7 Quick Takes: Cheesefare Edition

--1--

For my Western Catholic readers, happy Lent!  For the rest of us Orthodox on the Old Calendar, happy Cheesefare week!  This is the week of bidding farewell to dairy products.  (We bid adieu to meat last week).  Russians call this week maslenitsa, or literally, Butter Week.  They eat loads of blini (crepes) this week, and try to use up all the dairy in the larder before Monday.  We now have a few traditional Cheesefare Week meals, including cheese pancakes with sour cream and jam.  I'm having a little trouble running down the farmer's cheese necessary for the dish (darn Soviet style grocery shopping!), but I'm determined to persevere, even if it means driving to New Jersey for it!!

--2--

The Great Fast starts on Monday, and with it, a new cooking adventure.  This year, I can eat soy again, so my vegan recipe index is bigger than in the past few years, but I still have to eat legumes on a rotation basis, so we'll see how things shake out.  I'm doing a fish food challenge on March 9, so perhaps we'll be able to rotate in some tuna and salmon for Aunnciation.  

--3--

One other food related item, which is, we recently discovered that my boys LOVE Caesar salad.  I mean, love it to distraction.  I've been buying these family-size salad kits (from Dole) and the boys between them can put away most of two bags.  TWO!!  Crazy.  I'm sort of dreading the teenage years, given how they eat now.

--4--

I definitely have a stress fracture, and I definitely need to wear the boot for 6-8 weeks, which officially makes me feel like Job.  Let's pile on a little more, shall we?  I guess it is appropriate for the season.  

--5--

On that note, my husband pestered me into going to the doctor yesterday since I've been coughing up my lungs for several weeks now, and it turns out I was only a day or two away from pneumonia.  Lovely.  The doctor took one look at me in my boot, with Birdie strapped to me and asked me if I wanted happy pills in addition to the antibiotic.  

--6--

I'm still plugging away at paper flower projects for Spring Fling, but alas, I have nothing new to show you (or at least, I've not had time to photograph any projects), so I'll show you this little guy instead.  I love the gnome set in the current Mini catalog, and I especially love the sentiments that go with it.  Does it get any better than "hangin' with my gnomies?"  I think not.

--7--

On Sunday, we were driving to church, and about 4 miles down the road, there was a CLUNK, followed by an ominous scraping noise.  My husband pulled over to inspect, and sure enough, the bracket holding the muffler had dropped off, and the muffler was dragging on the ground.  He got out a bungee cord, tied up the muffler, and off we went.  We got to our exit, and another CLUNK followed by scraping noises followed us.  My husband pulled over again (right on the exit ramp, lovely), and the bungee cord had melted.  He found some rope, jury-rigged the muffler up, but since it was so hot, couldn't get it very tight, so we scraped over every speed bump to church (and there are a lot in that part of New Jersey, let me tell you).  After we got going again, Harry piped in from the back seat:

Twinkle, twinkle, 

Chocolate bar,

My dad drives a rusty car.

Pull the starter, push the choke,

Off we go in a cloud of smoke.

Twinkle, twinkle

Chocolate bar,

My dad drives a rusty car.

We about died.

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

7 Quick Takes: Snarky Edition

--1--

I'm almost at the end of a VERY long week of solo parenting, and I'm feeling pretty snarky, so consider yourself warned.  

--2--

I knew my husband had a trip planned starting Wednesday, so I was mentally girding my loins for a three day solo parenting gig starting Wednesday.  At breakfast on Tuesday morning (Valentine's Day), my husband mentioned something in passing about his co-author from New York coming in for a book symposium.  I said, "What book symposium?" My husband suddenly looked both sheepish and guilty at the same time and said, "Oh, um, did I forget to tell you about that?  I have my book symposium tonight with a dinner."  No, you didn't tell me.  So I had a sad sack dinner of hot dogs with the boys.  At least there was candy from Piglet's school celebrations at the end of it.  (Because my husband doesn't believe in giving me chocolate for Valentine's Day.  Oh well.  He does other nice things throughout the year).  

--3--

My copy of Breaking Dawn arrived on Monday, and that just made everything better on Tuesday night.  Yay for amazon.com preorder!!

