Rising Kindergartener

Amelia goes to a Montessori school where she's in a class with 3-6 year olds.  At any given time in class, there are children quietly working away on math, art, history, geography, napping, reading, eating snack.  They work on an individual rug that is about the size of your standard outside door mat.  After they finish each work, they take it back to the shelf they picked it out from and go get another work to set on their mats.  They stay away from each other's mats, or work together on a project.  It's all very quiet and very productive. 

There are "works" available for each stage of development, and the children choose what they work on.  Amelia has been fascinated with being one of the kindergarteners since she saw them graduate on stage last year.  In her class, she can actually do kinder work if she chooses it.

Tonight they had a meeting for parents of rising kindergarteners for questions, and I found out that while she could choose the work now, she hasn't been.  She has stuck with the work that is the precurser for the more advanced work.  When I asked her why she hasn't tried something new, she told me that it was for the kindergarteners, not her!  I had no idea that she got that idea in her head. 

So on the way home tonight, I told her the meeting was to tell us that she could now do all the kindergartener's work and you would have thought I handed her the best present ever.  She was so excited and wanted to turn around and go back to school to do her work.  At home, she was jumping around and telling Grandma all about being able to do that more advanced work now.  I'm excited to see what happens with her.  I can't believe she was holding herself back!

On another (food related) note... I made a griddled sandwich for dinner tonight using Rudi's Rosemary bread.  Sliced a bunch of brisket I had made and frozen in chunks a while back, layered it on the sandwich with some horseradish cheddar and horseradish sauce and griddled the whole thing.  It was so good!  I had some Frogmore Stew for lunch.  All of this is still eating out of my freezer and pantry.  I have a long way to go to empty out all of it.

Before and After

The house smells so good every time I walk into it today - garlic, onions, bacon - too bad none of it was for us!  I often volunteer to cook meals for people who need them.  I'm on a committee at our church and also for the base I live on to deliver fresh, hot meals.  When our church does Family Promise, I volunteer for a shift and cook for them also.  I'm often making a bit extra and handing it out to whomever is stopping by that day - Sunday when I made corn chowder, we invited a friend of Mia's over to play and they stayed for dinner.  Sometimes its my friends, and sometimes it's the excellent therapists that end up walking away with a bite or two of some goodie.

Today I made a meal for a beautiful woman who has cared for Amelia and other children during church services.  I really wanted to be able to give back to her during a time of need.  I made sweet cornbread, collard greens, and more beans and sausage to drop off.  I never thought I would like collard greens.  I've had them a time or two and they just seemed so bland to me.  But it turns out with enough bacon and onions, along with a touch of garlic, anything tastes scrumptious.  I sweat those items first, then jammed the greens into the pot on top.  Sprinkle kosher salt, cracked pepper, and sugar and put the lid on to let them cook away.  I think most people add a bit of stock but the lid was heavy and they had their own liquid.  They probably would have tasted good with a bit of heat and some acid - like maybe some cayenne or red pepper flakes, very subtle; or garnished afterwards with a shake or two of tabasco and/or vinegar.

I also cooked up some pears for Olivia and hummus for home group (bible studies in someone's home).  I made another dip for home group tonight out of stuff hanging out in my fridge.  2 blocks of cream cheese, big handful of sun dried tomatoes, a jar of feta in oil (minus the oil), 2 garlic cloves, a tiny glad container (about 1/4 cup) of pureed basil from my garden a while ago, 4-5 black olives that were left over from a salad the other night.  It turned out great.  I think it would also make a great stuffing for chicken; or with some roasted red peppers and fresh spinach spread on a hot crepe and folded for a "crepe sandwich" would be YUM.

Every time I cook now, I think of Olivia.  Every.Single.Time.  It's an awareness I wish I didn't have; sort of like the first time you found out there wasn't Santa Claus.  I think to myself...  Does this have too many carbs?  How many calories are in this dish?  How can I keep the flavor and lose the calories? 

Will this be the last time I cook this?

