Factor Food Plan

Everyone that has been reading my stuff for years or just knows me in real life, knows that cooking isn't my jam. I've talked about Jenny Craig, which I did for like, I don't know- eight years or something. I just don't like having to go there. Also, as has also been firmly established, I'm a creature of habit and if I like something, I could eat it daily. I had maybe three favorite frozen meals from there- I think it was the meatloaf, the pot stickers, and one other thing. All I can remember is that two out of the three meals were discontinued. A variety of three is not too much to ask for, in my book, but one is just not worth the cost. 

I wrote recently that I was trying BistroMD. While I found it, okay, for some meals, I wasn't blown away, and honestly, there were a couple I had to choke down. I also didn't realize they were going to be frozen. I was looking for something fresh this time. 

BistroMD had interesting choices but you are also supposed to remember to take out what you want to eat the next day and move it from the freezer to the refrigerator. You can put it in the microwave right out of the freezer, but the directions are, for best results, thaw in refrigerator overnight. I forgot almost every time. I don't know if not defrosting it beforehand and heating it from frozen made a difference or not but I can't say I loved any of the food enough to get a second delivery.

On the positive side though, BistroMD has breakfast meals included in your weekly number of orders. I was looking for a meal delivery service that offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner. While lunch and dinner food is one and the same for a lot of people, I also wanted a plan where there was some lighter fare for lunch that feels more like lunch food. For example, Jenny Craig has a macaroni and cheese with vegetables on the side, a loaded baked potato, a baguette with ham and cheese, a panini. I don't want a full chicken marsala meal mid-day. Even though it seems like a Lean Cuisine or whatever, I have a thing about what is breakfast food, lunch food and dinner food. 

I decided that since BistroMD is no obligation, I wanted to try another service instead. I chose Factor home delivery meals next. They are highly rated when I looked up reviews online- not reviews on their site, but I looked up: Best meal delivery service 2022. I got BistroMD and Factor over and over on different review sites.

 Factor's meals come fresh and are kept refrigerated, not frozen. They have a different menu every week so hopefully you like enough on the menu to order however many meals you're getting. I did a Black Friday deal where I got eighteen meals for approximately ninety dollars. However- most of these services, including this one, you have to pay before you pick your meals. I didn't really understand that while they do have some breakfast food, it's not included in your meal order. If you order eighteen meals, that's eighteen meals off the regular menu- which does not include the breakfasts or these add-ons they have. I paid for eighteen meals before I realized this so I was stuck and not sure how I was going to eat eighteen meals in a week. Since BistroMD is frozen, whatever I didn't eat is still in my freezer. 

It was fine though because I figured B and/or E could eat some of the overflow. I got my first delivery about a week after ordering. Each meal comes individually packaged, labeled with what it is, and heats in the microwave in two or three minutes each. The directions say on almost all of them I've had so far is to microwave for two minutes, then add thirty second increments if it isn't hot enough. Personally, I just start at two minutes and thirty seconds because I know my microwave.

I do like more of the food from Factor than I did from BistroMD. I really like their cranberry pecan chicken, sundried tomato chicken fusilli, rosemary pepper pork chop, butternut squash and sage chicken pasta, and a couple of others. I've gotten two boxes so far- the eighteen box and then I switched to six boxes, because I know I'm only going to eat them for dinner. I picked the eighteen for the deal on Black Friday because it was such a good deal and I wanted to be able to try as many meals as I could. OR, if one was horrible, I wanted to be able to swap it out for something else.

If I had to grade BistroMD, I'd give it C. If I had to grade Factor, I'd give it a B. And it's only a B because I personally, have the palate of a first grader. Other people who eat more grown-up food in general might like some of the more interesting choices. I'm looking for more plain food. However, with, Factor, out of all the meals I've tried, I've only thrown one away that, to me, was totally unappetizing. I've gotten twenty-four boxes total, and had to throw two away because they were over the time given to eat them- I never got to them in time. Those two were fish- a shrimp scampi and past dish and a pesto salmon. I'm not eating old fish.

Factor isn't overly exotic but there are definitely meals that try too hard. There is a balsamic chicken with butternut squash risotto that seemed like it had a lot of potential. Then I opened it and see Brussels sprouts under the chicken. They've been soaked in balsamic for however long under the chicken like they're eggs being laid. I don't eat Brussels sprouts to begin with but if I did, I wouldn't want them microwaved under chicken. There are directions for a conventional oven but the whole idea of meals like this is quick and convenient and using a conventional oven is not quick OR convenient. A meal like that could've had green beans, carrots, corn- something that isn't ruined in a microwave. I took the sprouts out, threw them away and just heated the chicken and risotto. 

Risotto is difficult for the average person to make. It takes a little skill. I LOVE the idea of having it as a side with these meals but they need to do some perfecting. I'm no foodie, but no one wants mushy risotto. That's not how it's supposed to taste. It was edible, but I wouldn't say it was one of their better attempts. 

I've never eaten any kind of riced cauliflower in place of potato or rice or whatever. But the cauliflower and red pepper mash under the pork chop was great. I had no idea what it was until right now when I just looked up that meal to write about it. Riced cauliflower is one of those things that also takes skill because I've seen it in other brands of packaged meals and it was disgusting. Factor hit the mark with this one. 

When the menu comes out for the next week, you can choose Chef's Choice, which is where they just send you their selections for however many meals are supposed to be in your box. Or, you can choose your own. You always have the choice to pick from any of the meals but they are labeled into categories: Calorie Smart, Keto, Vegan/Vegetarian, Non-Spicy, Non-Dairy, etc. I choose mostly from the Calorie Smart menu but if there isn't enough I'd eat from there, I'll chose a Keto. 

Eighteen meals for ninety dollars was a super deal. I couldn't eat them all - even including B and E, so some went to waste. Now I moved to six meals and my next box is going to cost seventy-one dollars. It's not much far off from price I paid for the eighteen meals that I got on the deal. I think my I'm still getting some kind of discount. I haven't really investigated their pricing system. There is some kind of reward at four boxes and I'm not sure what that means yet. 

There is no obligation, which I like. I can keep going, stop now, skip weeks. I skipped the next week's meals because I didn't like six meals on that menu enough to bother. You can double or triple up on meals- or even order six of the same meal but I didn't want to do that. I don't remember if there was any favorite I had previously that I loved enough to have six days worth. You have until Wednesday of the week to change, skip, or cancel your next week's order. I suggest putting Wednesdays in the calendar to remember whether to keep your order going or not. 

It's just like any meal planning- you have to know what you're doing that week and how to fit the meals into your life. I'm not generally a meal planner. I decide what I want to eat on a daily basis because I don't cook. Most people I know meal plan though, as I see posts in my social media groups or message boards, where people have all their family meals planned out for the whole week. I'm not that person. 

I'm going to keep doing the Factor meals for awhile. If I don't love the vegetable, I can always supplement with my own. If you want a big discount off a box to try it, use my referral code. 

*The photo of the Factor meal at the top of this entry is showing refrigerated on the left and heated up on the right side.

Factor Meals Referral

 

BistroMD Frozen Meal

 

 

Goodbye Old Friends

 Social media is always a double edged sword. Always. I've discussed it before, I'm sure. My memory isn't so great now that I'm pushing fifty (did I really just type that??), but I'm sure I have discussed my feelings on social media. 

When I joined Facebook, it was probably in 2008, whenever it opened from just college students to the general public. It was fun; a novelty. Seeing all the people I wondered about from any and every weird walk of life I've had, was cool. Instead of just wondering, whatever happened to so and so, you could just look them up and get reacquainted.

No one warns you about the gut-punch moments though. You know, when it's someone's birthday and you go to their page to send a wish for another great trip around the sun. Or when a mutual friend posts a photo captioned, HOW AM I JUST FINDING OUT ABOUT THIS NOW??? That's when I'm hit with the nausea-inducing realization that the person in question has passed away. I didn't know.

This JUST happened to me, this week. I'm still reeling from the news. It wasn't the first time and sadly, it probably won't be the last. It's just that this time, it was a tougher pill to swallow for some reason. Probably because it just seems so impossible, so unlikely.

