Medical
Friday, May 09, 2008
Jay: Like Flipping a Switch
Just a quick update before the baby finishes waking after going on a three hour nap.
Valerie had no milk this morning.
It’s been like flipping a switch and turning the bladder control issue off.
She still had less coffee in it that had been the case, but I gave her coffee the way we would if we were out of milk, using a bunch of dry creamer and then diluting most of the glass with cold water.
Its possible it’s also other food factors, which yesterday saw the beginning of reducing for her (I created a dish for supper that even the baby could eat, which was so delicious it needs a write-up… if only I had a food blog- oh wait!), but milk would seem to be the big thing.
Update:
Of course, the peetastic one having greater control means she can be far more spectacular at the angry house cat thing that she’d been exhibiting as well, from before she completely lost it. In this case I suspect she was mad at Sadie for hogging my computer, but they’re both banished from sitting in my desk chair again. I might be able to sit in it with the giant bath towel folded on it, after having used two other towels to sop it up first. I’ve never seen her produce that kind of output other than in the potty. She was clearly holding it and released on demand, which her smirk seemed to confirm.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Jay: Food Sensitivities
You all know that Henry has food sensitivities. Those see to be multifaceted, depending how observationally off some of it may have been.
Milk is in a class of its own. He appeared to get an immediate rash where milk touched his skin, and if he drinks milk - but it’s always in the form of coffee or strawberry milk his sisters have left where he can reach - he gets itchy and miserable to the point of needing Benadryl shortly after.
Bananas are in a class of their own, potentially related to latex allergies.
Everything else seems to relate to salicylates. If you search for salicylate sensitivity, you can get an idea the foods involved, which can vary by person, variety, location where grown, and manner of processing. Pears are about as safe as it gets, and he can demonstrably eat canned pear halves in heavy syrup without issue. However, he just as demonstrably can’t drink pear juice, which is concentrated and isn’t carefully segregated from the peel in processing. Pear was an expensive substitute for apple, which we’d been giving him as a safe food and juice nobody could ever be allergic to, and the absence of which for two days unintentionally made him heal as fully as he’s done since he started eating food. Grape juice was a clear reaction. Consume it, wait briefly, go crazed with rash and itching.
Foods he reacts to also seem not to digest well.
At this point, he can eat meat, rice, oatmeal, white sugar, water, butternut, potatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes, but those last two are relatively high and we may be setting him off if we give him too much at once. Probably forgot something there.
He has no overt allergy, apparently, to peanut butter, eggs, corn, or wheat. He did get especially itchy the other day after eating Play-Doh, but not sure it was that, and obviously that’s a big exception.
All of this is confused by the fact he scratches as if he’s itchy when he gets sleepy, and apparently when he’s in pain. He also gets worst drool rash ever.
A lot of dried herbs/spices are a problem. We noticed a possible correlation for the first time the other day when he got some of the outside of chicken that was heavy on black pepper, as well as having some other things on it.
So that’s him. What was interesting is researching and realizing I may have the same sensitivity to some degree, and that it could be the answer to a range of symptoms over my life that include the mystery skin pigmentation and bladder urgency and, when I was little, bed wetting. It’s made me curious about details of my diet when I was a kid in the bed wetting stage.
Which Valerie is in, and we might have chalked up to her age, except it’s gotten to be total loss of control at random. In the last couple days, we seem to have proven a correlation between stuff that’s part of the same sensitivity, and Valerie’s issues. She gets mysterious headaches, perhaps more of them than we realize, as well as having the bladder issues. She also went from being the happiest baby to being rather somber, which made me wonder about the extent of the headaches or if there’s other pain. It’s painful to hear here declare “I’m a happy girl” in a tone that sounds the opposite, like she’s trying to convince us and herself it’s not the end of the world.
This could also be completely unrelated, but I had her doing well for several hours the other day, with the change seemingly triggered by consumption of pear juice and Cran-Apple. Ironically, in an effort to keep her more hydrated, to reduce the problems.
As far as we can tell, the closest Sadie has come to any of this is developing contact rashes from tomato-based products touching her face. She seems to be able to eat or drink anything with impunity.
So. We’re not necessarily going on a crash elimination diet for three of us, but we are going to start changing what Valerie in particular gets, monitoring specifically what happens.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Jay: Blargh
I feel lousy this morning. Got enough sleep, even if much of it was in Sadie’s bed because she apparently decided our bed would be better and warmer. Well, “even if” makes her bed sound bad, and actually it’s awesome. I may have gotten deeper sleep there. I noticed Valerie eventually abandoned her bed too, presumably joining the crowd in ours.
I woke up from one of those crazy mashed up dreams. It involved starting a job, and the place or aspects brought in elements of multiple past employers and situations. The place was named Halliday, which is one job. The lobby was right out of Corporate Software, which later became Stream. I was supposed to start at $8.00 an hour, which happens to be minimum wage in Massachusetts currently. I speculated they might start at slightly higher, which Flatley Company did when I worked at Waterford Village. Minimum wage then was $2.90 and they paid $3.00. Then minimum wage went to $3.10 and they paid… $3.10, which completely destroyed some notions I had.