No, actually it feels more like the way the world changed September 11, 2001. 

The world no longer felt as safe, happy and innocent as it had just seconds before, with the sick feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.  It's how my world changed when we got the PWS diagnosis.

Movies on a Military Base

Yesterday I took Amelia to see Yogi Bear at the Parris Island base theater.  We usually get movies here about a month or two after they come out in town - they play here on Friday and Sunday and at MCAS Thursday and Saturday.  Movies change each showing, so on Sunday it was 3 different movies starting at 2:00 pm.

It's very inexpensive to see a movie here, so I don't mind waiting a month... 
$2.00 - movie ticket
$2.50 - small popcorn, small drink, regular size candy of your choice
$  .25 - refills on soda

We ran into a bunch of our neighbors there (the theater is about 2 blocks away from housing) and Amelia found a little friend to sit and giggle with throughout the movie.  At the start of the movie, the National Anthem plays, and everyone stands up, faces the screen and is silent until it's over with.  This is actually one of my favorite parts.  Anyone who is active duty, in uniform or not, will stand at attention with their backs rigid, heads straight forward, arms at their sides with their hands in position.  When it's over, everyone sits down and continues on.

When was the last time you heard the Pledge of Allegience or the National Anthem outside of a football game?

Photos soon!

My camera charger found its way back home :)  I left it in KC on our Thanksgiving. 

I think I am going to try and eat as much stuff from my pantry and freezer as I can without buying anything else.  I just bought milk and cream cheese this week - on sale for .99, and with 30 cents off coupons I couldn't pass it up.  I really want to buy some to freeze but that would ruin my whole point in eating up the stuff I have.

Tonight I made corn chowder - chopped up about 4-5 stalks celery, two onions.  Threw them in a heavy pot (used Le Creuset tonight) with some butter and thyme and let them sweat for a while till they were bright and crunchy and delicious smelling.  Then I tossed in a big cooking spoonful of flour, stirred it around and cooked for a while to get the raw flour taste out.  When that was done, I poured in a bunch of white wine from my handy dandy box o' wine with the pour spout, stirred around and cooked out the sharp wine taste.  Finished it up with 7 small cans of corn, juice and all; a box of turkey stock (I didn't have that much chicken stock); and what was left of my pint of cream.  I think it was about half a cup.  Stir well, simmer for a while, season with salt and pepper to taste, puree half and pour back in.  TaDa!  Soup for the masses.  I'm going to freeze the extra.  All in all it ended up being about a gallon of soup.

Wholesome Baby Food

Wholesome Baby Food is a great site I stumbled across today.  Wish I had found it years ago.  You'd think, being a former Chef, I would have tried harder.  Still having teeny mommy guilt about that.  But honestly, it's more like mommy annoyance because I want her to eat more of what we are eating.

Fun with Food

Well, I might as well have fun with food while I still can. 

Yesterday I made Tuscan Beans and Sausage (white beans, garlic, onion, celery, carrot, sausage, seasonings) and some sweet cornbread.  I went all out and spread the cornbread with melted honey and butter mixed together.  Delish!  Olivia loved the beans and sausage, I didn't give her the cornbread.  My mom mashed it all up for her.

This morning I was thinking perhaps she loved it TOO much.  Diapers were a big change.  :(

A few new communication breakthroughs...

We've spent months trying to teach Olivia to do things that most babies learn pretty early.  While the specific process is slightly different for each "thing" we try to teach her, it basically involves us (my mother currently, my father when he was taking his turn here, the four therapists, myself) physically moving her body to do the "thing" over and over again; all the while doing the "thing" ourselves. 

If anyone has a better word for me right now than "thing" please comment.  It's 2am and I'm tired and literally at a loss for some words.

Months = Since she's been born.  Since before she could actually move any part of her body on her own.
We = we, the team of people- my fabulous therapists, doctors and family

Besides the obvious physical skills, we've also been working on social movements - waving hello, goodbye, giving kisses.  Over and over again, kiss the dolly.  Kiss, kiss, kiss.  We say the word, make the motion, bring her dolly to her face.  She's recently been bobbing her head toward the dolly for a kiss with her nose and sometimes with her mouth open.  I keep telling her she's not allowed to kiss like that until she's married.

