All About Autism and Grinding teeth,
Medicaid and Medical Insurance, Julia Child,
Beouf Bourguignon and Chocolate Cream Pie….
But, not in that order.
When Boog was six or seven years old he was taken to the dentist who promptly informed me that Booga had ground his back teeth down to the gums and that they would have to be SURGICALLY removed….
“YIKES!”
So we had to take Booga to a dental surgeon and get his opinion on the matter; and luckily there was one in the same building as his dentist. ….Here’s where it got sticky, we had to drive an hour to an hour and a half to get to the dentists office because Booga had Medicaid. So this became an ordeal for a couple months.
Our other children didn’t have medical insurance at the time, so any time they had to have any dental work done, we had to save money for it or sell things. So it was a God’s send that Booga had Medicaid.
Are you listening Republicans?
In fact, my husband and I didn’t have dental insurance until last year…Our daughter’s teeth, our older son’s teeth, and our own teeth, came out of our own pockets. Not cheap by any means.
Anyway, he had to be admitted to a hospital and have his teeth removed, and luckily it was day surgery. However, I will never forget my parents driving me home with Booga still reeling from anesthetic and throwing up black, stale blood.
Ugh!
And try to explain to an autistic child with a sore throat that even though they don’t like the texture of popsicles-the cold will make their mouth feel better or that they may not like the texture of ice cream but it will make the those gums feel so much better. Or that they can’t have those chips because they are going to really hurt to eat.
Yeah.
Oh joy.
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This wasn’t the first surgery Booga had to have. His first one was when he was about a year and a half old. He had to have his tear duct opened up. He was on insurance (through a large insurance company) for children without Medicaid at the time.
I’m sure it was a tax write off for the company.
( Thought process being: We’re gonna invent this insurance for children without insurance so we can write it off of our taxes because we need a write off, because we make too much money and the government is going to ram it up our butts when it comes tax time…)
Unfortunately, as Booga started to go through diagnosis for his Autism, the insurance company dropped all my children because of Booga’s “pre-existing” condition. It wasn’t called “a pre-existing condition” to my face, at that time, but now that I’m not as naïve as I once was, I know what they did and why they did it.
At the time they dropped all my children, I called them and begged and pleaded with them and the woman on the other end kept going on and on and trying to justify it and finally she told me she was hanging up and that was it. It hurt me and made me angry. So, it was around that time I became a Democrat.
…………………………………Cut on the dotted line……………………………………
Currently Booga is having meltdowns because he is having a hard time doing the dishes without getting the floor wet. He says it is because he spills the water that accumulates from bowls and pans being right side up in the dishwasher. I showed him how to make it so the water doesn’t accumulate in the dishes and pans. But I also told him that “meltdowns” won’t be tolerated and that if he doesn’t stop having them I am going to take away his Julie & Julia DVD. This particular punishment is because Julie has “meltdowns” that he finds hysterical in the movie and he has a tendency to reenact scenes from movies he likes when he is going through daily life.
Really brings home why you should be careful what you think is appropriate to put on television and movies and or what you should allow your children to watch. Not that there is anything wrong with having a melt down, but what if it was something more than that or something more sinister than that?
One of the reasons that Booga will never watch the movie “Sweeney Todd”.
…………………………………..Cut on the dotted line………………………………....
So today we made Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner. Not an easy task.
I found the recipe online and woke up this morning knowing I would have to cook it.
I planned on doing it for almost a week. I planned our grocery shopping around it. And I studied the recipe after I got it from the Knopf website . They have a PDF there and I printed it out and sat for hours staring at it trying to see the techniques in my head. Some of the wording has gotten to the point (which blows my mind because it was only a little less than fifty years ago the thing was written) where it’s almost archaic and difficult to translate for the common cook. Booga loved it though.
Yesterday I taught him how to make Chocolate Cream Pie. It’s a simple recipe and the one I do is sugar free and sort of an ABC method. A lot of cooks would poo poo it but I don’t care. We’re dealing with Autism.
It’s basically sugar free chocolate pudding, with sugar free whipped cream and a graham cracker crust. And that’s it.
It’s easy for him to make.
Now the Boeuf Bourguignon…That’s another matter….
Holy moly.
Booga wants to help so I woke him up this morning because it’s a process that takes a good five hours. First you have to get the meat dried and cut up the vegetables; and before any of that took place I had to find my pans.
I don’t have a large kitchen.
I have pans all over. Even in the entrance to the basement there are pans.
And cooking with Booga is like cooking with an eye patch and a broken arm because he wants to learn but he’s slow at getting things done. Taking a shower, putting his clothes on and cutting up carrots- these are major league tasks for him. But he wanted to make this so here we are.
Now I am someone who is used to making dinner quickly, I usually know what I am going to cook and can tell you the ingredients off the top of my head. If it’s something I am looking at a recipe about, then it’s not a long recipe, it’s only a page long. Boeuf Bourguignon is three pages of recipe- plus a recipe for mushrooms and onions that goes with the recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon.
So I flew around that kitchen with Booga cutting up the vegetables while I browned the beef and Booga pouring in the wine (a lot of wine, like nearly a whole bottle of wine) while I took pictures. He enjoyed making it. It did take all afternoon with the cooking of the thing. He also ate almost three plates of it.
Personally I thought it was okay. But people who don’t care for the strong wine flavor- I would probably suggest that you use more broth and less wine. I don’t know if the gravy part of the stew is going to be affected by the lack of the “body” of wine. But it’s something you might try so that you get more of the beef flavor and less of the heavy wine flavor.
Honestly, I felt like I was getting trashed on just the smell of it cooking in the oven.
Whoa!
And it’s a heavy stew. It’s really really rich.
Not for those on a low-fat diet.
By the way, sugar-free chocolate cream pie is a really good desert-albeit an ironic choice- to go with Boeuf Bourguignon. It was deliciously chocolaty and if I could’ve I would have eaten half of it. Nummy.
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