To do another CDF 2.0 post.  I have no idea why, but I have a severe mental blockage when it comes to CDF lately, and it just doesn’t feel right anymore.  I may feel better about it after the New Year, but I don’t think I can stomach doing one until then.

Sigh.

Which is a real bummer, because they were fairly easy to do in one sense.

How’s about some cute famous Dad and offspring photos for the time being?

If you look closely at the kids, that last picture is to die for.

Then don’t come to any parties at my house.

Seriously.

I saw the title of an article that said, “How to Have a Healthier Dinner Party” which of course I didn’t even glance at.

Because to me, a party is all about eating something different than you normally would. Something special, maybe a little decadent.

Of course if there is some sort of dietary restriction going on, then accomodations are immediately made and taken into account in the meal planning.

I have a former friend (our sons no longer go to school together, and so all have drifted apart) who was so into healthy eating that for her son’s 8th birthday party, she had unbuttered popcorn, and grapes as appetizers.  I think she did have a cake, but I was surprised that she couldn’t let go just a little bit for her son’s friends, not all of whom eat like triathletes in training.

Will I have some healthy options? Of course.  Not everything will be drenched in butter or filled to the brim with fat calories.

But will the whole meal be about being perfectly healthy and fat free?

Nope.

I’ll save that for every other day.

I’ve never left a party gushing about how amazingly healthy all the dishes were.  Maybe I’m weird.

Hmpfh, no wonder she and I are no longer friends!

But now that you are reading this, it is too late.

If you don’t have a tween/teen/young adult around the house, you are probably living your life in utter bliss, knowing nothing about a mythical figure called Herobrine, or things called creepers, or the vast network of people who are utterly obsessed with this video game.

Like my son.

I like to think of it as Lego on steroids.  The main principle of the game, as far as I can tell, is for you to survive and build your own world that can encompass pretty much anything that can be represented by blocks.  There are attacks on your personal kingdom by things called creepers and other things called zombies that you are probably more familiar with.   And uh, I think that is pretty much it in a nutshell.  Survive, build, defend, and build some more.

And did you know there are homemade videos on YouTube that represent hundreds and hundreds of hours of work on the part of the people who created the custom worlds for each one?  And that many of them have millions and millions of views, some of them even more than Jennifer Lopez?

Here are a couple of the better ones…

It is somewhat jarring for me to admit that all of these are actually quite enjoyable to watch.

Yup, it’s here.  That magical time when we struggle with whether to buy something online or in the store.  For me, online wins about 98% of the time.

So, in no particular order, here is a list of my toy picks from the Amazon Top 100.  Enjoy.

This is pretty much everywhere this holiday season.  I don’t know how it compares to apps on your smartphone, but at least it is something that is theirs and theirs alone, which has something to be said for it.

You can NEVER go wrong with Lego.  NEVER.

I think this toy wins the title of longest name.  But kids sure do love them some Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

If you’ve got a kid in the right age range, remember what I said up there.

No matter what you think of the feminist aspects of this toy, it is selling like hotcakes.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing an app to life in your own home.

My own little person cannot get enough Little People.

Very clever toy with a gazillion things to do.

The duct tape thing is SO hot right now.  It’s a little ridiculous.  But I am all for encouraging creativity.

We have this here and it is very cute indeed.

Another good outlet for all that creativity.

I have so far resisted the siren call of these little babies, but I may not be able to for much longer.

Yet another toy where it is impossible to go wrong.

The newest Imaginext set for the holidays.

OK, I kind of want these for me.

Ah, this month has been hard.

But I am grateful that I have so many lovely, brilliant, and wise readers.

I promise I will get back into the blogging business with regularity.

I am also grateful for my two awesome, beautiful children who, daily, never fail to impress me with their awesomeness.

I am grateful for a husband I love dearly and has stuck with me through things that would have had other men purchasing a one way ticket to Brazil.

I am grateful for all the people in my life who have offered help to our family when we needed them most.

I can only hope to do the same in return when they are in similar need.

Now, dearest readers, have some of that pumpkin pie for me, because I can’t have any.

We received the results of my daughter’s Day o’Testing, and the results came back as everyone pretty much not knowing  the cause of my daughter’s multiple speech and behavioral issues.

Which is SO not helpful.

I should start by stating that my daughter was not diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum.  But let us just say that she needed a home run, and only scored a triple.  She needed one more box to be checked to have a confident diagnosis, and the team of doctors didn’t feel they could do that.  So, that leaves us with a little person who has some issues, they just don’t fall into neat categories.  They felt that the ABA therapy that autistic children often receive would not address her particular needs.

Apparently they felt that she has some sensory processing problems (sensation-seeking) that are leading to some of the behavioral things, so she will be getting some occupational therapy for those.

She will continue to receive the maximum speech therapy allowed under our insurance plan, and also that is the maximum recommended for her age group.  She fell into the 7th percentile for expressive speech, which I don’t have to tell you is not all that hot.

I think as a parent, I wanted everything to fall perfectly into those boxes, so that I could point to something definitively and say, “Aha! That is the cause!” and then do everything I can to learn about that something and advocate for her regarding that something.

But that something isn’t anything at the moment, although she will be re-evaluated in six months because as I said, there are things that are not quite right, they just don’t fit into the autistic spectrum at this time.   So I’m left sort of wondering why her speech is so delayed and why she has some of the problems that she does without any medically recognized condition behind them.

Which for me, personally, is difficult.

Any advice?

I’m not sure how long the “Popper Stopper” has been around, but really?  I didn’t have a protruding belly button when I was pregnant, but if I did, I do not think I would have spent money on something for such a VERY temporary condition.   If someone didn’t like how my belly button looked, then don’t look at it!  I’m carrying a damn baby in here and y’all can just deal with it.

…here at Casa Glinda.

Let me throw a pity party for myself for a second,  OK?

I promise there will be goody bags.

After months of speech therapy that did not alleviate the bulk of her behavioral/developmental delays, yesterday we took our daughter to undergo a three hour battery of tests given by a multidisciplinary team of experts.  This was done basically to determine if she needs further, intensive behavioral therapy and if she is going to be clinically diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum.

To say that I have been getting harassed by my immediate family for doing this is somewhat of an understatement. I have been accused of “wanting” something to be wrong with her to “having her labelled for life.”

Well Christ, I would say that when your three year old maxes out at three word sentences and still has a very limited vocabulary, as well as other behavioral issues, then it is high freaking time she get some intervention.    I resisted the testing battery for a few months because I wanted to see how much she would improve after six months of speech therapy, if her behaviors were the result of a bright mind frustrated by lack of communication skills.  And in some regards, they are, but my husband and I believe there are deeper issues that need to be addressed.

You know, because we are the ones living with her, not the people who see her for a maximum of a few hours a month.

Apparently that makes me a bad mother.

So now we wait a week to meet with the team and they will deliver their findings.

To say that I am stressed is also somewhat of an understatement.

Also, that whole remodeling thing and moving to another city?

Yeah well, that went kerplooie, and to be honest it was my decision to halt everything.  But that was because for 10 entire months, I was blockaded and stalled out and literally lied to.

So I took myself off the roller coaster.

In one sense it is a relief and I don’t regret the decision, but in another sense making that decision is taking me down a specific road that other people aren’t going to like.

Too bad.

I guess the moral of this post is that I have learned that life is too short to keep people around that are full of negativity and to keep on doing what you think is right.

Here is your goody bag, full of self-righteousness and resolve.  Trust me, it’s better than a Twix any day.