Back to the breakthroughs.  Olivia has always had this connection with her daddy, even in the hospital when she wasn't too responsive to anyone else - but especially not me.  She would respond a bit more, slight responses that you could barely detect at first, but more as time went on and she became stronger.  Maybe it was just a blink, or a slight focusing of the eyes in his direction, or a twitch when he spoke.  Rafe was the first person to make her smile (when the smile consisted of the tiniest of upturns of her mouth), the first to get her to laugh.  She did those things very rarely, but when they did happen it was with him. 

This past week, Rafe called from Afghanistan and had some time to talk/play with Livie on the phone - not so many people waiting in line to talk at that time.  I put the phone on speaker and her whole face brightened up when she heard his voice.  She got this huge smile on her face and was reaching for the phone.  I assumed she just wanted to punch the buttons.  He kept talking and I said, not expecting a response, "Livie, do you want to kiss daddy?  Give daddy a kiss".   Rafe was telling her he loved her, asking for a kiss and (most important) making kissing noises in the phone.  She leaned forward, bobbed her nose on the phone and leaned back.  I thought it was a fluke, but we kept on doing it.  She did it 3 more times!  Each time I told her to give daddy a kiss, and he made kissing noises, she would lean forward to the phone to "kiss" with her nose; she held out her hands and brought the phone to her face like she would with her doll and deliberately touched her face/nose to the phone.  It all happened in slow motion because of her muscle issues, but it was amazing to see how purposeful she was. 

And... the significance of her recognizing his voice 5 months after he left is not lost on me.  Not just in a familial way, but in a cognitive, she's got brain function kind of way. 

Not quite as exciting, but still cool, is that she waved goodbye to me today.  It took a few minutes for her to process what she needed to do, but she finally did it in slow motion again. 

She also recognized her speech therapist and her OT this week and got very excited when she saw them, stopping what she was doing and crawling toward them immediately (for the ST) and leaning toward the OT when she was in my arms.  She actively seeks me when she is crawling around.  She will crawl to the feet of someone and slowly "climb" her arms/hands up your pant leg to indicate she wants you to pick her up. 

She's so stinkin' cute.

More on the baby food...

Yesterday I made roasted carrots and parsnips, forgot the ginger, but Livie loves them today. 

I also made a "loaded baked potato" - 2 heads cauliflower, 1 head broccoli and about 8 small baked potatoes mashed without the skins.  Pureed the veggies and then mixed it all together with some (GASP) velveeta cheese.  Hey, I'm all about using up what I have in the fridge.  I should have used cheddar cheese but I didn't have any and didn't feel like running to the store.  I didn't have time to put in ice cube trays last night, and this morning it was a bit stiff and very hard to spoon into the trays cold.  I have a 21" pastry bag left over from my culinary days so I just put it all in the bag and piped it into the trays.  It took less than a minute!

So today for lunch she had a cube of the potato mix, a cube of the carrots and parsnips, and some pureed blueberry applesauce.  It seems sort of strange to me that my daughter who will eventually eat everything is getting a wider variety of foods to try than my first daughter, who is now quite picky about food.  I knew better, I knew I should have exposed Mia to more stuff when she was a baby... oh well.  The crazy thing is that Amelia likes soft shell crab, smoked salmon/capers/cream cheese bagels, and shrimp.  The stuff she does like is expensive!

Baby Food

I am kicking myself for not making Amelia's baby food when she was ready for it.  I'm trying to remember now why I didn't; and I think it was a combination of things. 