--4--

I finally went to see a podiatrist yesterday about my foot, and she said that it was a strange place for a stress fracture, as most stress fractures tend to occur closer to the toes, and ordered and MRI.  Oh, and she put me in a boot.  Did I mention that I have three children under age five and about fifty thousand stairs in my house?  After nearly killing myself on the stairs last night, I decided I won't be wearing the boot in the house, just when I go out.  My foot hurts almost as much or more in it anyway. I had the MRI this morning, and the tech couldn't see anything amiss, but I'm hoping the doctors will be able to figure something out. 

--5--

Birdie got pink eye this week, just as Boo was getting over his. It doesn't seem to bother her as much as Boo, who required regular Tylenol on top of the eye drops.  But she did have a scare scare last Friday night requiring oral steroids, nebulized steroids and a narrowly avoided hospital stay, although now she seems to be back to baseline.  Which is to say, she sounds terrible, but at least she isn't coughing/crying constantly and projectile vomiting.  Now she just coughs every couple of hours and has normal amounts of spit up.  We have appointments with GI and pulmonary next week, so I'm hoping someone can figure something out.  

--6--

I've been plugging away at the flower projects for Spring Fling and made this hydrangea card one afternoon earlier this week.  I used a tutorial from Valita's Fresh Folds for the flowers, but I made up my own card design for the rest.  I'm pretty pleased with how it came out!  (Apologies for the less than stellar photo--I just didn't have it in me to set up my whole light box thingie today).

--7--

I'm sure everyone who is on Facebook has seem some version of the meme with six pictures that say "What my friends think, what my mom thinks, what I think," and so on.  The best one I've seen so far is this one, posted by a friend who lives near Fargo.  As my dad's family is from Fargo, and I used to live in Minneapolis, I personally found it hilarious.  But maybe my sense of humor is warped.  But you knew that already.

Go see Hallie for more quick takes!

7 Quick Takes: Paper Roses

--1--

My post today is rather late because I had to get up extremely early this morning to catch a 6 a.m. Bolt Bus to New York City for a food challenge at my allergist's office.  Today we challenged soy, and I'm happy to report that I passed!  So I can have soy in all forms now, no restrictions.  Hello Chinese food!!  (And just in time for Great Lent...)

--2--

Piglet had surgery on Tuesday to have his adenoids out and ear tubes placed and everything went very well.  He was a real trooper, and the surgi-center was incredibly efficient and kind.  I was totally impressed.  Piglet was a little out of it the rest of the day, but woke up Wednesday morning and declared, "I feel very well and I want to go to school," so we decided he could go.  

--3--

Wednesday went fine for him, but unfortunately, he woke up at about 4:00 a.m. on Thursday morning crying in pain.  We gave him Tylenol, but he kept complaining that his knee hurt so bad, and couldn't walk on it.  I kept him home yesterday, and took him to the doctor in the late afternoon as she was concerned about a possible bacterial infection.  She decided that the pain was not emergent, but that we needed to keep an eye on it.  He is still limping a bit, but not complaining of pain any longer, and went to school today, so perhaps it is just a strange little virus in the fluid around the knee.

--4--

Boo has pink eye and has been even more miserable than usual this week.  We got the eye drops and his eyes look a ton better, but his disposition still leaves a lot to be desired.

--5--

I've been making paper roses like a mad fool this week (well, in between tending to sick little people)--I'm supposed to demonstrate how to make them at our next Philly Inker meeting on Monday.  I'm also doing a 3-D paper flower demonstration at our Spring Fling in March, so the roses will be part of my display.  I'm still working on the finished product, but these are a few of the roses I made this week.  I had fantasies of offering a paper flower line in my etsy store, sort of on the order of wedding floral arrangements, but after making so many roses this week, I may rethink that strategy.  They are not that time consuming in the abstract, but they are a little fiddly to put together in mass quantity.

--6--

I took all three kids with me to Whole Paycheck, erm, Whole Foods yesterday to pick up a few things.  I took our double Maclaren, and since Piglet couldn't walk, I put him and Birdie in the stroller and Boo on my back in the ERGO (which was lovely for the stress fracture in my foot, by the way--my foot is killing me today!).  I got my stuff and was waiting in line with the kids (who were amazingly good for the whole trip), and the woman ahead of me turned around, appraised me and my stroller and said with her eyes wide, "Are they all yours?"  No, I routinuely go to the market with three children under age five not my own.  Ahem.  "Yes, they are all mine."  I shudder to think what people will say when there are four or five of them.

