Photography | Lessons from my daughter

Emily is starting grade 11 on Wednesday!

I can’t believe my baby is 17 and going into grade 11…

So as of today, we need to get into our school routine and one thing we absolutely need is food!

Homemade meals for lunches and dinner.

So today, we cooked…

Before we tackled this cooking, we had to eat so hubby made us breakfast

Toast with bacon, egg, fresh tomato and avocado covered under mozzarella. You gotta love a man who can cook!

I made one of Emily’s favorite. Shepperd’s pie! Only corn, no peas and carrots…. If you make yours with peas and carrots, it’s perfectly fine with me. Should you invite me for dinner and serve Shepperd’s pie with peas and carrots, I will eat it and love it but mine is made with corn.

Last week, I discovered Shake N Bake… How did I go 40 years without knowing I could do this with chicken is puzzling to me… So today I made chicken fingers. Easy to make, good on their own with dipping sauce and succulent in sandwiches.

Jonathan made his biscuits…. yummy delicious and oversize biscuit. Good with fresh jam, nutella, peanut butter and bananas or with soup…

Speaking of soup I made a yummy Potage Parmentier. Mine is a really simple recipe. Leek, a little garlic, potatoes and vegetable broth. Once it is all cooked, it goes in the blender. No cream required!

Today we added a small amount of mushrooms because they were chopped 🙂

I can make many yummy meatloaf but today, Jonathan decided he was making a meatloaf inspired by a recipe in his new cookbook: The Ketogenic Cookbook

I say inspired as we didn’t have all the ingredients…

I call this, his caterpillar meatloaf…

Regardless of the look of it, it’s delicious.

I made my zucchini-banana bread loafs (minus the nuts) into muffins so Emily can take them to school!

I also have chicken salad for sandwiches, lots of veggies for crudites and dip, a variety of cheeses, some fruits and many snacks for the lunch boxes.

Oh, and I still have everything I need to make another one like this!

Today was a good day, except for the part where we hit 30 degrees celsius which is 86 degrees farenheit and we have a tiny AC unit that didn’t quite cool down the kitchen, even with a fan on…

No matter what disability one might have, Able Sail believe we can all enjoy sailing.

Lately, many new people have started to follow Lessons from my daughter, I am humbled that so many have decided to read about our journey and at the same time, increase the very small percentage of people who have heard of Cri du chat syndrome.

If you are new to our blog and want to learn more about Emily’s diagnosis, please try those links:

5p- Society

Introduction to Cri du Chat syndrome!

Raising Awareness

Every spring, we look at things to do for Emily during the summer.

It’s not as simple for us as it is for parents of other 17 years old teenager. We can’t let her use one of the car to go to her job or spend time with her friends. We are not planning her going away to college or university…

Since Emily has been 12, she’s been too old for day care and summer programs while being too young mentally for camps and programs for kids 12 years and older.

We found ourselves in a really strange place…

Jonathan worked part-time to stay home for Emily for awhile than moved into an overnight schedule so Emily could be home during the day, while he would try to sleep!

Try being the key word!

Emily has grown older and learned valuable life skills over the summer months but we feel guilty that she’s not socializing and participating in activities… allowing her so much free time has a down side… so much time watching tv, listening to music and playing with her dolls… little stimulation, little learning opportunities.

What are parents supposed to do when their child is too old for day programs but too young for the programs she’s old enough for…?

Quite a conundrum!

This year, we made some changes, Jonathan is now working from home during the afternoon and evening which allowed him to wake-up with us in the morning and spend time with Emily when I went to work.

Emily continued her tutoring over the summer months (we are not forcing her, she loves it), she joined a new cheer team, continued baseball, joined the summer program at GMACL and started to sail!

Yes, we’ve put Emily into sailing!

I had heard about Able Sail in previous years and talked to Emily about it but she wasn’t interested!

This year, she said yes! And she loved it!

Could you imagine a better place to spend some time over the summer months?

Jonathan loves fishing and boats… so this was a perfect activity for them to do as opposed of Emily and I.

Look at my girl! She’s learning about sailing and loving it!

If you are interested to learn more about Able Sail, have a look at their website here : Able Sail

I hope you can find something similar in your part of the world!

With fall around the corner and school starting next week, we say goodbye to sailing, baseball and the summer program at GMACL and we are excited that cheer is continuing and that horseback riding will be starting again for the fall season!

I can’t type fast enough to tell you about all the wonderful things we’ve done this summer.