She was my first baby, and I was SO particular about everything.  Rafe was still deployed; I was still working until she was 9 months old (she was in a daycare right down the hall from where I worked, so I still nursed her); I was tired basically being a single parent; I wanted her to have only organic foods, especially dairy.  As a matter of fact, she's only a few months ago had her first regular milk that wasn't organic.  I totally jinxed myself - she could taste the difference and stopped drinking milk.  She didn't even see the carton, she just told me the milk tasted funny and she didn't like it.  I finally had to switch back.

Since I was the only one who needed "real" food, I hardly ever cooked at home.  I just ate mostly fresh fruits and veggies and the food I cooked at work.  I bought Amelia's food, but the range of organic foods was limited in the area we lived in.  She never liked the taste of meat unless it was some concoction that had brown rice, beef and peas in it.  I don't blame her, I've tasted meat baby food and it's awful. 

The bottom line is that I didn't give her quite the variety of foods I should have when she was a baby.  I wanted to make her food, but for some reason I had it in my head that it was this arduous process with precise recipes.  HA!  I was so wrong. 

So now I am making Livie's food and having so much fun doing it.  It's so much easier than I ever thought.  For the most part, I just cook really good meals and then puree parts of them.  I've also recently bought some things just to make her different combinations of fruits and veggies.  I've been using my handy dandy ice cube trays (love those things!) for freezing them.  I freeze for a couple of hours, pop the cubes out and put in labeled freezer zip loc bags and fill them up again. 

One thing I've realized is how much I have been getting ripped off buying baby food.  To get that nice thin consistency that baby food stage 1 comes in, you add a lot of water to a small amount of puree. 

So far we've done:
Plaza III Soup
Beef Stew with Mushrooms
Garlic Roasted Chicken (added a bit of stock to this)
BBQ Smoked Turkey (the real smoked whole turkey, also added a bit of stock to this with the bbq sauce)
Pumpkin Applesauce (used up a bunch of apples hanging around and our Halloween decoration pumpkin)
3 Apple Sauce
Sweet Potato with Cinnamon
Butternut Squash
Peas
Roasted Root Vegetables (turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, carrots, celery, onion, herbs)
Corn, Peas, Carrots
Beans

I bought some carrots and parsnips and tomorrow I'm going to roast and puree them; pears were on sale so I'm roasting those; maybe some chicken and leeks I've got hanging around in my veggie drawer and needs to be used; cauliflower; collard greens; black eye peas and rice;  I might do something with spinach and potatoes...I think I might have some brown rice in the pantry.  I might even throw in some wheat germ or flax seed into some of the mixes. 

I've decided to cheat a little and look on baby food websites to get ideas of combinations also.  I don't bother with a recipe, just the main ingredients (like Sprout, Jack's Harvest, Happy Baby, etc)
It's so much easier than I ever thought.  Just cook, throw in food processor, blend.  Add liquid as/if needed.  Freeze.  That's the whole recipe right there.

Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called everybody, and they meet at the bar.”
~Drew Carey

How to know when your husband is going "outside the wire"...

He calls and tells you how much he loves you and the girls and to give them hugs and tell them that, and what time will you be available the next day for a phone call and ends the call.  The next time you check your email there is only a few sentences telling you again how much he loves you and the girls and make sure you tell them how he feels.

Oddly enough, he's really sweet when he's about to get in the line of fire.  :O

Just kidding.  I knew something was up because normally we talk about daily things and don't get too mushy on the phone.  I asked him if he was going outside the wire and he just said he'd call me the next day.  Today I found out he spent 9 hours with special ops forces on a foot patrol with all his gear on.  He had a great time and wants to go out again.  So much for the safe job inside the wire!

She finally realized she could move!

Olivia is 16 months old and she crawled, real crawling, the Monday before Christmas.  1 1/2 weeks later, on Thursday, she pulled herself to stand by the piano so she could start cranking out some tunes.  Kidding about the tunes part. She did bang away on the piano, though.   We think she was actually trying to get to the book on the piano, because she loves books and hunts them down. 

Friday, she pulled herself to stand again with the speech therapist and walked three very tiny steps from the therapist to the couch (with the therapist holding her hip for stabilization), where she cruised along trying to get to a book on the couch. 

