed home to have a restful day to stave off a relapse and gather energy for school. Finished listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, watched another movie, did more puzzles… In the afternoon we made a short excursion to Scholar’s Choice to buy a few more puzzles – we’d done every single one in the house, save one, and the kids wanted more. I happened to know the store had a buy-2-get-1-free sale on Ravensburger puzzles, and with the kids’ saved allowance money they’d have enough to each make a purchase (and I snuck in the free one for a later occasion). So we nipped over and they each chose, not the unicorn puzzles they’d started out saying they wanted, but some other lovely pictures from the 300-piece puzzle selection.
Got home, dumped them out on the table, and set to work.
As the 300-piece puzzles are labelled as for age 9+, I’d steered Button (age almost-6) towards one that I figured would among the easier of the lot (dolphins jumping out of ocean against sunset sky), with lots of colour in distinct bands and a nice, clear picture with easy-to-distinguish detail. He set to with gusto, refusing all offers of help, and in about two hours managed to complete about half the puzzle all on his own. The picture chosen by Mustang (age almost-9), while very cute (Mommy giraffe “kissing” baby giraffe, with several other giraffes, against a savannah background), was harder as there were really only three distinct colour groups (sky, trees/grass, giraffes), each of which occurred in three or four different places. She grew somewhat discouraged as the pieces didn’t just “pop” into place – though largely, I think, owing to it being already late in the afternoon and she was growing tired.
After the kids went to bed I continued working on the puzzles, almost completing Button’s (with his blessing!) and doing almost half of Mustang’s. Monday morning, they hopped out of bed and raced downstairs to work on the puzzles. Button easily fitted the final 17 pieces into place (he’d told me I should almost finish it, but leave some for him to do), and Mustang made progress with the giraffes and trees. She wanted to finish it before school but, alas, there wasn’t quite time, though between the two of them they’d gotten all but about 30 pieces done.
Conclusion: I think it’s about time to take the 24- and 48-piece puzzles in our collection to Value Village (or pass them on to someone with younger kids) as the kids can whip them up in no time already. They’re at the stage where 100 pieces is about the minimum that holds any challenge, even for Button.
Last weekend Button had a bad cold and was quite wiped out most of the weekend. It was a long long weekend for the kids – PD Day on Friday, Family Day on Monday. Though I don’t get the Family Day holiday as I work for the feds, I took the day off anyhow.
Had planned to get groceries on that Monday, but on Sunday realized that since Monday was a holiday the grocery store likely wouldn’t be open. Called over to confirm and yes, they would be closed Monday. We really needed groceries, so I decided to go Sunday afternoon. Stalled a bit, as Button not feeling energetic, had supper … then really needed to get to the store. Tried calling one or two neighbours to see if they could take the kids for an hour, but no one was available. Button really really didn’t want to go hang around in the grocery store, even though we said he could just sit in the cart. So I called a couple of friends from church and finally found our good friends Alleycat and Bigger D who were home – parents were out of town, but both teenagers old enough to take responsibility. So dropped the kids off at their place (not too far from grocery store) while I went and stocked up.
When we got home it was around 7:30 and Button was fading fast, but I needed to get groceries put away. I told Mustang I had a special job for her – could she take little brother upstairs and help him get to sleep while I put away the groceries? She thought that was cool (and Button didn’t insist on Mommy) so off they went. About 15 minutes later she was back downstairs, Button fast asleep (in Mommy’s bed!).
The two of us had a good time reading together, drawing pictures, and enjoying ourselves before she needed to get to sleep too.
(Later last week she picked up Button’s cold and on Thursday was running a fever so stayed home from school – to her great chagrin, as it was a field-trip day to a neighbouring school to see a play. Poor Mustang!)
Aka cottage cheese noodles.Ingredients- 500ml cottage cheese (2 cups)
- 2-3 eggs
- 250ml flour (1 cup)
- 5ml salt (1 teaspoon)
Directions- Mix together (adding more flour if necessary to make a soft dough).
- Pat down on a floured board to about 3mm thickness (1/8 inch).
- Cut in squares or strips.
- Cook in salted boiling water until done (about 5 minutes).
- Serve with schmauntfett (sour cream gravy).
(This is a lot quicker than making wareniki and tastes just as good.)
On Monday, Button remarked to me that when he was in Ethiopia, he thought 0 (zero) just meant “nothing.”
But now – by implication – after seeing numerals like 100 and 1000 and realizing that that means a whole bunch, he understands that 0 can also be part of a numeral representing something big.
So he is beginning to form an understanding of “place value,” that 0 can be a place holder for “nothing of a particular size” within a numeral of several digits. This is a key concept for mathematical thinking in Grade 1 and beyond, when the kids start working with multiple digit numerals and doing adding and subtracting involving carrying over or borrowing.
Aka cream gravy for wareniki.Ingredients- (optional) drippings from fried farmer's sausage or ham
- onions, chopped
- sour cream
Directions- Fry the chopped onions in the drippings from cooking farmer's sausage or ham, or if not using meat drippings, just fry the onions in a skillet with some oil or butter.
- Once onions are tender, add sour cream and heat through.
- Serve on wareniki, noodles, or fried potatoes.
Mustang’s ski instructor told her last Saturday that she’s ready to start skiing with poles!!! They start the kids off with no poles, to ensure proper balance and control, and add poles once they’ve demonstrated good technique. Mustang was quite excited about this; she’s been wanting to use poles since her first day skiing.