The first person, where I didn't find out until well after her death, was someone I worked with in my early twenties. I hadn't seen any comments from her in awhile so I went to her page and I saw all the condolences. I was sad, but I wasn't surprised. In all the time I'd known her, she had never been in good health. She was so fun and funny but I'd left the area we lived, pre-Facebook, so keeping in touch, especially when my life was super messy and I had a flip phone, wasn't easy. By the time we became Facebook friends, it had been years of being disconnected. 

Another death was someone from college. That one stung, not only because he was only a year older than I am, but we'd had some really great, deep discussions on my Facebook page. I had gotten to know him more through social media, in the years since college, than I'd known him when we were there together. I remember something happening in the news, posting about it, and I wanted to know what he thought. That's when I went to his page and saw that he'd died months prior.

One person was someone I only really connected with for a short time through my Jenny Craig membership. She was someone I hadn't had any contact with, in awhile, but I went to her page and it turned out she'd died, SO young, I think in her early thirties, in her sleep. She was a big help to me when I was on the Jenny Craig program and we'd forged a quick friendship.

Two deaths, where I found out about their passing, months after, have really rocked me. One, passed away in the fall of 2019. He always wished me a happy birthday, sometimes on Facebook, but often on LinkedIn. I always shake my head at those on LinkedIn because I don't know how no one realizes that I barely look at that boring site. He did it, always, somewhere, regardless of where. I just looked and he last sent a birthday wish only a couple of months before he died. 

He was one of my first mentors in the tanning industry. He stayed up with me, like all night, at my first symposium, in York, Pennsylvania, where I was going to be speaking for hundreds of people. I was freaking out, dragged about forty-five sku's with me, that I set up in my room, like it was the stage, and did a version of my talk that I was going to do the next day. All I remember from that night and that talk is "Vitamins A, B, D & botanicals". He listened to me, just talk-talk-talking, probably babbling incoherently, about my extreme fear of public speaking. 

To explain a little backstory- he and I worked for different companies. In other companies, I assume they each had territories. They had relationships with the distributors hosting these giant symposiums, so they went to the same symposiums every year. I was the new kid on the block at the company I worked for, AND I worked remote from NJ. The company I worked for was in Arizona, where I went maybe once a year. I didn't have a specific territory, I didn't even have a specific job. I wasn't a salesperson in a way where I wrote orders. I think I was just sent to visit and speak wherever no one else wanted to go, like wherever it was really cold. I remember trying to pump gas into a rental car, for the first time, in negative eleven degrees, in Wisconsin. I never did get to go to the Cabo event, but that's neither here nor there. 

Anyway, back to my friend. He and I were on the same travel schedule, a lot. Sometimes, I'd get somewhere, not see him, and immediately call to ask, "Where ARE you??". Every now and again, it was someone else from his company, and he was definitely missed. 

I was also one of the few females, most of the time, out of the speakers at the places I ended up. I ended up with a little group of, basically, surrogate brothers, who really took me under their wing and helped me out. With this particular friend, we had something in common, that weirdly, a lot of relatively young people we traveled with didn't. We were single. So we had a lot of dating stories and drama to discuss between us. At one point, I'd thought he'd met his person and I was so happy for him. It didn't end up working out though. He, like me, really wanted that stability and I'd always hoped he'd find happiness. He deserved it. Unfortunately, he was taken way too soon. I miss his smile and his, "lets yak". 

The most recent example though, I can't really explain why this one really gutted me. It was just really shocking. He was another mentor from those tanning days. He was only five years older than I am, but he just gave off the old soul vibe. He was actually the first person I met from the company by which I eventually became employed. 

I was twenty-five, at the big Vegas trade show, with my boss at the time, which was also a fluke. I'd had been having a rough time both personally and professionally. I was working at a local tanning salon as the manager, just as a transition, while I figured out my new life. My boss had a fight with his daughter who used to have my position. She would've gone with him, to this Vegas Expo, but he took me instead.

I saw this guy, thought he was cute, and we struck up a quick conversation. I think he invited me inside to a party. I quickly realized we were super different. He introduced me to another guy, and that was that. Cut to about a year and a half later, 9/11, ended up being the strange event that became my entry to working with him, working as sort of a protégé.

In hindsight, I think he would say that he thought of me as an annoying, argumentative, little sister. I was the loud-mouth, super liberal Jewish girl with blue fingernails and he was the conservative, polished, Italian Catholic guy who I felt like just wanted to be contrary. He traveled with me, to get me ready to fly on my own. He also lived in the NY metro area so we both went to events on this side of the country while our counterparts took on the West. 

In later years, after both being out of the industry, we kept in touch on Facebook. One day, I saw a photo of his daughter wearing a camp t-shirt from the same camp E was going to also. I messaged him, confused, asking him whether she somehow goes there. I knew he lived somewhere in NY. He told me his girlfriend was living in NJ and his daughter was going to camp with her children. He called it a "serendipitous coincidence". I told him that if he was ever in Bergen to come visit my store so we could catch up. He said he would. He never did. We both had busy lives and time just passes.

What he did, often, was pose some very controversial questions or statements, on his Facebook page, and I'd thoughtfully but highly spiritedly, respond. The last thing he emailed me was thanking me for taking the time to write. That he realizes my values and opinions are important to me and not just another flippant face booker with no real valid opinions, just insults and insinuations. He said he'd take the time to write back when he could. He never did. 

I'd look at his page from time to time. I liked seeing him happy, seeing photos of his daughter. Also having a child by then, close in age to his, I'd think back to our times in that crazy business and sometimes, it was hard to believe any of it was real. It was a real, strange, trip. We'd discussed religion and politics, deeply. That was the thing though, and I don't know know how we would've faired through the Trump years, as our last email conversation was in 2015, but he was always willing to listen to another side. He might not have agreed, but it never got ugly, which is definitely a rarity these days.

You just always feel like there's more time. You'll reach out when you get a minute. A break. Some extra free time. That time never comes. You put it off and put it off. Then you see someone post an obituary or a tribute, and you feel your stomach drop. Why didn't I just get in touch sooner. Why didn't I say something about a photo they posted. Something...anything?? 

When you find out someone died, months later, via social media, it feels really weird. You scour social media and the internet at large for any explanation because you just can't believe what you're seeing. You're just starting to grieve and the people that knew are already well on their grief journey. You wonder if it's appropriate to reach out to their loved ones to share your condolences and maybe a nice  story or funny memory. It's really hard to process. It's especially hard when the person was young, vibrant, positive. When you just would never expect it to be them in that obituary. 

 I know it can be really hard for families to keep a loved one's social media up after they pass. For some, it's too difficult a reminder. I've had two friends pass, (who I was close to in real life and knew they passed), whose families deactivated their Facebook accounts out of self-preservation. I'll just say that I totally understand, but it's still hard to never be able to see old photos or old conversations etched into history via social media. To me, being able to look back in time like that is priceless. I would give anything to look through those pages and memories.

So, I just want to say some kind of farewell, a Goodbye old friends, to L, C, A, S, and A. You all left a mark on my life that meant something to me. Rest in peace. 

The Female Dr Now and Diet Food

 

I'm a Howard Stern listener - I feel like I have to preface that for those that aren't aware. I've been listening since I was kid because my parents were avid listeners. I stopped here and there when I didn't get a good radio signal in the 90's or my lifestyle didn't mesh with getting up early. Or when I had to had to get up at a ridiculous hour to get into NYC and all I had was an iPod. Since the Covid lock down though, I've become a listen-to-the-whole-show-in-order kind of person. I'm perpetually behind but I'm pretty OCD about listening to the whole show. I listen from my phone and I just pick up where I left off.

Howard loves to talk about the TV show My 600 lb Life and the doctor on the show- Dr Nowzaradan - who is just known to all as Dr Now. One of the Stern staffers, Chris Wilding does an impression of Dr Now- I'd never actually seen the show until last week, but the main idea of the impression is that Dr Now tells the people how they're not doing the work. He tells them very matter of fact how they gained weight, they shouldn't have gained weight, and they're not following directions. 