Today, Saturday, as we were sitting here she pulled herself to stand again and tried to get some books off the couch to "read".  She then crawled over to me, tried to pull herself to stand again.  But she's in footie jammies, and her feet started sliding sideways until she was doing the splits while holding on to the couch all the while with her head vibrating with excitement.  Mom and I couldn't stop laughing.  Is that so wrong??

A few minutes later, she had crawled over to the diaper bag, pulled everything out of it and then took off down the hallway dragging the diaper bag on her foot.  Then back to the play area, where we heard a big THUNK and looked over to find she had dragged the small grocery cart onto it's side.  She rolled over on her back, put it on top of her and kept lifting it up and down.  I tried to get it all on video but my camera battery went dead as soon as I started.  I can not believe the things she is doing now!

Funny little girl

Amelia says the funniest things, and it's often not exactly what she says but HOW she says it that makes it so funny.  Tonight I was combing her hair and telling her to hold still so I could get the rat's nest out.  She asked me, in all seriousness, "Mama, why do the rats keep building nests in my hair?" 

Extended Christmas Holidays

Since Rafe is in Afghanistan, we went to Camp Lejeune to spend Christmas with some dear friends and their two boys.  We wanted to be a part of a full, noisy household on Christmas, and it has been wonderful.  As my mom commented, "For a house with four kids in it, it sure has been nice and quiet".   The kids were noisy, but the well behaved, fun kind of noisy and not the screaming, fighting kind of noisy. 

As luck would have it, we were only going to stay for a few short days and come back.  I had some big plans for getting the house ready for the New Year, and some goals I wanted to prepare for both mentally and physically.  That will have to wait for something far more important - my friend is having her 3rd child via Csection and she's pretty high risk.  Her mom won't be with her until next Monday, so I am staying to help until then.  Mom went back with the van and Olivia so she could continue with her therapies, and I am taking one of their vehicles back to PI with Amelia on Sunday.

If you are reading this and we had tentative playdates lined up, I am so sorry.  I left my contact book at home.  Amelia was looking forward to spending time with all her little friends from school and the base.  She's still having fun here (even got to make a snowman). 

Moving at the speed of light

Somehow I missed posting this, although I wrote it last week, two days after Olivia started crawling.

Today Olivia discovered: trash cans, the blinds, paper sacks, filing cabinets with doors that open, computer wires and vaccuum cleaner cords. I never thought things would change so fast! I need to childproof in a hurry.

Who knew I would be so tickled to see my child getting into things?  I should tell her NO and teach her not to, but I'm wrestling with being so excited at what she can do.

She also tried to stand up and look out the window... but I really think she was trying to play with the blinds again.  She found some blinds that went all the way to the floor and got herself tangled up in them.  Every time I turned around, she was missing.

I loved every second of it!

Observation

My husband and children thrive on schedules, organization, predictable routines. 

Unfortunately for them, I seem to be constantly overcome with bursts of  random spontaneity.

WE'RE FULL ON CRAWLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know I've mentioned somewhere that Olivia had started the beginning stages of a crawl probably around October sometime.  She first looked like a mermaid - doing the crawl with her arms and hands but motionless from her waist down.  It slowly evolved into a very flat commando crawl, and from there into a more active commando crawl.  The steps have been excrutiatingly slow.  But now... HOUSTON! WE HAVE A CRAWLER!

Every day we'd work with her on her "all fours"... putting her in position over and over again, with a hand under her core to support, and at the same time try to move her hands and legs in the right sequence.  Our PT explained to us that we needed to create the neural pathways for the right movements long before she could do them herself, and the more we did that the easier it would be for her to crawl.  And to be honest, I would have to say that it was really my mom who did the majority of this PT daily as I often took care of other things. 

