Memory lane | Lessons from my daughter

I haven’t written in what seems like a really long time and for that I am sorry!

We’ve enjoyed life!

I promise to update you on everything but in the meantime, let me tell you about board games.

In our house, we play board games following rules we make-up!

The rules on the boxes are normally a little too complicated for Emily. Games for younger kids, she can manage but games for teenagers/young adults are another story.

Some games we don’t play, others, we give Emily more time or play with our cards on the table…

This works perfectly for the 3 of us but enters cousins and other relatives, it gets complicated again.

It’s difficult to explain to younger cousins why Emily can’t do things like they can. I don’t want them to look at her differently, I want them to get to know her. Once you know her, the struggles and challenges are secondary.

First, she’s Emily. Yes, she has cri du chat syndrome but she’s Emily!

Back to our game night.

Last year, we discovered “Headbanz”. Emily’s cousins were all younger than her and speaking French. They were faster than her and understood what they needed to do.

Last week, we played again.

This time, we all had a blast.

Emily knows her Disney characters more than the boys so I picked cards accordingly and helped a little but that wasn’t the fun part.

The fun part was when the cheating started. None of them were subtle about it. All of them did it and the dads joined in.

We played a game! All of us! Regardless of our age differences. From 2 to 42 years old, part English and part French. Some cheating… And lots of laughter.

We played a game!

For most, this is a simple feat. For us, it was amazing.

To see Emily having so much fun was heart warming.

So, we bought another game.

We changed the rules a little.

It’s just the 3 of us. Everybody else is gone home… So we played our way and discovered that Emily can draw!

We had 9 cards on the table and we had to find which card she was drawing.

We are still discussing this last one!

We say sheep. She says lion.

What do you think?

I love food!

“We” love food!

When I left home at 17, my step father was worried I would starve.

I could use the microwave and the toaster. 🙂

I studied hotel management and had cooking courses. I learned how to cook and appreciate food.

I have 1 rule, try it once.

When I met Jonathan in 1996, he was a chef!

Yeah me!!!

He hasn’t been a chef in many years and only shows off his mad cooking skills when we have company.

😦 I miss his cooking but let’s be honest! I have some skills too.

When Emily was little, she couldnt drink, didn’t know how to swallow and not one doctor believed she would ever learn to eat solid food.

We made all her purées except for meat. Store bought puréed meat was gross but once mixed in our veggies, you couldn’t tell it was there.

I (we) tasted everything we gave Emily.

Everything was puréed but delicious!

We gave her flavors and textures. We had bite size pieces of food on the table for her to play with and hopefully try to eat.

We never forced her to eat anything.

But really slowly, she started to grab pieces of food and tasted it.

She chocked on everything. Milk, water, juice, purées, non-purées, everything.

Everything!

She got to the point when she could make herself regurgitate on demand if she was chocking.

We never lost hope that one day she would eat.

We won! She eats! She will try anything and has a really short list of things she won’t eat.

Once a week, I will do my best to tell you about our food. Our vegetable basket we get from a local farm, what we ate, what Emily tried, what she liked and so on.

On boring weeks, I will go back to old pictures and tell you what Emily has tried over the years.

Last week, I wasn’t feeling well. When I am not well, I make Frittata with whatever I can find in our fridge.

This always makes me feel better and Emily loved the added avocado.

Monday was cold and wet. We got a lot of rain so I made the 10-spice vegetable soup with cashew cream from the “Oh she glows” cookbook. I had to switch some ingredients based on what I had available but it is still delicious.

Emily doesn’t care for chickpeas but my soup received an “amazing” qualification. Emily ate all the chickpeas.

Monday night, I also made a watermelon, feta cheese and peppermint salad.

Emily had plain watermelon. Fresh herbs are sometimes too much for her and feta is not something she likes.

Tonight, we picked-up our first vegetable basket for the season. I am so excited, I love fresh produce but can’t stand our over-crowded Saturday market. So, this weekly surprise basket is awesome.

The strawberries are so good.

Last but not least, tonight, I made a Dorito Taco Bake!

I saw the recipe on Facebook and decided to give it a try.

I again, made some changes. Mostly, I added vegetables in the cooked meat (onions, celeri and mushrooms), fresh avocado on top and I put way more cheese than the recipe called for!