I just wanted to give a little explanation so you can really imagine my experience with a new doctor recently. I hadn't been going to a regular internist for years because it seemed redundant. I had been going to my gynocologist for everything. He did blood work, meds, sent me for tests. Even for just a regular cold, he'd deal with that too. He would do my yearly physical, order the blood work, go over it, etc, so it seemed weird to go to an internist for essentially the same thing. Plus, we had criminally high insurance premiums for self-employed people, yet, we had a ton of rules as to what doctors were in-network and high co-pays. It was a fifty dollar co-pay to go to the doctor! I didn't want to go to any extra doctors. I have a relationship with my Gynocologist so I didn't want to go anywhere else. 

All these years though, people kept recommending this local female doctor. She hadn't been in-network for me though. Then, B took a new job and we got brandy-new really great health insurance. All of a sudden, this woman doctor was in my network. I was thrilled. Copay cost is like ten or fifteen dollars to go see someone. I started making appointments. I made an appointment with this woman. 

I can say this- she was thorough. I think I was there for over an hour. They did blood work in the office instead of me having to find a Labcorp and make an appointment at a later date. However, I felt like I was talking to Dr Now. She told me that I could lose twenty pounds and I'd still be overweight, but it's okay because I have big bones. I wasn't sure I heard her correctly. 

Have I gained weight? Sure. Oddly, I lost weight in the Covid lockdown. When everyone was baking breads and eating them, or drinking alcohol or whatever they were doing to gain weight, I wasn't eating. I don't know why. I just wasn't. I was no longer in my same routine so it changed my eating habits. Plus, I guess not going to the supermarket helped. If we didn't have it, we just didn't have it in the house. I would've had to prepare food and I don't like to prepare food. 

Somehow though, in the time since we've been let out, I don't know what's happened. I was one of those people who yo-yo dieted, took the Kelly Taylor over-the-counter diet pills in the 80's and 90's, and took prescription diet pills. I probably ruined my metabolism that way, plus it's the mix of my predisposed body and nearing the age of fifty. I was never one of those people who had a fast metabolism, just losing weight easily. I know people like that. People who DO eat but they eat to live, not live to eat, and they are just naturally thin no matter what. 

I also used to go on the treadmill every single morning for anywhere from sixty to ninety minutes. Sometimes I did more. I wasn't always running but by the end of any given day I'd have eighteen thousand to twenty-one thousand steps. 

During the Covid lock down, B and I started walking every night. Our main route is about three and a quarter miles that we finish in about an hour and twenty minutes. I started going on the treadmill less and less because I had work to do and I felt like I was going to be getting the steps in anyway. 

I think I probably started gaining little by little as we were let out back into the wild. We were going back out to restaurants.  I also love sweets. Cake, candy, you name it. I can't say I haven't been eating cake or candy. I just don't think I was eating more of it than usual. I don't know. I wasn't stress eating. It just happens. I seem to have different mirrors than other people. A lot of people look in the mirror and think they look terrible. I look and think I look fine. Then I see a photo and I'm like, wow, what's going on there?? 

I left Female Dr. Now's office in a panic. I literally got in my car and looked up Noom. I have had friends who have used it that they've said it worked for them. It was the first thing that came to mind. Well, actually Jenny Craig came to mind, because I did it for like ten years and was successful. I really liked the food. They moved their location though, where I had to pick up the food, and now it's just REALLY inconvenient. So I joined Noom in the parking lot and then went home to look up food delivery services. 

I can't be responsible for preparing healthy meals. I need someone to do it for me. Jenny Craig worked for me because it was quick and easy. I'm on the go all the time. I need to just throw something in the toaster oven or microwave and move on. I started reading reviews and looking at prices of meals that are delivered to your home. I remembered a million years ago that stars like Jennifer Aniston and such were having meals brought to them and there have been all kinds of services that have come out since. 

What I found with most of the plans is that you have to pay before you pick your food. You can see a sample of the menu if you poke around, but you have to pay, then you put the meals in your cart. I found BistroMD and it was fine. I really liked the breakfasts, but I didn't love everything else. I also didn't realize it would be frozen instead of fresh. There's nothing wrong with frozen but I wanted to see if I could find one that wasn't frozen. 

I found Factor which says the food is refrigerated. I got the eighteen meal plan because it was a really good deal for the first order. The only thing I didn't understand is that breakfast in their plan is considered an add on. So I paid for eighteen meals and none are breakfast. They have a different menu each week so there's always different items. I did have to order doubles of a lot of stuff because I am extremely picky and have the palate of a first grader. A lot of diet food is spicy because I think that's supposed to suppress your appetite or something but I really loathe spicy food. It's not even the taste, but it hurts. I don't want my food to hurt. Also, I like simple. Companies are always trying to make diet food more interesting and I guess more like regular food. So they try to get all exotic. I don't want exotic. 

I didn't get the Factor food yet so I can't say how it tastes. I'm optimistic. It should be here this week sometime, so I'll update once I've eaten a few of the meals. If you use my link for Factor, you get $150 off the cost. My first box with the eighteen meals cost me less than one hundred dollars. I thought that was pretty good. It cost me way more plus membership for Jenny Craig. Neither BistroMD or Factor require any kind of membership and you can cancel at any time. I already skipped my second delivery of Factor because I haven't even gotten the first one.

Of course B got a foot injury, pretty much around the same time I went to the doctor. We haven't been able to walk at all so I am back on the treadmill. It's definitely harder than walking the three miles around town. 

 

Rock Your Socks

 

 Shameless ask time! E's 8th grade class is raising funds for their class trip. As we're trying to get back some semblance of normalcy since Covid, they're getting their 8th grade trip. Since I'm pretty much never getting over all they lost in fifth grade - that was their "end of elementary school" year- which was supposed to be the dessert to the dinner food of the earlier years of elementary school. 

I know I know- people love to say, "at least...." about the fifth graders. As in- at least they weren't eighth graders. At least they weren't seniors. At least they weren't in college. 

 Well, guess what? Those fifth graders lost a lot. Not only did they lose all their fun activities, they lost the last bit of time with their innocence. They lost the ability to socialize on the cusp of puberty. As families, we lost our time to get to celebrate them WITH them. Does it sound dramatic? Maybe. Not to me.

Fifth grade "graduation" is where they're at that age where they're still cool with parents being around. They expect you to be around. By the time they're in eighth grade or seniors, any work you do to celebrate their graduation is about them being with their friends. You work together with other parents for the kids to be with their friends, which is fine, and how it should be, but it's different than the sweetness of celebrating with your fifth grader who has no idea what tornado is going to hit them in middle school. And boy, has it been a tornado. 

Middle school, especially navigating Covid, has been interesting. And hard. Middle school on it's own is difficult. Add in the extra weirdness of Covid and I don't know what to call it. 

As we try to get back to whatever our new normal is, school is trying to give them back their traditions. One is an eighth grade trip. This is their fundraiser- Rock Your Socks (click the link) - One pair will be donated for every pack purchased. Can't beat that- who doesn't need socks?

Rock Your Socks

So please help E's grade reach their goal! It would be much appreciated!!

Motivation, Positivity and a TikToker Visit

 

My last entry was about middle school and how much it sucks. It's kind of interesting, as I watch a LOT of Law & Order SVU reruns, and I watched tons of it over Thanksgiving week, there was a lot of school themed episodes. They dealt with online and in person bullying and tying it to social media. 

I'm old-ish. I'm in my late forties. I know a lot of my friends have jumped on the TikTok and Snapchat bandwagon, but I never got there. Truth be told, which I'm sure I've said in here or somewhere, I don't even like Instagram. I've gotten used to it, but I'm an old school Facebook kind of girl. 

I also almost never have the sound turned on my phone, another thing I've probably mentioned before. I don't know why but the sound annoys me. I don't want to hear ads and whatnot. That's probably why I was never interested in TikTok, because I'd have to turn the sound on. Facebook has "Reels" though, I assume it was to compete with TikTok. As I'm scrolling Facebook, I will see the Reels section come up and DO get sucked in every now and again by whatever the first one I see in my eye line. 

I must have clicked on a Reel, then scrolled up a few times. I'm not one of those people who end up on Reels or TikTok and hours have gone by. I get bored pretty quickly, because whatever algorithm vortex I'm in has me looking at stuff that usually doesn't make any sense. For instance, one of those that say- "I was today years old when I discovered this..." or "You would have to be born before x date to know this..." and nothing happens. I look in the comments and no one else knows what's going on either. 

