In Which Connor Stays Awake And We Try Some Down Home Cooking

It's nearly one in the morning right now; looks like Connor's seriously considering pulling an all-nighter.  It doesn't happen as often as it used to anymore, but it does still happen.  Unfortunately it's the weekend for our night nurse too, so it looks like I may need quite a bit of coffee in the morning.

Connor spent some quality time with the grandparents today while Eden and I went out for a while.  We ate some lunch and then tooled around the mall for a couple of hours.  It was fun getting the chance to spend a little bit of time with my girl, even if we did have to go into every shoe store known to mankind.  This kid loves looking at shoes.

After that we swung by and picked up Connor.  After his quiet time, we piled back into the car and headed for the grocery store, where I picked up the ingredients for the jambalaya I planned on making tonight, as well as fixings for the pumpkin pie and the green beans I was making for tomorrow.  We're having a slightly early Thanksgiving celebration with my parents this year, which was nice because it meant I didn't have to fight my way down the aisles like I would have if I'd been doing this shopping the day before the real Thanksgiving.

Anyway, Eden and I cooked a big ol' pot of jambalaya together tonight.  She's really interested in cooking, but I think she was fed up with the whole mess after about fifteen minutes of stirring the pot.  Basically in jambalaya (at least the kind I make) you end up stirring everything for about half an hour total before you stick the pot in the oven and bake it.  "Why we not get the kind in the box?" she asked.  "It easy."  Luckily she changed her mind and decided it was worth all the stirring after she tried it.  She's developing quite a taste for Cajun and Creole food; I think it's all the seafood and spice that she appreciates.  Oh, and the sausage-- the kid is in love with andouille.  We've got plenty of leftovers (it's pretty impossible to make a small batch of jambalaya) so it's a good thing she likes it!

Connor spent the time we were cooking hanging out on his rocking horse.  He's borrowing a full-sized hobby horse from his therapy center-- one of the kind you don't see made any more because kids kept getting their fingers caught in the springs-- that's been modified to provide extra support.  Not only is it great practice in torso control for the little guy, but he also absolutely loves it.  It's difficult to find toys that will motivate him to work hard in physical therapy, so this is a sneaky but effective way to get him to do some work.  He seems to be feeling a lot better and was pretty perky today.

Now if I can just get him to go to sleep!

~Jess