Chocolate Chip Pancakes

 Pancakes are a Saturday morning special in our house. I am not a morning person, so weekday breakfasts are granola, other cereal, hot cereal, toast,or something made the night before (biscuits, scones, muffins). On the weekends, I am still not a morning person, but Rod is home to cook. Some of us prefer plain pancakes like Rod and Owen. Morgan and I like blueberry best, but everyone else including most guests like chocolate chip.

 The way we do it is to make plain pancakes and then add the goodies on the grill. For chocolate chips the key is poking down the chocolate chips, that way they don't just melt all over the pan when we flip them.  If you really want to torment your kids you tell them how you lick your finger each time you poke a chocolate chip and and DON'T wash your hands each time. That's always fun!

 My kids are a little spoiled. They are so used to homemade that they can't stand pancakes from a mix. My stepsister gave me a recipe for pancakes at my bridal shower and that is still the recipe we use with some minor modifications and major portion increasing. This is one recipe I still keep in single serve format and just increase as needed. We usually make a 4 batch, but if my nephews are over we need  5X the original recipe. If Rod and the big boys are gone on a scouting trip Devon, the little kids and I only need a 2 batch.

1 cup flour (heap the cup a little, in a 4 batch we use about 1/4 cup extra flour)
1T sugar
2t. baking powder
1 egg ( normal store sized eggs, we have a mixed flock of chickens including bantys so sometimes use more eggs when making multiples. Most recipes are written for a 1/4 cup egg )
1 cup milk (scant unless you live somewhere much dryer than us or like thin pancakes)
2T oil

 The last time Owen was in the hospital they were re-working their menu. Due to Owen's unique eating needs the nurses had given his an open status on his menus. That meant that we were supposed to be able to order him anything the cafeteria served. When we tried to order for him the kitchen kept saying that he wasn't allowed to have pancakes though. For some reason French toast is considered "healthy" for toddlers but pancakes aren't. Owen loves pancakes, but won't eat French toast. We had to have both the nurse and the dietician call the kitchen to finally get his pancakes. Then when they were delivered, he took one bite and refused to eat them because they weren't homemade. So, be warned, if you make this recipe, your kids may never want to go back to a mix!

Baby Bunny

 In my last post, I made a reference to feeding a baby bunny. I figure I should probably elaborate. We bought two meat rabbits last winter after seeing a demonstration on raising  (and butchering ) rabbits for meat. The first time we bred them this Spring, I was sure they didn't come anywhere near each other. We bred them again a few days later and I marked it on the calendar so I would know when to put a nest box in the doe's cage. Well, it seems she actually took on the first breeding. Unfortunately I hadn't put the next box in yet because I thought she was due 3 days later. She gave birth the day I planned to put her box in. The bunnys were born on the cage wire and at least 2 fell through and were gotten by our dogs. We found 3 bunnys still in the cage, cold. We brought them in the house to warm them up and brought the mama in to them to nurse.

 Unfortunately, 2 of the babies didn't make it. The other bunny seemed strong and was nursing well, so we brought mama rabbit to him/her 3 times a day for force nursing. Things went well for about a week, them the baby stopped gaining weight and mama didn't seem to have any milk. So for the last two weeks we have been bottle feeding baby bunny. We are giving her/him (I think it's a her, but I'm not positive) Esbilac mixed with heavy cream and some probiotics.

Baby bunny now has his/her eyes open and has grown tremendously! She/he is being bottle fed twice a day and is just starting to eat solids. We had to change living arrangements from box to cage because bunny is getting curious and almost hopped out of the box. I have promised the kids that this bunny will NEVER be eaten.

 Check out those ears! I think the ears are the cutest part of a bunny.

Labwork and Artwork

 Morgan has been begging me to use the easel for weeks and since it finally stopped raining again I let her. We no longer use the easel in the house because the last time was... well, let's just say we don't use the easel inside anymore and leave it at that.

 Owen has some issues with patience. We've also noticed some obsessive-compulsive behaviors as we've increased his medications. The doctors say the meds don't cause those behaviors, but other parents say they've noticed it too. So, he doesn't wait very well when he's really focused on something. While I was busy putting clean paper on the easel for him, he painted Brenna.

I took the paintbrush away from him and finished putting up the paper. Then, I turned around and found Brenna with the paintbrush in her mouth. So, of course, I took a picture before removing the paintbrush. It is non-toxic paint after all.