I had to be scrolling and I came across I'm Just a Kid with an IEP and Jordan Toma. Ok, I admit, he's easy on the eyes, and, I say this in only the most complimentary way, and I didn't know ANYTHING about him, but he seemed very Jersey (He *is* from Jersey as it turns out). He was talking to the camera, but to kids, saying how your mom is always there for you, pushing you, wanting the best for you, wanting you to be your best, not letting you quit.... I immediately started welling up. He was saying all the things to kids, kids who struggle in school, that they need to hear, but don't particularly want to hear, from their moms. 

I don't follow anyone on Reels or Tiktok. I followed his Facebook page, where his Reels live. This is his TikTok if you are a TikTok kind of person.

I'm not going to tell Jordan's story for him- he wrote a book that you can buy- I'm Just a Kid with an IEP - I've started it and it's worth the read. In a nutshell, he's thirty-three now and a college graduate (not that a degree matters), but he struggled, hardcore, his whole educational career. He tried to blow off school, run away from school, and did whatever he could to fail, because he didn't know how to succeed with learning disabilities. He had a mom who wasn't going to let that happen. He has a dad too, who he is also close to, which I must mention, because he gets a lot of heat for not mentioning involved dads, but he said it was his mom who was physically present more for this type of thing and she is the one who really dealt with the lion's share of his school life and academics. He says "mom", but he means it as whomever your personal cheerleader happens to be.

E does have Tourette's Syndrome, but he doesn't have ADHD or the other typical comorbidities that can come along with having Tourette's Syndrome that make it really hard to do well academically. He IS having a hard time in Algebra but hopefully that's a temporary setback. Having Tourette's Syndrome, though, in middle school, is hard enough, whether it's "just" Tourette's or Tourette's with a side of other things. Regardless of grades or having learning differences or whatever, I felt like Jordan's messaging could be useful for any kind of struggle. MIDDLE SCHOOL IN GENERAL IS A STRUGGLE, in just about every way.

Middle School, especially for this particular class, his age group, due to Covid. They are emotionally and socially stunted. They left school, mid-fifth grade, while still really babies, in March 2020, to be locked up at home, at the start of puberty. They left school, where everyone was friends, hanging out, regardless of gender, where kids were just being kids. They were locked inside, isolating and isolated for months. Then, they had to begin sixth grade, middle school, in a weird hybrid scene. The beginnings of puberty also made them weird. They couldn't just hang out with the same people as before. Their former friends of the opposite gender were now aliens that they couldn't seem to even just have normal conversations, nevermind hanging out like they did since kindergarten.

For E, it was school every other day, in person, but where four elementary schools came together, and he didn't even know who anyone was because they had masks on. I would ask him if he knows this person or that, and he'd tell me they don't go to his school. I knew they did, in fact, go to his school, because I know the parents, just from being around town. His school not only separates the kids into two different groups, from some unexplained reason, but here they were also being split by the alphabet to allow for Covid guidelines of how many people could be in school at once. 

E wasn't with his friends because he's closer to the beginning of the alphabet and his good friends are at the end. Even if they technically had classes together, he never actually SAW them, except on Zoom. It was a terrible situation for socializing. Seventh grade was a little bit better because he had in-person school daily. They still had masks on though so it made for a kind of wall up to communication. 

We had put him on medication for Tourette's for the first time that December of seventh grade. We will never know if it was the medication or puberty but he developed some kind of awful skin condition all over his face. It looked like what I imagine measles would look like. In that respect, wearing masks to school wasn't the worst thing. I don't know how much worse it would have been for him emotionally or mentally if he had to just have that skin condition fully out in the open. His face, his skin, that was generally pretty clear was a mess and it knocked his confidence in a major way. Even with the mask, you could still see some of it, and kids ALWAYS have to say something. 

I tried everything. I bought a four hundred and fifty dollar LED light, doctor developed, medical grade, facial mask that definitely wasn't in the budget. We went to dermatologists. I can't even explain the painful treatments he went through. We took him off the medication he was on for Tourette's. He said that he'd prefer to have tics than what was on his face. I was up all night for months, researching what we could do for him. It's now been almost a year and it's under control. For a thirteen year old, a week can feel like forever, let alone a year. The whole situation already had taken it's toll on how he feels about himself. 

He's also just never going to be typical. He's an actor, singer, musician in a sea of Friday Night Lights small town suburbia. He's the kid who doesn't play football or lacrosse. He doesn't wear Under Armour athletic wear to school every day. He takes care of his appearance. He's more nineties grunge, with jeans, a henley shirt and a flannel. He wears a necklace and rings he made on a lathe. He has earrings that seem to imply to some retro-minded or just small-minded kids that he's gay. Living in today's world, coming from an extremely liberal-minded home, while he isn't gay, he doesn't even know how to respond. He knows they're using that as an insult and he doesn't want to respond in a way that makes it seem like he is in agreement that it's an insult. Though, when you're not typical, you take a lot of crap about it. When you're also not inherently a dick, you also don't have a quick burn to shut them down either. 

What does any of this have to do with Jordan Toma? Well, in listening to many of his Reels, the common theme is pushing through struggle to be whoever you're going to be. To find the greatness in you. Not to worry about the haters. To SHOW UP - for YOURSELF. I just think that's a great message for anyone, whether you have an IEP, a 504, or just struggle with being a tween or tween in today's world of academics, social media pressures, keyboard warriors, middle school blues, puberty, family dysfunction, whatever. Some kids give E a really hard time about being a musician. They like to poke at him and goof on his original songs. We can tell him those kids don't matter but we can't stop their words from taking residence in his head and hampering his creativity or stopping him from putting himself out there. I thought Jordan's message of rising above what other people think would be a great motivator for E.

I didn't even know there was a subscription to his content or that he usually only visits subscribers. I saw a Reel on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving where he said that for ONE DAY ONLY, he'd be visiting homes, regardless of subscription status, bringing books and talking to kids and families. I saw it too late though- he was doing it on Monday. I wrote him and said that I missed it, but if he's ever in my area, I'd love to have him come to our home. He got back to me very quickly and wrote- "How about Wednesday?". I was floored. Of course I told him, "Sure!". 

I didn't know how he was planning on driving around on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, on the most traffic heavy travel day of the entire year. Even the fact that he was going to be spending his day and night doing this is a testament to his character. He could've been home with his wife and child just relaxing before the impending holiday. Instead, he spent it, voluntarily, in traffic, and with strangers. 

He asked what time would be good and I told him that E would have a half day so one or two o'clock would be good. I didn't want to tell E that Jordan was coming. I wanted it to be a surprise. I'd shown E some of his videos prior but I thought it would be better as a surprise. Jordan messaged me around noon and said he'd be over closer to two o'clock. I still didn't think that he'd be on time because I saw on his morning Reel that he was going to be all over Brooklyn then on to New Jersey. 

I picked E up from school instead of him walking with his friends. He was confused and kept asking me what was going on. For an hour at home he kept asking. He finally did guess with about ten minutes to go before Jordan was set to arrive. Once he guessed correctly, we watched a bunch of Jordan's Reels.

I'm glad I didn't bet against Jordan. He showed up, as promised, with his camera guy, at about ten minutes after two o'clock. B was home by then and suitably impressed by Jordan's ability to be on time in Thanksgiving traffic. Now, let me mention B for a second. The day before, he'd called me from work just to tell me something and it went something like this:

Me: Oh, by the way, you know that TikTok guy I watch... 

B :::interrups::: You don't watch TikTok

Me: Yeah, I know, but that ONE guy....he's coming over tomorrow".

B:::bewildered::: To our house? 

Me: Yeah

B: How....how did that happen? The "Your mom" guy??? 

Me: Yes. He said he's coming. He's going to people's houses for just today. I'm just letting you know. 

B: :::sighs, then laughs::: Uh...ok. I'll never be bored with you. Just add this to...the Tara Chronicles.