--7--

I have been looking for a pair of light brown sweater-type stockings and finally found a pair of extra-long thigh highs.  (I hate regular thigh highs because they usually end up like weird knee socks on me, even though my legs are short and stumpy).  They arrived earlier this week and I wore them on Tuesday.  Piglet was watching me put them on in the morning and as I unfurled them to put them on, his eyes got very big and he stage-whispered, "Biggg socks."  Ha!  (And for other kid-funnies, Boo has been informing all and sundry today: "I'm a boy."  So there you go.)

i dig you!

--1--

Since I dedicated last week's post to health stuff, I won't talk about that this week, except to say that we've mostly survived The Siege.

--2--

Today I'm channeling my inner Joan Holloway (minus the bouffant hair and crazy hourglass figure).  So far, the retro fashion make over is going fairly well, although I must confess that it is hard to find the time to set my hair properly.  Lucky for me, my hair is pretty curly (and even more so after a recent cut) and so I can manage a somewhat retro hair-do without a set on many days.  But a roller or pin-curl set looks so nice when I can manage it!!  My look is tending a bit more toward the late 1940s/early 1950s than the WWII era, but that is more a function of needing easy access for breastfeeding right now.  The best part of the whole thing?  My husband loves the look and is so complimentary!  Never hurts the old ego to be stroked a bit.  

--3--

I have a fun new project in mind, thanks to an idea from a bloggy friend, Matushka Anna Crawford.  She challenged her readers to photograph the alphabet in creative ways this month.  I thought it would be a neat idea to make a picture book for the boys with the photos.  I haven't actually started it yet, but when I get my feet back under me, I'm going to tackle it!  I think it would be a great MDS project.

--4--

Yesterday I started making valentines for Piglet's classmates and teachers.  It took me a while to settle on a design, but I'm pretty happy with what I came up with.  Since I have to make 36 of them, I needed a simple design that wasn't very supply-intensive.  Besides, let's face it, they are four, and at that age, you are making the valentines for their moms as much as anything. I also wanted something that would be appropriate for a four-year-old to be giving to other kids his age.  That little dump truck with the "i dig you!" sentiment was just the right thing!

--5--

While I was juggling Birdie (who has started projectile vomiting in the evening, just to keep things interesting), and trying to make the valentines, I started re-watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning, mostly because I wanted to watch something on the computer that was familiar and easily interrupt-able.  It was kind of fun to see how that show has evolved over the last eight seasons. (And if you are a Grey's hater, don't tell me about it - I know there are plenty of objectionable things about that show, but I still like it).  I nearly gave it up after season six, but have gotten sucked right back in.  Although I've got to say that since they killed off Henry, I'm less interested in keeping up.

--6--

Today is Boo's namesday, so we will have a little celebration at dinner.  I think I'm going to try and figure out a way to make vegan brownies, since that seems to be Boo's favorite dessert lately.  Although he is kind of a cookie monster. 

--7--

And last but not least?  Breaking Dawn Part One DVD hits stores on February 13.  Yippie!!!  I've already preordered mine from amazon.com.  The timing is perfect as my husband will be traveling a lot that week.  Now I can finally catch the funny scene with the Volturi after the credits that I missed in the theatre!!

The Siege

Much as with a battle, any time illness strikes a family, the family goes into bunker mode, and prepares for the bombs.  The house is closed to visitors, supplies are laid in for the afflicted, and the parents learn or relearn their roles in the battle against the intruder.  The days of siege are a heightened time, when everything seems to slow down or stop all together.

We've been under fire since Friday evening, when Boo woke up covered in vomit.  He threw up almost continually from 8 p.m. until about 1 a.m. when he fell asleep until morning.  We settled in and prepared for the bombs.  It was unlikely that anyone was going to escape unscathed, as our pediatrician informed us that the current stomach virus making the rounds lasts three days, and once the vomiting is done, the lower GI symptoms take over.  Super.  She was concerned about my five-month old daughter, who, in addition to being only five months old, has a chronic condition and is a bit sickly as a result.  She could dehydrate extremely quickly, and we needed to try and quarantine the sick.