 This morning I took Owen in for his FASTING lab work. Yes, I had to wake up my 3 year old and haul him into the lab without breakfast (and before his meds). Brenna decided that the best way to help mom out with a challenging morning was to wake up 3 times in the middle of the night to nurse instead of just one AND refuse to go back to sleep nicely each time. Sleep deprivation helps any challenging situation, right? We got to the lab about the time I normally wake Owen up for his medication. I figured at that time in the morning he'd be done in 15 minutes and I'd give him his medicine and juice in the car and feed him as soon as we got home. Instead they took the packet of tests from me, thumbed through it for about 5 minutes and told me to go wait. Yes, I've learned that I can drop off his paperwork the day before I bring him in, I just didn't think about it this time. We've never had this many labs to do before. Thirty minutes later they called us back. There was a row of vials about a foot wide on the counter. They looked at Owen and asked me how much he weighed. I said 32 pounds. The technician looked up a chart that showed how much blood is safe to remove at one time, then started thumbing through the paperwork and removing vials. Finally they figured out the least amount of blood they could remove and still do all the labs. Owen got poked in both arms, screaming the whole time. He usually barely reacts to blood draws. Basically they took enough blood to be the equivalent of a blood donation for an adult. Great start to the morning!

 We got home almost an hour after normal breakfast time with Owen wanting his cereal, Morgan wanting her cereal, and Brenna wanting cereal and nursing. Oh, and a baby bunny to feed, but that's another post. The big kids were at a friend's house working on their next film, so everyone had to wait in line for Mom's help. I poured cereal for everyone (except Duncan who had to fend for himself). Morgan was in the bathroom, so told her I was leaving her cereal on the counter and sat down to feed Owen and Brenna. Brenna wandered off after a few bites and I continued feeding Owen. Morgan came out and couldn't find her cereal bowl. I (rather frustrated by this time) got up to get it for her and it wasn't there. Owen, meanwhile had gone in the other room and called out "Look, Brenna is feeding herself!". Yeah, Brenna had managed to get Morgan's cereal bowl down from the counter and was sitting in a puddle of milk feeding herself.

 I'd like to say that my day went smoother after all that, but then I'd be a big, fat, liar! Maybe tomorrow?

Owen Update - Ketogenic Diet

 I'm still recovering from yesterday. Owen's appointment was scheduled for 2:00. My goal was to leave the house at 10:30. We actually got out of the house at 10:45, which was within my allotted overage allowance. We hit the roundabout and Rod automatically turned right, which is the correct direction for the hospital, but alas NOT the correct direction for the cheap gas station we planned to fill up at. So, we turned around and headed back to the gas station (the gas station on the reservation near us is 20 cents per gallon cheaper than anywhere else). We get to the roundabout again and realize that Rod forgot his wallet. Instead of turning off at the gas station, we go all the way home and get the wallet. We finally got back on the road 22 minutes later, or 37 minutes late if you add in the 15 minutes from the beginning.
 You might have determined by now that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, well you can add in that I HATE to be late. Especially for professional appointments, like doctor visits. I always have to schedule extra room in my travel times for things like; detours, diaper changes, stopping for food, not being able to find parking in Seattle, etc. . We had used up all that time just getting out of the house. Luckily we were able to detour around the detour traffic, regular traffic was flying through Seattle, and we found a parking place easily. We still just barely got to our appointment on time, both kids needed diaper changes and neither had had time to run off any energy from the long car ride. One of the things I love about Swedish is that we always get in within minutes of our scheduled appointment times. We were called back right away and once we got Owen weighted and measured I was able to get diapers changed. Then we had an hour and a half long appointment. With two little kids who had been in a car for 3 1/2 hours. We knew the appointment was going to be long, but I had planned on the kids getting some running around time beforehand. As we were leaving, the receptionist thanked us for giving her some relief from her "baby fever". She thinks she can wait a little longer before she wants kids now. All thanks to us! Then, of course we got to put the kids back in the car for the ride home.