Jordan showed up. He was great. I think he'd been at this since, I don't know, the crack of dawn? He'd already been to Brooklyn and I don't know how many houses he went to before ours. You'd never know. He's so high energy and talks so fast and so much, I don't know how he wasn't exhausted. He comes in, and you feel like you know him already. Not just from watching the videos, but it's just his...spirit. I guess that's the secret sauce to being a motivational speaker. I've heard other people who call themselves motivational speakers though and I didn't really find it to be as...motivating. Maybe that's why I've never been susceptible to being in a cult. Or an MLM. Or, he just knows how to hit home when it's your kid, because he's actually struggled too. We'd all do anything to make life less of a struggle for our kids, and if someone can get through to them, we sure going to take it. Plus, Jordan....he's cooler than us, just by virtue of being younger and having over a million followers on social media. He has social media street cred.

I don't know what Jordan's typical time schedule is when he does this or if he even has a typical. He mentioned to us that every home is different, every kid is different, and every situation he walks into is different. He's almost like a traveling social worker, I imagine, depending on the level of difficulties a kid has, where they are emotionally, and how they respond to a stranger walking into their home to extol his message. It's actually pretty brave of him to just go to people's homes, not knowing what he's walking into. He didn't ask me anything but my address when he said he'd come here. I did give him a little background but it's not like he needed or asked for specifics before he chose to come here. There wasn't prerequisites in any way. I asked, he came. That alone really takes some balls because having actually been a social worker, having walked into some really contentious situations, there is a lot of unknown, and frankly, probably somewhat uncomfortable. Just because a parent wants Jordan to make a visit doesn't mean a teenager is going to be receptive or amenable in any way.

He was here for probably forty-five minutes or longer, which I feel was extremely generous. He wanted to get to know E, and us too. He signed his book and gave it to E, which, I already started reading. Getting E to read, well, that's going to require some more pushing on my part.

Having Jordan here was a really amazingly uplifting, positive experience going into the long Thanksgiving weekend, for all three of us. We all know that we can talk to our kids until we're blue in the face, but sometimes, having a different person do it can be that little bit of difference it takes to get them to really listen and take it all in. Jordan is extremely relatable and I think kids really respond to him in a way they may not respond to a parent. He tells personal stories that are really impactful. When he left, I felt like if E was having any kind of hard time, he could get in touch with Jordan and he'd give him a pep talk. I haven't even felt that with any therapist or doctor I've ever encountered. They just want to know if your insurance is going to pay them or not.

I just want to give thanks for Jordan, his visit, and his book. If you're on a PTA, HSA, or in any way responsible for booking speakers for your kid's school or a school you work for, I highly recommend getting him on your schedule. 

    Jordan Toma linktree

I'm Just a Kid with an IEP MERCH 

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Middle School Mind Fcuk

 

 

Middle School Sucks. Isn't that what they say? Sure. But does it have to suck? 

I remember middle school. It wasn't great. People were mean. I think it was different though for one reason. Our MOMS weren't involved in the drama. Now, it's a whole different ballgame. Moms seem to not only be involved in the drama, but they're orchestrating it, at least to some extent. 

I know there are books out there- Queen Bees and Wannabees, by Rosalind Wiseman is one of them, that can help explain or navigate this stuff. But I have to just get this out of my system here, where I can just speak freely, hoping it reaches some of those it needs to reach. 

It seems like the thought of some parents is, my child will be happy if they're popular. Therefore, I need to help them be popular. If that means helping exclude or be mean to other kids, so be it. It's a dog eat dog world and best they learn about social hierarchy now. 

 No. NO NO NO. 

Navigating the social scene in middle school is difficult for all kids, all genders. I have a boy. Of course there are problems for boys, with popularity. My son isn't a sports kid in suburbia. He has had earrings since kindergarten because when he was three and a half years old, he saw an older male camp counselor he idolized with them. He HAD to have them and didn't stop badgering us until he got them. Kids have been asking him if he's gay for years. JUST because he has earrings. What is this- 1986?

E is not an alpha male. He also doesn't have siblings he's learned to roughhouse with. He doesn't gravitate toward being physical. Put that all together, he's different. He's not quick with the burns and he gets crap for being different. Being a musician instead of throwing or kicking a ball on a team is cause for kids to take his music off the internet and harass him with it in school hallways. It prompts kids to just randomly tell him he sucks. 

Guess what- right or wrong, I've already told him, his guitar, drums, voice- all those things will be the panty-droppers later. In my opinion, those guys who harass E are probably going to be living in their parents basement, drinking beers, literally playing Monday Morning Quarterback, talking about how "we" won or lost a game they didn't play. And yes, I said the word panty-dropper to my kid. 

I'm not to be believed though. He might believe me. He just doesn't care what I have to say, while he's in the throes of middle school hell. I'm not in it.  These are the people he sees every day. Middle School has sucked but I also think there's a level of personal perception there that makes it seem worse than it really is for him. Meaning, he takes things personally that I'm not one hundred percent sure are really personal. For example, I think certain kids just like to bother kids they know they're bothering. They would say mean things to anyone, but then when they get one they see they're actually getting to them, they focus their attention on those kids. It's not fun to harass people that don't register any sort of feelings about it. E has no poker face.

I'm actually more concerned about the girls. I feel like it's the same difference between sorority and fraternity pledging. Girls are guilty of mental and emotional cruelty that the boys don't seem to engage in the same way. Boys can be dicks. I hear they cut their own sports teammates down instead of helping build them up. They seem to get over stuff pretty quickly for the most part. I'm talking in a general sense. I'm sure it's relentless with some kids, I just haven't heard as many of those stories. Girls seem to mind-fcuk in a long game. One day you're in, the next...you're out. Grudges are held, social media bullying seems to be invoked. Girls seem to also post more on social media, so it's easier used as a tool of social destruction. It's down and dirty.

With the boys, the MOMS aren't as involved in trying to orchestrate things. I've never had moms getting in touch to organize a group Halloween costume, a joint party, a class trip room or bus sitting situation, or anything. I'm not on a text chain with any of my kid's friend's moms about anything. We talk here and there when it's appropriate, but we're not organizing or orchestrating anything unless it's a carpool to a specific event.

Boys do the mental and emotional damage too- don't get me wrong. They go for whatever the Achilles heel is and exploit the shit out of it. When the alpha sports douchebags rip on my son's music or say he sucks as a musician, it chips away at his confidence. He can roll with it, for the most part, because the kids who say stuff to him aren't using their power to turn everyone else against him. It doesn't seem to be about a hierarchy situation where boys that were once friendly with him or even just neutral all of a sudden turn on him because they were told to do so from a King Bee. No one is making him uncomfortable sitting at certain lunch tables or whispering about his clothes. Boys can say something, ripping on each other one minute, then be friendly another minute. I think if an HIB was opened on one of these kids, they'd be surprised, because I don't know that they think they're doing anything wrong.

Back to the Queen Bees and the Wannabees...The girls. What I'm seeing and hearing is really disgusting. The mind games. The mental mindfuckery. The group-think. It seems like every day is a mine field where you're just sidestepping being the target.

I've heard endless sad stories from moms saying that one day their daughter was just turned on and iced out by her group of friends. Made fun of to her face and/or behind her back for clothing, accessories, make-up. Not allowing someone to sit at a lunch table. Gifting a dirt surprise over candy in what in younger years was a fun tradition. Making mean spirited TikTok videos against one person by a group of former friends. Making it public that they don't want to be paired with a certain person for class group projects. Trying to ruin a dating relationship of a target by telling a boy not to date the target. Simply walking up to someone at a school event, out of the blue, and saying, "I hate you". I could go on and on.

You could try to say all the things one might think- well, there are three sides to every story, the parents may not be aware, maybe the one getting picked on actually did something. Maybe. What I see is that they're mostly just jockeying for social position. They'll do anything to be the Queen or in the Queen's court.

Like Carl in The Breakfast Club, I am the eyes and ears of this institution. I am everywhere. I don't even want to know some of these things. I just happen to be out and about daily at the end of the school day and I see these kids, in the downtown, at Starbucks, in CVS. I see and hear how they act in stores, treat staff, treat each other. I hear their conversations, see their TikToks being made. I READ EVERY TEXT ON MY SON'S PHONE. I know a lot of these kids since they were little kids. I know their parents or at least know of the parents. When I hear the stories about Mean Girls, there is unsurprisingly little difference between each horrifying tale. It's also always the same cast of characters or some configuration of overlapping crowds. Not even a small surprise.

