E's best turkey yet

E. has been preparing and cooking our turkey each year for our Thanksgiving feast for many years now. It is usually a big one so we have plenty for turkey rice soup and turkey sandwiches and turkey and noodles, and... etc. This year it was about 21 pounds.

She needed lots of supervision when she started out all those years ago - around age 9. Now she needs minimal direction in the process. At age 17 she has made the best turkey yet! It was beautiful to see and deliciously moist and tasty too.

She makes the stuffing from scratch by chopping up the ingredients and adds expected things like carrots, onions, seasonings, celery... but she adds other things too to make it yummy and rather unexpected. This year it was raisins, dates and apples. Oh, and the celery was from her own garden!

E. is my child who asks, "How long do I need to microwave this leftover (fill in the blank)?"

I reply, "Until it's warm enough!" With Asperger's she seems to "miss" on some of the most common sense things, yet she "hits" when it comes to such unusual facts or trivia that most people would not know. She can ramble on and on about all kinds of science things like she has a college degree, but she cannot remember how to turn on the washing machine even though she has been shown many times.

It is a sense of pride and ownership that she does our turkey and stuffing each year. She truly is making strides in many aspects of her life, and I am always proud of her. She has a great group of friends around her and she is facing the world one day at a time. Some days are easier than others, yet who among us can deny that is true in our own lives?

N. (age 9) and A. (age 13) set the table and A. made her famous deviled eggs. When N. was little he used to think they were called doubled eggs! A. made scrumptious cinnamon chunky applesauce for the first time. We all loved it.
She also was a big help cutting up all the potatoes and sweet potatoes after I peeled them all.

We had my friend A's parents over for dinner. She and I have been best friends since age 5, she lives in Washington state and her parents still live right around the corner from us.
We have meshed the two families together as one.

A blessing.