More Bentos

Here are a couple pictures of bento lunches I made for SchmoopyBoy recently.

The first is a really cute 2 tier stacked bento box. The smaller bottom tier has mixed fruit and veggies. The larger top tier has penne noodles and a couple of pieces of 'smart bacon'.


This one is a fairly plain bento box, thus no picture of the lid. It is half filled with macaroni, with two muffin tins - one with sliced apple and one with sliced veggies in the shape of a flower.


I'd like to report that SchmoopyBoy was so taken with the appearance of his meals that he ate everything. Unfortunately, he's been in the habit of not eating much at daycare yet. He typically eats all the fruit and drinks some milk, but barely nibbles on the rest. Oh well. My job is to provide a healthy lunch for him. It is his choice to eat or not eat. I think as he gets more comfortable with the routine he will eat more.

Early Intervention

Earlier this week SchmoopyBaby had his evaluation with Nevada Early Intervention. He had been referred by his pediatrician back in March because he wasn't talking yet. Since then he has gone through a bit of a verbal spurt of sorts - something like 3 new words a day over the past week alone. Nonetheless we wanted to follow through to see if he qualified for services. In order to qualify for NEI services, the child needs to be 50% delayed in one area or 25% delayed in two or more areas.

He was rated at having a 25% delay in language. No surprise there. In all other areas he is on track. No surprise there either.

So here's the good news - with only a 25% delay in language, he does not qualify for services.

So here's the bad news - my son has a 25% delay in language and does not qualify for services.

Why that's not really so bad - the specialists we spoke with told us that frequently young children focus on one major developmental area, and once they master that area, then they move on the next area. SchmoopyBoy has really been focusing on motor skills, and is actually quite advanced in that area. Now that he has mastered his motor skills, he seems to be transitioning on to language skills - as evidenced by the current word explosion. They gave us a few tips, and we will be receiving a full report with suggestions and next steps sometime soon.

In summary, I am completely confident that he will catch up in language skills soon enough. (And probably too soon, I'll long for the days that he didn't talk so much! ;)

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Stylish Hat

He picked out this hat himself. I chose a more practical summer hat - white with a rim that goes all the way around to cover his ears and neck. He was not impressed. My boy is way more stylish than I can ever hope to be.


And on another day...

For the record, I don't send my kid outside in my apartment complex mostly naked on a regular basis. At least he let me put some shoes on before running outside.

Weekend Wrap-Up

SchmoopyBoy and I had a lovely weekend. For Fathers’ Day, John wanted a day off. Unfortunately, due to bad planning on my part, I had to work this weekend. So, John got two most-of-the-days off.

I don’t get a lot of fun time with SchmoopyBoy, so this was fine with me. Usually my evenings after work with SchmoopyBoy are so hectic. Between preparing dinner and getting ready for bed and trying to squeeze in chores where I can, I tend to be a bit more frazzled than I would like, and I don’t always feel like my quality time with my child has as good of quality as I would like.

So, despite the fact that both Saturday and Sunday started too early for me (seriously kid, 5:15 am is not sleeping in on the weekend) I got loads of fun time in. We spent virtually all morning Saturday outdoors, which considering the state of our crowded apartment, is always a great way to spend a morning. After walking the dog, we went back outside to play with rocks and twigs and leaves (hours of entertainment, don’t bother with all those high tech gadgets and gizmos – just find him some rocks). Then inside for a snack and back outside for “Bubbles!”

There’s a new farmers market in town close by the apartment. It only happens once a month and lucky for me it was scheduled for this Saturday, so off we went to the farmers market. On one hand, I have to say it was somewhat disappointing – there was only one farm with a stand for fruits and vegetables. All the other stands were either jewelry or snowcones or something like that. On the other hand, the farm that was there had a great variety of produce. We scores apricots, blueberries, Japanese eggplant, bellpeppers, tomato and onion. And the biggest score of all was that they were giving away Armenian cucumbers for free to all their customers! Check out this gargantuan cucumber they gave me! It’s bigger than my arm!



The other great thing is that this farmers market is held at Floyd Lamb State Park, so there’s the benefit of being at Floyd Lamb State Park. SchmoopyBoy got to see (and chase) peacocks! There were several mama peacocks with their babies – how cool is that? There is one white peacock that SchmoopyBoy found particularly intriguing until it started calling out (which sounds a lot like a siren screaming) and he got startled and ran away and hid behind my legs all like “What the heck was that?!” Here are a couple of pictures at the park with the peacocks.




On Sunday we had more outside playtime with rocks and leaves and “Bubbles!” in the morning. Then for a bit of change in pace in the afternoon I took SchmoopyBoy to the apartment pool. We start swimming lessons at the YMCA next Saturday, and I was curious to see how he would like the water, as he hasn’t been in a pool since last summer. He loved it! We stayed in until he was shivering, and then he still didn’t want to leave.

Besides giving John some time to himself, he also got some Fathers’ day treats – some vegan chocolates and a chocolate cookie, a cute poem with a picture of SchmoopyBoy and his little footprints that he made at daycare, and a tree (which I thought was such an appropriate gift for John ;) For dinner we had yummy Thai take-out I picked up on the way home from work.

All in all a nice weekend.

You Must Read This

TRIGGER WARNING on the link below

I know I share what I think are fun or interesting links from time to time. But every once in a while I read something that so thoroughly rocks my world, I must share with a little more urgency, because it is just so important. Yesterday I came across such an article.

This should be required reading for everyone - man and woman.

And thou shalt teach it to your children and your children's children. It's that important.

Melissa at Shakesville did a stellar job of defining and describing, in all it's all-too-familiar ugliness, what is rape culture.

Filled with links and references, it may take you some time to read through the whole thing. It may be quite eye-opening to see and acknowledge how pervasive the problem is.

So go to this link, send everyone you know to the link, and teach it to your children in hopes that we can find ways to resist, oppose, and dismantle rape culture one day soon.

Was Shakespeare a Jewish Woman?

Here's something for all you academics and book worms out there. I found this article on the Tikkun Daily Blog today, which in turn referred me to this article that makes the case that the plays credited to William Shakespeare were actually written in full or in part by a Jewish woman named Amelia Bassano Lanier. They make an intriguing case. Go read it!

"Baby!"

We have reached the age of categorization.

There are 2 types of people in SchmoopyBoy's world at the moment - babies and non-babies. Anyone clearly not an adult is a baby. Or, I should say, "Baby!"

Infant - "Baby!"

Three or four year old neighbor walking with her mom - "Baby!"

Seven year old neighbor walking his dog - "Baby!"

Teenage neighbor practicing riding his skateboard - Not an obvious adult and therefore, "Baby!"

I'm not sure if these people particularly appreciate being pointed at and called "Baby!". Fortunately people tend to forgive (or ignore) people SchmoopyBoy's size when they don't get it quite right.