Moms? What'cha doin'? Are you having conversations with your kids? You okay with this stuff? Think it's funny? Do you not care when you hear your daughter's a witch? That your son is a bully? Is no one telling you? My money is on you already knowing about your kid's behavior. Thinking that your precious couldn't possibly, OR that your precious probably has good reason to ride her broom through town like she owns the place. Maybe there's pride that they're so cool. They're invited to parties! They're liked! It's all good!

If I heard my son was treating anyone poorly, I'd be mortified and my son would be in such a deep pile of excrement, I don't know when he'd see the light of day. So, if you hear something, say something. I'll be ON IT. If it was to the level of the stories I hear about some of the girls, he'd probably be in some kind of counseling, we'd be in counseling to see where we went wrong, and I don't know what else. These Mean Girl moms are something else though. The ultimate goal seems to be their daughters popularity. They have no concern whatsoever if their daughters are good people, good friends, or good humans. The only other conclusion I could come to is that maybe they're scared of their own offspring. If that's the case, we're all in the excrement pile. 

Parents of kids of any gender kids: How about instead of trying to make sure your kid is popular, whatever that means to you, instill the values that it's more important to just be a nice person? I know it's a novel concept. Many of the parents seem to trying to live vicariously through their kids to feel the popularity maybe they didn't during their own middle school experience. Or maybe they're just happy that their kid isn't a target and want to ensure that it never happens? But listen up and take heed. If your kid is hanging with the mean ones and helping dole out a handful of assholery, it will come back on them. Not because of karma or something, but just because that's how it works. The mean kids always turn on someone in their own group when they don't have anyone else to harass. Just wait. 

If you think this might be about your kid- it probably is about your kid. Talk. To. Your. Kids. Talk to them about being a friend. If you even had the inkling, while reading this, that it could be your kid, it's time for a reboot. A HUGE part of your JOB as a parent is to talk to your kid about how they treat other people. Discuss, daily or weekly how to be a good friend. Tell your kids not to just be bossed around by the Kings and Queens, and try actually being different. How to be the one who stands up for the underdog, instead of being part of why the underdog doesn't want to go to school. It's called PARENTING. Parents- we can do better. It does take a village. Unless you're okay with that village being burned to the ground, it's time to have some very important conversations. 

Happy Camper 2022

 

Every year, around this time, I write my Thank You Wekeela blog post. As you know, I don't really write much anymore- who has the time? However, I do like to write this one because it's so important to me. To all of us- B and E, and most especially E. 

I think that every summer I think to myself, wow, do kids need camp more than ever. The thing is, I don't think in any other summer I was wrong, but I realized something this time, as E is on the cusp of starting eighth grade, that while it was great for him at ten, eleven and twelve, it was imperative at thirteen. You don't realize how much they need it until they're too old to hang with you, but too young to be fully on their own. When you know you don't want them roaming around town all evening in the dark, but they don't actually need to BE anywhere the next day either. They're just aimless and schedule-less and just ripe to get into shenanigans.

At ten it was new and fresh, and cooler than day camp. It gave him that taste of freedom and independence so often missing in kids that age these days because of parental helicoptering and micromanaging. While it was awesome for him, it was just as much for me. That mental recharge that you get when you don't care if there are any waffles in the house or if someone else's laundry is done, is EVERYTHING. At eleven, it was the first Covid summer after being locked up in the house for months. We ALL needed camp. I barely remember that summer. Last summer, at twelve, it was E's last summer in "kid camp" at his camp so it was very similar to his first summer. He was still coming out of a weird hybrid first year of middle school and he needed the escape.

At thirteen, this summer, it was a transition for him to Teen Camp and a sigh of relief for both him and me. Middle school is no joke. He kept saying before he left, "I can't wait to go to camp where there aren't assholes". Of course, there are always going to be assholes, but he meant it in the way that it isn't the same as school. He and his friends aren't "misfits" at camp. At camp, for whatever reason, he doesn't feel "less than" the way he does at school when he's being mocked by who he perceives as "popular" for being a musician versus a team athlete. At camp, he's appreciated for his music and people consider him talented. At camp, you can be whoever you want to be and that's okay.

He's also too old now to really supervise him all day and evening. He has always had a lot of personal freedom around our town. Due to being in middle school, he's made some new friends. Friends whom I don't know their parents or their stories. When he has free time at home, he's out with old friends and new, and even though I can track where he is physically, I don't know the nitty gritty of what he's doing. As a parent, that's a nightmare. I let him go, because that's what you have to do. You teach and talk at home, and then you have to set them free. It's still nerve-wracking though, when he's just out and about, it's getting dark and I have to figure out where he is, who he's with and what he's doing.

He left for Wekeela on June twenty-sixth this summer, two days after school ended here. No time for messing around. Well, we both left, because I chaperoned the younger kid bus. I actually really like doing the chaperone thing, coming up there for a couple of days, because I get a peek into his camp world but then I go home and leave him to his life there. I got to meet his counselors and I know a decent amount of the kids, just from this being his fourth summer and having chaperoned previously. I got to joke with his Cabin Leader about the fact that somehow the thirteen year old boys and thirteen year old girls had cabins right next to each other this summer. He told me he was going to sleep by the door. Good luck Sam, good luck.

I stayed from Saturday to Monday morning, when I flew home. In that short time, I got to see how my kid was so happy to be there, living his best life, but is fully supervised, no electronics, having face to face conversations, resolving conflicts, living with people of all different backgrounds, and it had zero to do with me. He was learning life skills, managing relationships, and figuring himself out in an environment that is safe, nurturing and most of all- fun. 

However, I don't think a parent can fully realize how important camp is at this age until they come home. E came home and the three of us did the whole download about his time at camp. We were in awe and so proud of the personal growth he came away with. It isn't just that though. When he comes home, now it's a lot of free time before school starts. He almost has a second summer. He came home August ninth and doesn't start school until September eighth. He has a month of roaming around and having to find productive things to do. 

It's a lot of just hanging out with friends, and while everyone needs downtime, it's back to pizza all day every day, if he eats at all. It's a lot of boredom and stupidity. This morning, I happen to have come upon a video of him and some friends on another friend's Instagram story of them, in a parking lot, putting Mentos in a full Coke bottle, shaking it up and throwing it to see it explode. Is it anything bad? No. It's just dumb. There are way better uses of his time. Back in the day, I guess I wouldn't have even known that's what he was doing. Now, everything goes on social media. So there he is, in all his glory, being Jackass. 

Of course, everything is a teaching moment and we had to talk to him about how someone is always filming. He may not have access to social media, but most of the kids do, and they post incessantly. He needs to be aware of what he's doing, where, and is someone filming. Good conversation, but having him here is like a hose with a thousand little leaks. You plug one, another one immediately comes up.

I would give anything to have him back on Little Bear Pond, doing Rituals, coming up with skits, white water rafting, playing cards, and doing whatever he does there that makes him count the days until he goes back. I highly suspect, so would he. 

When E comes back from Wekeela every summer, he's a better person. It's not just "sending a kid to camp" or "getting rid of him". They aren't just having them play tennis or participating in lip sync battles. The emphasis is on the whole mind, body, spirit and the connections that are part of being in this special camp community. I can't even speak to it myself because I wasn't a camper and haven't spent enough time there for specifics. I can tell by how E is when he gets home. I can tell by the videos I see, the emails I get from both E and the camp, and I can see it in the extraordinary retention of campers and staff. 

All I can say is that I feel for kids and parents who don't, won't or can't experience the magic of sleepaway camp, the way E has experienced it. E has gained so much positive from being there that I'll never be able to thank them enough for all they've given him. In this age of constant bombardment of electronics and social media, this returns him to a simpler life, a face to face life, a somewhat retro life, that unfortunately not everyone gets to experience. 

B and I watch Meatballs every summer when E leaves. The camp owners hate that we compare Wekeela in any way to Camp North Star in the movie, but for us, it's a positive. It's the relationships, the caring, the inside jokes, the heart, the way they all loved being there. The way they were all engaged because of the lack of real world distraction of likes and follows. Even if it subconscious, Wekeela has instilled in these kids the realization that they don't always need the online validation to know their worth. That, to me, is priceless. 