When we went to Florida to see Dr. Miller she prescribed carnitine for Olivia.  It was something I'd asked about and it seemed it was time to add that supplement.  She began taking it on a Sunday, and she crawled Monday 3 times ON ALL FOURS, about 2-3 feet each time at her morning PT session.  One of those times she had a choice to crawl to a toy, to mom or to me.  She hesitated and thought, looking back and forth, and then deliberately started off toward me very slowly. Then later in the afternoon, she crawled about 5 feet from her area over to Amelia's play area.  About an hour later, Amelia and I were both in the kitchen at the same time and all of a sudden Amelia started shouting, "Look, Mama!!  Livia is crawling! LOOK!"  I look up and see Olivia has crawled from the living room to the kitchen to hang out with us. 

Today she has been crawling everywhere.  It's like she finally realized she could get out past the area where her therapy and toys/tools are. 

Carnitine seems to have sharpened her in the way an out of focus camera suddenly sharpens; the change is hard to explain but definately there.  She has more energy, more tone, like a light just switched on.  I don't think the crawling is just the carnitine, but I do think it had a lot to do with pushing it to finally click.

Not only is the crawling a big deal, but I have to say this...

SHE CRAWLED TOWARD ME!  memememememememememememeeeeeeeeee!!!!  and then she wanted company and crawled toward us in the kitchen when she was surrounded by endless amount of new toys!!

To put this in perspective:  For over a year, my child has shown very little particular preferences for anyone or anybody, with the exception of my husband and men in general.  She seemed to be slightly more active and alert with men.  She didn't cry for us, have seperation anxiety, show likes or dislikes with any great intensity.  We could sort of gauge now and again how she might be feeling by her very slight reactions, ones that most people would most likely miss.  She has never held her arms out toward me or in any way indicated that she knew I was her mother other than recognizing my voice and briefly watching me if I was talking and entering a room she was in.  When she was sick over the Thanksgiving holiday, she called my name one night, slowly and one time.  It sounded deliberate, but I still couldn't be sure.  Not only does she have PWS, CAI and temperature dysregulation to deal with, she was 2.5 months premature with a very traumatic birth.  I'd be lying if I said I haven't wondered about her cognition. 

Today we had more great news - we received our 1 year evaluation from EDIS (Education and Development Intervention Services).  She is now 16 months old.  Olivia scored in the middle of the normal range for her adjusted age in cognitive skills, and below normal for all others, especially motor skills.  Susan told us that it wasn't a predictor of the future or commentary on the past, just where she is currently.  But currently, she's NORMAL cognitively!!!!!!!  Again, a huge worry lifted off my mind with the apgar scores of 1, 1, and 4; 30 minutes of CPR and 3 chest tubes for collapsed lungs immediately after birth.  We've never been able to ascertain how much oxygen she lacked for how long during that time.

My daughter knows who I am.  And she prefers me to a toy :)

Hallelujah Singers

We spent today at home - Amelia's cold is worse, but Olivia seems to be holding her own.  So far no fevers, so I'm hoping it's just a simple cold.  Olivia is faintly rasping a bit when she breathes; and if it gets worse tomorrow I'll take her in to the doctor to check for RSV.  She had her RSV shot at the beginning of the month so I'm hoping she'll be ok. 

This evening everyone seemed to be feeling better, so we headed out to a free concert by the Hallelujah Singers held in a small church in downtown Bluffton.  I've been pretty proud of myself for finding so many wonderful free things to do during the holidays this year with the girls.  The church itself was beautiful - enormous stained glass windows blazing with light.  Coming upon it reminded me of a picture postcard of an old fashioned church in the snow, with the beautiful stained glass colors illuminating the night. 

The church was packed, and it wasn't a large one.  The singers were maybe 2-3 feet away from the pews.  Mom and Olivia were able to sit toward the front; I sat a little further back with Amelia.  From that vantage point, I could see Olivia literally vibrate with excitement when the music started.  She seems to have a particular affinity for live music and does the same thing when she hears the praise and worship music at church.  She was standing on Mom's lap, with Mom holding her up - I swear it looked like she was dancing!  She was waving her arms around to the beat and bouncing up and down with a big grin on her face.  She does the same thing when she is really excited.  She would get a bit tired, collapse and snuggle for a bit; then pop back up again when the beat picked up.  She really likes the Gullah beat the best; just like she really loved the marches the Parris Island Brass Band played. 