Our friend DC came skiing with us last Saturday; she took the kids down the big hill once before their class and again after lunch for about two and a half hours. She said “they’re little speed demons!” – yes, they both like going fast, especially Button. I climbed partway up one of the slopes to watch them come down; close to where I stood was a little section of bumps. The kids aimed for the bumps to get some lift under their skis; Button fell both times I saw him try to go over (but that didn’t deter him the slightest!), whereas Mustang fell once but the second time she made it over upright.
Kids are looking forward to a long weekend – PD Day on Friday and provincial holiday on Monday. Nothing much scheduled, just fun time at home and of course skiing on Saturday. Button was coughing a lot this morning; hope he doesn’t come down with bronchitis like Mustang had week before last.
I think I’ve found a series of exercises to work on spelling that will work better than the routine stuff her teacher was sending home as spelling practice. One evening we spell the words using clay letters; one evening practice typing them; one evening use a special mat with alphabet letter cards to spell them; and one evening do some pencil & paper practice. More varied, more hands-on, and gets the typing involved too. She’s got almost the whole alphabet down with the typing; just a few letters on the bottom row left to learn. We’ve only been using this routine for a few weeks so I’m not 100% sure how well it will work, but it seems a better “fit” to me at least.
Now I’m turning my attention to trying to figure out how to work with her on math. Again, looking for some more hands-on activities as well as potentially software or games that can both teach and reinforce the math concepts and provide more practice. Any ideas?
We’ve just been doing our usual winter things these past couple of weeks.
Kids are skiing every Saturday. This week, in addition to the morning lesson, they will be skiing in the afternoon with a friend who’s coming out with us. Extra practice and some “fun” skiing too! I just hope the weather’s okay – it’s going to be warm, which is fine, but there might be some freezing rain, too, which is not so great.
They also have skating lessons every Wednesday. This past week the instructor put Button into a higher group. He was the fastest kid on skates in his Kindergliders group, and easily able to do the turns and things they were supposed to be practicing. So he’s moved up a level to be with kids who are a bit older and a bit better skaters – so he’ll learn more. For her part, Mustang is making good progress too. They are doing little jumps while skating and this past Wednesday they started to work on cross-overs. She was finding that a bit difficult, but managed it half-decently a few times. (I’ve never been able to do it while skating, so she’s way ahead of me!) Maybe I’ll have her practice crossing over one foot in front of the other while walking; that will give her a chance to get the feel of it while on solid ground!
Mustang was home from school all week the week before last. Started out as just a bad cough, and I would have sent her to school on Tuesday except she had a bit of fever, which didn’t resolve itself completely, and by Thursday night the cough had deepened into a chest cough, so I took her to the doctor who diagnosed bronchitis and prescribed some antibiotics along with strong cough syrup at bedtime. The cough syrup helped her to sleep better and she rested well all weekend so was back on track this past week.
Last Saturday we went out for our movie night (or, in that case, afternoon). We saw Hotel for Dogs, which Mustang had heard about at school and really wanted to see. We all quite enjoyed it – a feel-good story with a happy, if somewhat wacky, ending. As a trans-racial adoptive mother, I found it interesting to see that (SPOILER COMING!) in the end, the two (white) kids are adopted by the (black) social worker and his wife.
As for me, well, I’m busy with Nanny-hunting, paying bills and financial record-keeping (finally got my desk cleared off after somewhat neglecting things since before Christmas) and hope to start work on some more sewing projects this coming week – I’ll start by finishing off the projects I started way back in October, then proceed to a couple of new things.
Laolao and Laoye will be arriving for another visit in just 18 sleeps (yay!). I held off telling the kids until we turned the calendar to February, and they’re eager for them to arrive.
And – double yay! – just six weeks (and 1 day) until the spring equinox!!!!! Of course, it’s likely to stay cold for those six weeks, and we could still have tons more snow, but the halfway mark between winter and spring (official) has now been passed. And, frankly, I do think it is actually somewhat more than the halfway mark, since winter started early here this year (by mid-November) whereas I don’t think we’ll snow and cold until mid-April. Late, yes, given the amount of snow we’ve had so far and the general below-average temps we’ve been having, but I don’t think it will last that long. Unless last year repeats itself and we get another metre of snow in the first week of March. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen!!!
These are essentially perogies but filled with cottage cheese rather than potato.IngredientsDough:- 250ml milk
- 3 egg whites
- 15ml salt (1 tablespoon)
- flour
Filling:- 500ml dry curd cottage cheese (2 cups)
- 3ml salt (1/2 teaspoon)
- dash of pepper
- 3 egg yolks
Directions- Mix milk, egg whites, and salt. Add enough flour to make a firm dough. Roll out thin and cut into circles 5-7cm in diameter with a cookie cutter (or use the end of a tin can that you've washed clean). (Alternatively you can cut them into squares, which will give you triangular wareniky rather than half-moon ones.)
- Place about 5ml (1 teaspoon) of the filling on each circle. Moisten edges with water and fold over. Pinch together.
- If you're not going to eat all the wareniki right away, they can be frozen individually on a cookie sheet and then put into a bag to store for later use.
- Cook in salted boiling water for about 5 minutes or until the dough is cooked.
- Optional: After boiling, fry until browned on both sides.
- Serve with regular gravy or schmauntfett (sour cream gravy).
Tips- Dry curd cottage cheese can be purchased in the dairy section of some grocery stores. If you can't find it, used creamed cottage cheese but drain off most of the liquid, add just one egg yolk, and don't add salt. - If you don't have time or don't want to make your own dough, you can buy precut wrappers for dumplings (jiaozi) in many Chinese grocery stores.- Wareniki can also be made with fruit fillings To do so, place a couple of small pieces of fresh fruit (or raisins) on each dough wrapper along with a bit of sugar (or mix fruit and sugar and add 1 teaspoon of illing). Serve with sweet cream sauce.