Thank you again Wekeela Family. It was another great summer. Hopefully, we'll have visiting day next summer and we can thank you in person. 

Camp Wekeela

Above: Nighttime Activity

Above: Singing at Campfire, see this and other songs @ethankulemusic

Above: Last Night on Little Bear Pond, Inters '22 singing

Amazon Fresh Store Review

 

Everyone online locally has been a buzz about the new Amazon Fresh store in Paramus. It's where the old Fairway was located. E is still at sleepaway camp, so you know, why not a Monday evening excursion for the hell of it to a supermarket. That's what all the cool kids are doing, right? 

B was like- what's with the interest in this market? I wasn't THAT interested, but I was a little curious. 

We went inside and you can't even just get in. You have to pull up your Amazon account, click through to the in-store QR code and scan it to have the gate open. Also, you have to make sure that the default payment credit card that it would charge is the one you want to use or you have to change it before you depart the store. They have a couple of regular check out stations but they don't tell you that prior to going in. I didn't know I had a choice of a regular check out. It was very confusing. 

I had brought my own bags, as I have like thirty. I definitely don't need more. But there is a display right in front of you when you go through the gate with green reusable bags that has signage saying, "Take one and fill your bag as you shop". I thought taking their bag was part of the process- that you HAD to use their bag. There was no sign that says the bags cost anything. I took one of their bags. 

There are hundreds of little hanging cameras everywhere.  Somehow, the cameras seem to know what you're picking up and they know who to charge for each item. If you take something, then don't want it, you need to put it back where you found it or you're going to get charged for it. You really don't want to touch anything for fear it's going to somehow end up on your bill. I can't even imagine coming in there with a child under, like, twelve.

I don't know if they just weren't prepared or it had been so busy in there that they didn't get a chance to restock, but I'd say they were out of 35% of the items that should've been on the shelves! There was nothing at the olive bar. Nothing at all at the hot bar. A few, like literally, FIVE items in the refrigerated bakery section- like where cake is supposed to be. B wanted frozen pizza. We saw they carry the Whole Foods 365 brand. There were maybe three different choices available. That's not because they don't carry more choices. They just didn't have the freezer stocked. Again, I don't know if they had these items on the day they opened and they're having restocking issues but it seemed more like it's a soft opening vs just being open now on the daily. 

In our mind, we were going to pick up food for dinner and dessert. Normally, we'd go to Shop Rite in Wyckoff. That Shop Rite in particular is stocked with prepared food. This Amazon Fresh store had shelving for prepared food- there just wasn't any available. Same with dessert. There were display stands that had a few store baked goods on them, but there were literally just a few clear clam shell containers with some sad looking croissants in them. B grabbed a container with some mini chocolate croissants but that's because it was either those or some processed baked goods like Ring Dings or Twinkies. 

The only "prepared" food he could readily access was the salad bar. He said there wasn't much he was interested in but he'd get some of that. We didn't understand the pricing but soon realized that the containers come in small, medium and large. He had just luckily grabbed a small container on his first try. He filled it as best he could with the things that were available to him. A small container costs $6.99, no matter how much it would weigh. I don't remember what the medium costs and the large costs $12.99. Remember, you also better not make a mistake and pick up the wrong size container, because you get charged every time you pick up a container.

We'd picked up blueberries, a party size Pringles, a 365 frozen pepperoni pizza, a twelve-pack of small gatorade, a mouth wash, the salad container, the croissants, two Lean Cuisine meals, and something else. We had a coupon for ten dollars off twenty dollars. When you get to the gate things at the end, you scan your QR from your Amazon account and your coupon(s). Then the gate opens and you can leave. But unless you have a photographic memory and the ability to add it all up mentally, you have no idea what you spent. Then it takes HOURS for you to know, and to get a receipt emailed to you. We left the store at six o'clock this evening. It's almost ten o'clock tonight and I just checked my email. The receipt came to my email at 9:41pm. About an hour ago I did check my Amazon account online and saw my purchase and the amount owed, but I'd looked a few times prior to that and it wasn't there until hours later. 

I tried to get reimbursed for the reusable bag before receiving the receipt in my email. I could pay the $0.78 or whatever, but it was on principle that I felt duped into taking it. You can't do any refunds or credits until you get the receipt. 

Was this food shopping experience any less expensive than other supermarkets? NO. I know the prices of food like The Price is Right. In fact, some of it was more expensive. Pringles are usually like $1.99 in Shop Rite. They were more in here. Blueberries were around $3.50. I feel like they're usually on sale in Shop Rite and Stop and Shop. Sometimes $1.99 a pint or buy one, get one. They didn't even have the ones I really want- the Driscoll's special giant ones. I didn't see any watermelon at all, but maybe I just missed it. The produce all looked decent, but I didn't feel like buying any besides the one pint of blueberries I got. 

None of the prices of anything seemed that great that I was compelled to buy. Shop Rite has so many sales, I almost never pay full price for Lean Cuisine. They were $4.69 each. That's high for Lean Cuisine. However, they did actually have a much larger selection of Lean Cuisine than Shop Rite and I was able to get an entree I really like, that I haven't been able to find at any other supermarket. 

I can say confidently, that I will never go back there. It isn't convenient for me to go there. They don't have the general selection of Shop Rite, and for being an Amazon store, which online, has EVERYTHING, it was a huge disappointment. I don't like feeling like I can't change my mind and put something back without fear of being charged incorrectly for it. I mean, it's great for them, because essentially they don't have to do much cleaning up to close at night, because I have to assume most people don't want to be charged for stuff they didn't actually take with them. So they're going to be careful about putting stuff back where it belongs. 

It just wasn't any better than Shop Rite, and as a brand shopper, that's way more important to me than being able to check out with my Amazon account. In fact, that's annoying because I'd have to change my default card every time I went in there and have to remember to change it back when I leave. Worse yet, whenever you change the default, you have to re-input the whole card number in to verify. I do know both card numbers, but sometimes it takes me a few minutes to remember. It's a giant pain. 

So my rating, if it was school grading, would be a D. I won't give it an F, because it was interesting? It's an interesting concept. But I also don't see how older people are going to do this. There's no way someone as technologically inept as my mother-in-law would ever be able to figure this out. It's not that it's SO difficult, but there is more thinking involved than should be in a supermarket trip. 

**I just went into my items and the only option for the reusable bag is to return it. I'm not driving to the UPS store to return it for $0.78. I'll just keep it, but I'm annoyed.

E's Journey of Tourette's Syndrome

 

I think the last time I wrote about E having Tourette's Syndrome was a brief mention of when he was diagnosed, finally, at the end of 2016, I wrote a blip about it in a January 2017 blog entry. Just to catch you up, after having gone through six years of twenty three doctors in approximately eight different specialties, being misdiagnosed and mis-medicated for ailments and syndromes he didn't have, I finally got to the neurologist who said, Oh, of course he has Tourette's. I knew from reading all the paperwork you sent in, but I needed to see him in person. But yes, he has Tourette's Syndrome. 

E was seven or and in second grade when I finally got that diagnosis and I could have made out with that doctor when he told me. Why? Because as a parent, you can't imagine just knowing something is wrong with your kid for SIX YEARS, but no one being able to figure it out. Then, having different doctors just throwing out what could be some of the most scary possible diagnoses there are, poking and prodding, still getting no answers, no relief, putting your kid through endless tests, medications, appointments, and getting nowhere. It was exhausting. I went big pharma, little pharma, holistic, you name it. I was ready to take him to a sweat lodge or a Salem witch.

Luckily, I knew someone who had a neurosurgeon husband at the time who recommended this particular pediatric neurologist who was the person to see. You want to know what made him different than the other three neurologists I saw before him? His office sent forty-minutes worth of paperwork I had to fill out prior to going to the appointment. Then he actually READ it before we went there. That's all. I didn't feel rushed, or like I had to quickly give him a timeline in five minutes and remember everything that had gone on in six years. He already knew. He was well versed in our history BEFORE I GOT THERE. You have NO IDEA how important that is when diagnosing a problem.