Amelia had a bit rougher time.  She is usually good at these sort of things, but this month we've been to 3 events where she lost some self control about halfway through.  I think we're up just a bit too late and it's hard for her to hold it together.  But all in all, I love taking them places.  This in particular was something she probably won't ever get a chance to see again.  They travel all over the world and the musical style and storytelling are unique to this area.  The Gullah accent itself is very rhythmic - when the Gullah Geechee speak, it often sounds like they are singing when they are talking.



Here is some more about the Hallelujah Singers:

The Hallelujah Singers

A vocal group from Beaufort, founded 10 years ago by Marlena Smalls, the Hallelujah Singers seek to preserve through music the Gullah heritage, rooted in West African traditions and language, and brought by the slaves to the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullah language is Creole blend of West African and European dialects, developed in the isolated plantations of the coastal South. Most of the Gullah vocabulary is of English origin, but grammar and pronunciation come from a number of West African languages, such as Ewe, Madinka, Igbo, Twi and Yoruba. The slaves' knowledge of rice cultivation, a crop that had been grown in the West African region since 1500, made them desirable to the plantation owners of the South Carolina Low Country where rice had become a staple crop. The plantation owners, seeking the comforts of their city homes, often left the day-to-day operation of the plantations to the overseer or foreman, causing these isolated plantations to be much less influenced by Euro-American culture and allowing them to retain their "African-ness.

Smalls developed and refined a series of concerts to define the Gullah culture and the "Sea Island sound." Her goal was to preserve the melodies and storytelling technique of the South Carolina Sea Islands. Interwoven with music and narration, the singers present miniature dramatizations of some of the unique personages, rituals, and ceremonies that played an important part in shaping the Gullah culture. Among the Hallelujah Singer's repetoire are traditional plantation songs dating back to the 1600s. The group consists of five singers and two musicians, playing strings and conga drums. They have recorded three CDs. The first, "Gullah - Songs of Hope, Faith and Freedom," produced in 1997, features plantation melodies and spiritual songs. In 1998, "Joy - A Gullah Christmas" was released, and finally, in 1999, the latest CD "Gullah - Carry Me Home" was produced; it is the first to be nationally distributed. Performing at youth recreation, community, and senior citizens centers around the country, participating in various music festivals, and providing educational outreach for students in South Carolina and Georgia, the group has earned a number of awards, including the South Carolina Folk Heritage Advocacy Award, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Community Service Award, and the South Carolina Humanitarian Award. The Hallelujah Singers have performed in concert worldwide, and have appeared in television documentaries and the motion picture Forrest Gump. They have also performed for the United States Congress, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and South Carolina legislators. In the fall of 2000, the group will give a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Hoping for an uneventful week...

One of Amelia's little friends came down with Strep Throat this past week, and two days later both my girls are showing signs of being sick.  Mia's throat hurts and she's congested, and Olivia is congested.  I'm hoping it's a simple cold and not Strep.  Especially right before we are to travel to Jacksonville for Christmas!  We spent this rainy, cold day inside watching movies from the library and lounging around. 

Amelia's Imagination

Reading the newspaper and breakfast in "bed" (the four chairs and a silk pillow)... she informs me that the long feather boa is actually a noose to trap wild animals that come too close.  Note the poptart on the diaper box "bedside table" is her breakfast :)  She has better mornings than I do.  It's been decades since I last had breakfast in bed with the newspaper!

Going shopping for special things with her purple pumpkin "purse"

She asked me if she could play with her hair clips. After several minutes of uncharacteristic quiet, I had to peek, only to find her organizing them!  I was so impressed.

Playing "dolls" with her dinosaurs. 

This one obviously had a terrible accident (note the bandaids) but a good hair day.

Completely random post of Olivia with her PT.  He is using his badge as a therapy tool.