 Owen will have to be hospitalized for 3-5 days (according to the Keto team, other parents have said 4-7 days) to start the diet. The diet induces a huge change in metabolism, which can have several side effects that need to be monitored closely. It looks like we will be going in either July 22nd or 29th. We need to get back to them in the next few days about which date will work best for us.
 Due to Owen's prior feeding  issues, they want a swallow study done before we start the diet orally. Oil is the worst thing to aspirate because it coat the lungs and the diet is mostly fat, so they want to make sure he isn't aspirating. What that means for me is that I get to spend my birthday in Seattle doing a swallow study. We haven't had good experiences with swallow studies, so I'm really not looking forward to this one. I also really, really don't want to have to put his feeding tube back in. We worked so hard to get rid of it. He's gone a year and a half without using the tube and hasn't had aspiration pneumonia. I'm hoping everything goes well, but swallow studies haven't been good to us so far. At Owen's first one the technician yelled at me to stop feeding him after one bite. We thought he was doing better at the second, but it still showed that he was aspirating everything except chilled purees. The 3rd consisted of Owen sitting in the chair alternating between screaming and refusing to open his mouth. We ended up leaving without getting the study done at all. I'm assuming he's doing fine, but we never have actually had a clear report to feed him orally. It just makes me nervous about what this is going to show.

 Tomorrow Owen and I get to go to the lab as soon as it opens to get a fasting blood draw to check cholesterol and vitamin/mineral counts so they have a baseline before he starts the diet. The Ketogenic Diet is not a balanced diet and he will need to take supplements and have his levels checked while he is on it to make sure he doesn't get dangerously low in minerals or too high on his cholesterol counts. The good news is that we can also get his med levels checked now and not have to go to our normal appointment on the 13th, saving us from having to drive to Seattle two days in a row.

 The other good news is that our Keto team seems to be pretty progressive about instituting the diet. I will be sending them 3-5 days of Owen's normal diet (with measurements 2 oz milk 1/2 cup Grape Nut Flakes) and they will determine his calorie counts based on what he is currently eating. Some teams limit calories to 75% of normal, ours doesn't. They also don't require a fast before starting the diet. We will just feed him low carb foods before he goes in. The dietician was also taking notes on the Keto type items we've already gotten Owen to eat. They plan on tailoring his diet to things he already likes and eats easily. I've heard horror stories about the things other teams expect the kids to eat. It's nice to know that our team knows that Owen isn't just going to eat whatever is put in front of him. We've had lots of problems feeding Owen in the hospital before due to his feeding issues and I was more than a little worried about trying to feed him Keto foods in the hospital.
 Our team has found that 1/3 of their patients experience 90% or better seizure reduction, 1/3 experience 50-90% reduction, and 1/3 either don't have noticeable improvement  or find it too hard to stay on the diet. We have about a 2% chance of more/different drugs helping. I think it is worth it to at least try the diet!

Garden

Morgan and I finally finished planting the garden this weekend. While we were planting seeds, Rod was busy putting up netting to (hopefully) keep the chickens out. We have also been fighting tent caterpillars something fierce this year. we've had to get them out of every single fruit and nut tree on the property.

The strawberries are doing well this year. We can go through a lot of strawberries in a year and the fewer I have to buy, the better. I've found that we eat more vegetables when we can just go out in the yard and pick them than when I have to buy them. Home grown always seems to taste better too.

You Know You Live in the Pacific Northwest if...

the stop signs are moldy.

The last time we were at the hospital, the kids and I noticed this moldy sign and vowed to take pictures of it next time. In between, someone scraped Voldemort out of the mold. It wasn't even one of my kids although they thought it was pretty funny. I got to listen to rousing chorus of " Voldy's gone Moldy" on the way home. Read " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" if you aren't familiar with the song (pg 746 to be exact).

Brownie Pops and Medical Updates

When we went shopping Thursday, Morgan wanted something special. Devon wanted a cake pop pan (We were at a  kitchen supply store buying a shower present). We compromised on a brownie pop kit.

Owen actually ate a brownie! He normally doesn't like sweets other than actual chocolate bars.

Brenna also ate a brownie, but that's no surprise since we haven't really found anything she won't eat.

 My Dad is home from the hospital. The surgery went well (3rd surgery of the year so far). We won't really know if it worked for a few days. The nerves in his back were pinched for so long that it might take a few days for him to feel some relief from the pain.

 In other news, my Stepdaughters have some tough medical issues to face on their Mom's side of the family. Prayers for them and their Brothers ( and the rest of the family) while they deal with this would be greatly appreciated.