My husband and I relearned our battle positions.  My role was to clean up and comfort the afflicted, and his role was to arm himself with a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of diluted bleach to clean up whatever didn't make it into a receptacle.  My husband ran out to the 24 hour CVS and stocked up on pedialyte, peaches in heavy syrup (our pediatrician told us to give the syrup after vomiting as a way to boost blood sugar), chicken stock, and saltines.  In the morning, I made sure the washing machine stayed occupied, and he made sure that Boo stayed quarantined from the rest of the family in the morning.  By Saturday night, Birdie was vomiting, and by Sunday, my husband was down for the count.  This morning (Monday), Piglet threw up three times before breakfast, and so stayed home from school.  I'm still standing (at least for the moment), but expect to go down sometime in the next 24 hours.

My cooking plans for the week have flown out the window, and I'm trying to decide to whether to reschedule a planned trip to New York on Wednesday to see my allergist and EE specialist.  It was hard to coordinate with both doctors for the same day, plus arrange child care, so I'm hesitant to make the call right now while I still feel fine (exhausted, but fine).

The thing about sieges in battle is that eventually they end.  At some point battle fatigue sets in and there is a lull in the action.  Battalions retreat to a different location to regroup and renew.  The war isn't won, but there is a break in the intensity of the action.  But what happens when you can't retreat much behind the front line?

Since Birdie's birth in late August, I have the sense that we live just beyond the front line at all times, and as such, have developed a kind of long term bunker mentality.  My elder son needs more help than a normal child his age right now, and my daughter has ongoing health problems that look unlikely to resolve until she is over a year old.  Combine that with the veritable petri dish that is preschool, and you have a recipe for disaster.  It is very wearing, all this illness.  I don't have much space in my head to think.  I'm extremely introverted (in the technical, rather than popular sense of that word), and the constant caring for sick people (and being sick myself on and off) is difficult for me.  I never have a chance to regroup and recharge.  I keep thinking that it has to get better, it can't just keep going like this, but we are five months in, and there seems to be no sign of a let-up.  It is all very discouraging for me.  I eat too much sugar and consume way too much caffeine in order to stay on my feet far longer than any sane person should be expected to, because every night is an adventure in extreme sleep deprivation and many afternoons are a scream-fest.  I expect to be interrupted at night by my daughter, but my middle son has been the source of most of our night wakings, and frankly, it is getting old.   I spend much of my babysitting hours ferrying children to various therapy and doctor's appointments, and have given up entirely on taking the bus to get my elder son from preschool every day (we take a cab instead).  I keep telling myself that I'll get back on the bus when we all get better, but it just never seems to happen.  (Especially now that I have a stress fracture in my right foot, probably from all the double baby carrying).  I'm cooking brainless meals most of the time, and resorting to things that can be put on the table in 15 minutes if possible.  Until this most recent battle, I was enjoying playing around with my daily look, but since Friday have lived in yoga pants and whatever shirts can be washed easily if vomited on.  Since I'm nursing around the clock again (after nearly weaning a week or two ago), I need easy access, and some of my retro-ish outfits aren't super nursing friendly.  I'm pretty sure even Lauren Bacall wore sweats during a household outbreak of stomach flu.

I really wanted this post to have a point, or to have some deeper meaning about being in bunker mode, but as I'm still in the midst of it, it is hard for me to have some perspective.  Perhaps once the siege is over and the battle is won (if not the war).  I write this if only to assure you that I don't in fact live up to my own standards, and that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.  Battle Stations!!

7 Quick Takes: Health Edition

--1--

I know I keep going on about the sickness at our house (it has gotten past the point of ridiculous, really), so I thought I might just devote a whole post to it, particularly as we've had some illuminating moments lately in that department.

--2--

Piglet and Birdie saw an ENT last week while my mom was here (her being here was why I didn't post last week).  Turns out that the reason Piglet has had a croupy chronic cough Every.Day for the last three plus years is that his adenoids are blocking his airway 70%.  Oh, and he needs ear tubes, and can't hear very well as a result of poor drainage.  To add insult to injury, he developed a nasty sinus infection this week and is, as our pediatrician put it, pus to the eyeballs.  He started an antibiotic yesterday, and hopefully will be well enough to have his adenoids out and ear tubes put in on February 7.  I'm hoping that the surgery will fix a whole host of related problems, now that we actually know what is going on with him.  Oh, and pulmonology at CHOP completely missed the boat on this one three years ago, blowing us off with a bogus diagnosis of reflux. Never mind that he didn't fit the profile of a reflux-baby or toddler, had none of the other symptoms, didn't respond to reflux meds, or any other asthma/allergy meds we tried. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

--3--

Birdie has larynomalacia, which is floppy larynx syndrome. She just has to outgrow it, which means she is going to sound like Darth Vader for some time yet. It also has lovely side effect of pretty severe reflux, which we suspected, but since she didn't respond to the first two meds we tried, we thought we must have been mistaken.  Guess not.  She is back on two different reflux meds, and her night sleep has improved, although she is still prone to random fits of inconsolable crying during the day.  