This neurologist is still like that- he takes his time. Granted, I've waited there a half hour or more to see him for our appointment. I understand though. I've been in there for our appointment for forty-five minutes. However long it takes, that's how long he spends with you. There's no just looking you over and sending you on your way. 

Back to E. When E was diagnosed in second grade, he didn't fit the criteria to medicate and we weren't looking to medicate. We just wanted to know what was going on with him. His tics weren't that bad at the time. He wasn't suffering academically, socially and the tics didn't bother him- all three of which are the criteria to medicate. He didn't really have any of the comorbidities that can go along with Tourette's, or anything we really noticed or affecting him, so medication was not on the table. Many time with Tourette's, there is ADHD, OCD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Anxiety, Depression, and other things. He wasn't exhibiting any of these other things so we left him be. The neurologist said that Tourette's often ramps up during puberty so just to keep an eye on it and if it gets worse, to come back. 

 He still had tics, and they'd wax and wane. None of the tics really impacted him negatively and nothing was so visible that anyone bothered him about it. His standard response to us was just, these are my tics and they're just part of me. That was that. 

Until around the summer of 2020. Maybe it was the combination of puberty, Covid, the consequences of Covid, I don't know, but 2020 was rough. I don't remember if he was exhibiting more tics during quarantine but he definitely had more irritation and anger from having to quarantine and losing the second half of his fifth grade year in school. He lost all the special things that the fifth graders were supposed to get to do as the culmination of their elementary school time. However, his sleepaway camp, in Maine, was one of the few sleepaway camps that decided to open that summer. He was so happy and we were happy to let him go, even though we were nervous about Covid. They had extensive Covid protocols in place, and he'd been in quarantine so long, we were happy to let him go. 

However, due to so many camps being closed, there were a lot of kids there who were just using his camp as a place-holder and going there because their camps were not opening. There were a lot of new kids and a decent amount of those kids were not respectful of the rules and traditions of his camp. He found this to be stressful and I don't know if this exacerbated his tics or if it was just puberty or both. When he came off that bus at the end of the five weeks away, we could see tics immediately. He was blinking like crazy. He said it was bad the whole time he was there. 

We thought maybe it would just slow down in time at home. We didn't really know what to do. He never really had a visible tic like that. So we just let him be and it did slow down a bit being home. Other tics came and went but they were stronger. Middle school was starting though, which was new, and it was starting in this whole weird hybrid system with him being home every other day doing school virtually. We had a whole Covid protocol school thing to deal with and the tics weren't terrible. Being home half the time actually wasn't terrible for him. He did really well academically, not having to be sitting at a desk all day. He wasn't physically in school with his close friends because they were separated alphabetically, so he didn't even really want to be there in person. The tics took a backseat to everything going on with school and Covid. 

The end of the school year came and it was time for camp again. For the 2021 summer, they were able to go back to the normal seven week session and Ethan was back to full-time. His three close friends were also joining him there for the second three and a half week session so he was really excited. They all went and had the BEST time ever. But when he came home, he was blinking and he'd added a shoulder tic and some others. 

School started, normally. No more Covid protocols except the masking. He had the shoulder tic that with his heavy backpack was now hurting his neck and back. He wanted to go to the neurologist and talk about medication. I made an appointment. 

We went to the neurologist in October and he'd put E first on Guanfacine, which seems to be where most kids start. Of course, for E, it was a no-go. The biggest thing we were concerned about was that it would change his personality. This was horrible. It made him like a zombie. He was so tired, it was like he was sleepwalking through the day. It lessened the tics at first, but it was just exhausting him. Being tired makes his eyes blink more. So we had to take him off it. 

Then he put him on Trokendi XR starting the second week of December. That's basically time-release Topiramate. He started on 25 mg and it started to work. Less blinking. We went to 50 mg per the dosing instructions and thought it was great. We were on a roll! Shoulder tic stops. We're happy! 

Except, cue, just after the new year, his face started to break out to where he looked like he either had some kind of extreme allergic reaction or extreme acne. This is a kid who had almost perfect skin, with maybe a few blemishes in the t-zone here and there, only to look like he literally had a DISEASE on his face. It was devastating. I was besides myself. I bought him a medical grade Dr Gross LED face mask for four hundred dollars that I'll be paying off for the next six months.

E, to his credit, rolled with it. He didn't complain. He was still wearing a mask to school, via state mandate, so it was mostly covered. He just wanted to know that it would eventually go away. We didn't know what it was, whether it had to do with the medication or just unlucky pubescent acne coming on. I was up every night until the wee hours researching what could be going on. We took him to a dermatologist. The doctor didn't know exactly what it was but said it needed to be treated from the inside out, so he put him on a conservative dose of Minocycline. I told the neurologist I was taking him off the Trokendi XR because I saw a photo online of a reaction to Topiramate that looked just like what was on E's face. The neurologist didn't think the Trokendi XR caused it but he said it was fine to take him off to see if anything changed. 

As soon as I took him off the Trokendi XR, of course the tics came back full force. The Minocycline was doing nothing for his face. After two more weeks, we took him to another dermatologist for a second opinion. The new dermatologist took him off the Minocycline and put him on Bactrum. But it's a sulfa drug. B has sulfa allergy. We just had to hope E didn't also. But you wouldn't know for about two weeks on the drug to see a reaction. The doctor also shot E's face up with cortisone wherever he could. E was a trooper. He looked like a horror show and still had to go back to school. 

The mask mandate ended just as E started the Bactrum. I think having the mask off is probably good for his skin too. The Bactrum started working within a few days! We were so happy. We put him back on the Trokendi XR also because the tics were too much for him and we determined that it didn't seem to be an allergy to it. Whatever is on his face didn't go away in the three weeks he was off the Trokendi XR. With the Bactrum, he was finally starting to look like himself again after about a week and a half. We felt like with the face getting under control, we wanted to get the tics under control too, if we could. 

The Trokendi XR though, is not without it's own problems. E started the Trokendi in December and he'd had a bit of an attitude problem. Again, I chalked this up to puberty and being a thirteen year old boy. We'd spoken to him about it at one point, around when we took him off it, and he'd been better. We didn't put two and two together. When we put him back on, he'd gotten irritable again and had some surprising issues with some of his teachers. All of a sudden, I realized, I'm on the same medication, basically, for migraines. I'm kind of irritable. Maybe the Trokendi XR makes him more irritable and that's why he is more emotional and irritable and it isn't simply just puberty and hormones.

I'll take the irritability but now we're at two weeks with the Bactrum, clearing his face up, which is my main issue right now, and E said, oh, but I have this rash....

This past Sunday, the day before I'm supposed to take him for a follow up at the new dermatologist, he shows us the sulfa rash he has all over his arms and chest. It just looks like heat rash, not hives. So we say, ok, just take a Benedryl and we'll show the doctor. Of course, the Bactrum was actually working so B and I are devastated. 

I took him to the dermatologist this past Monday and he said that as long as it wasn't hives, it wasn't dangerous, and if he could push through it with antihistimines, it would be okay. But, of course, as of today, the rash was worse, and he can't. He has to stop the Bactrum. He'll stop the Bactrum, wait a week and then go back on a stronger dose of Minocycline. I'm just so afraid that if he stops the Bactrum, his face will get worse instead of better. I'm so nervous for him to be on nothing for the next week.

This whole thing- Tourette's, puberty, acne or whatever it is- it's all a dance. It's exhausting. It's like having a hose with a hundred tiny leaks and having to figure out where they are and how to fix them without making more or worse leaks. I don't know what's really interacting with what. I clear up tics, I maybe make acne. I clear up acne, I make a rash. He's on pills and he's irritable. I can't just let him tic because the tics can be painful. Or kids bother him about the tics, or the acne. I can't just have him be irritable and be an asshole to his teachers.  

It's a lot. But I wanted to share where we're at right now. People are always surprised when I tell them that E has Tourette's. Most haven't noticed. It's funny, when it's your kid, you notice every tic. Just like when it's your baby, you feel like your baby has the loudest cry of all. He has it, it's just part of his story, and most of the time, he doesn't even care. It probably makes him more empathetic to other people who have stuff out of the norm going on with them that makes them different or unique. I just wish it didn't have to impact him negatively in middle school- because we all know how middle school can suck without having differences like Tourette's and acne. 

Dr Gross LED mask