--4--

I have a stress fracture in my right foot, probably from all the double baby wearing and carrying around Boo, who is getting close to 30 pounds.  So my half-hearted plan to maybe start working out again in February in on indefinite hold until it heals.  Since it has been a month or so already, I'm not extremely hopeful.  On the upside, I did get a pair of roller skates for my namesday, so at least I'll have something fun to do when my foot is better!

--5--

Boo continues to torture us nightly with random wakings for no reason.  He was such a good sleeper until he turned a year, and now sleeps more like a newborn.  It is extremely annoying, especially since his naps are also hit and miss.  Other than garden-variety colds, however, he is fine.

Update: hours after I wrote this post, Boo got a stomach virus and spent much of the night throwing up.
According to our pediatrician, it lasts three days, has diarrhea to boot, and will probably go around to the whole family.  Oh yay.

--6--

My husband and I have been trading a sore-throat-sinus-infection-cold thing for the last several months.  He has it, I have it, he has it, one of the kids gets it, you get the idea.  We're both exhausted and beginning to wonder if this is all some kind of twisted penance for transgressions.

--7--

Okay, so not health related, but I wanted to share something pretty anyway.  I made this two weeks ago just to make something easy.  I like how it turned out.  It is CASEd from another stamper, but I made paper buttons instead of using real ones so it would mail more cheaply.

7 Quick Takes

--1--

We've been enjoying the 12 days of Christmas with lots of desserts and meat and dairy.  Piglet especially has loved the chocolate milk and has frequently requested an extra glass as his dessert instead of my mom's special fudge.  Weird child.  More for us!

--2--

And while we on the topic of dessert, as a special treat one day this week, I put a mini Reese's peanut butter cup into Piglet's lunch box (he normally has an apple and carrots with whatever is the main thing that day).  He came home that day and informed me very seriously that he didn't want any more muffins in his lunch.  I was a little confused until he pointed to the other three Reese's sitting on the table (and I looked in his lunch box to see the Reese's still in there).  "No more muffins in my lunch box, Mama." Alrighty, then.

--3--

We continue to battle illness in this household.  All three kids are sick with colds/respiratory illness.  Birdie is still down for the count with  the bronchiolitis whatever this weird thing is and sounds pretty bad at night.  She has been spending 2 hours or more every night coughing and crying and coughing and crying until she can fall back asleep.  One night this week all three kids were up from 1:30 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.  Shoot me now.

--4--

And just to keep things interesting, my husband and I both traded stomach viruses this week, on top of all the respiratory junk we are sharing around.  Fun times.

--5--

I'm writing today at my other blog about rethinking my closet, in keeping with one of my goals for this year, which is to get my closet under control.  My conclusions may be somewhat unusual, but I think they will suit me to a T.

--6--

I didn't quite make my goal of three cards this week because of the whole stomach flu thing, but I did get two made, one of which was this little beauty.  It didn't photograph very well, but I just love those little birds!  I can't take credit at all for the general idea, as Linda Fisher came up with the original, but I did change up the color scheme--I've been wanting to do a card in these colors for a few weeks now and I love how it turned out!

--7--

And because I just have to share, I read this great article this week about how time and motherhood intersect.  For those who don't know, I wrote my master's thesis on time and space in the Orthodox Church, and how that plays out in the physical space of the church.  So the author's thoughts on Kairos and Chronos really resonated with me, in addition to being timely to my stage of mothering.  My favorite line? "Parenting is hard. Just like lots of important jobs are hard. Why is it that the second a mother admits that it’s hard, people feel the need to suggest that maybe she’s not doing it right? Or that she certainly shouldn’t add more to her load. Maybe the fact that it’s so hard means she IS doing it right…in her own way…and she happens to be honest."

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!