I was talking with someone, speculating that the company might pay me a little above the minimum. Sure enough, it was going to be $8.02, which somehow morphed into the exact same thing as the $12.02 I started at with Corporate Software. Anyway, even the reference to pay rate is a reference back to prior jobs.
The exterior of the building was some kind of generic cross between places, hard to say one more than another, but there might have been elements of a Christy’s Market, adding another old job.
Later, when I was on the job, there was a scene in an apartment. Apparently apartments were part of what the place did, which goes back to Waterford Village. It was vacant, had been mine, still had some of my stuff in it, and was not going to be rented any time soon. This was like the office I had in Easton, which took me a month extra to move out of after the last official month, with them in no hurry for it. A guy named Matthew showed up in the dream. We once shared an apartment in Greenfield, and I was telling him he might soon want to get his stuff out of this one that he’d left it in with me. He hadn’t even realized I’d moved. Shades of former partners having left stuff in the office in Easton, which had to go to them, be disposed of, be adopted, or be stored.
Confusingly, in a related sequence, I was showing someone how many bookcases I was going to be able to fit, in a ridiculous arrangement, in just the entryway/kitchen area alone. The someone was an amalgamation of a former partner and someone I didn’t work closely with at Stream, but who was similarly brilliant.
Very strange. I also remember thinking that I could crash in the apartment if needed, like if I needed to stay over at work since the place was vacant, I had access to it, and they’d made me welcome to use it, short of actually moving in.
Lots of stuff to do today. Hope I can remember what it is! I have some e-mailing and calling and going and researching and writing and food storing and cleaning and organizing and so forth to be done.
We received a book yesterday that we’d order super cheap from Half.com, a used copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I need to do more than skim the intro, but it should be interesting. Sadie is beyond ready. She fell asleep last night with a book named “Ted” open, pages down on her chest. She studies and recites books from memory. She knows the letters. She has an idea of some words, like the Q thing she identifies with closing a program (Quit), that made he so excited to learn about how q and u go together.
This morning she spent some time on my lap while I didn’t write and I did an impromptu tiny lesson on m and s, which are the first ones covered in the book. She can point them out on the keyboard (and sound like I’m stupid to ask her) and I had her say the sounds. The actual lessons take about 15 minutes. Not a bad amount of time to devote, once or twice a day. I doubt she’ll need the whole thing or want to be held back to that speed once we’re rolling.
Anyway, I need to go take care of stuff in the kitchen. And post the birthday I didn’t know about before I started this. Sooner or later I’ll have no birthday-free days.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Jay: Poor Henry
He had one of his worst breakouts last night. What changed? We gave him pear juice as a replacement for apple and grape. It should be safer. What I gave him wasn’t watered down as much as we usually do. Traditionally the purpose of juice for us has been to make water taste better for the kids. Luckily, he has always liked plain cold water.
The thing is, after deciding it had been the pear juice, with a chance it could have been beef, pork, or some random thing (caught him sucking on a raisin at one point, snagged from where it had fallen from the table to Sadie’s chair), it turned out Sadie had left a cup of strawberry milk on the floor where we wouldn’t see it readily, but Henry might easily have gotten into it. That’s candle to moth. I took Valerie’s cup away before he could drink any coffee milk from it, disappointing him at one point. If he finds them he will drink from them. It’s time to make the girls drink at the table, period. They’ve already gotten used to eating only at the table with few exceptions.
None of which explains why during the night I started itching like crazy, and haven’t entirely stopped. That could mean something that bothers me is bothering him, so is it food we both ate, soap I used, or what? Or is it coincidence?
On another note, Deb found dairy-free margarine, the trick to which was getting the “light” variety, completely soy based. It’s not very good, and expressly says not to use it in cooking, but at least it’s something.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Jay: Preoccupied
I was working on a post about recent work experiences, but decided I’d cut to a this and that post and save the other for later.
Things got more interesting again with the baby. Henry is apparently allergic to milk. He got into a sippy cup one of the girls had, got a meaningful amount, and where it dribbled down his front, he got contact hives.
So we are up to milk and presumably milk products, with it all the clearer the big incident was cheese-related, bananas, apples, grapes, juice of the above, apparently broccoli, and I could swear I’m forgetting something else. The seems to be able to eat/touch column includes rice, oatmeal, potatoes, chicken, beef, pork, butternut, carrots, and sweet potatoes. We’re reasonably confident about pear. He tasted Valerie’s cranberry strawberry juice today with no obvious or immediate consequences, but hard to say. The girls aren’t going to be easy to train. I got cranberry specifically because we know apple and grape juices are bad, and in case it’s good for Val’s urinary system. At the same time, wanting it so tasty she drinks plenty and stays hydrated.
Good thing he loves rice cakes.
This means Deb is back off dairy again, and I’ll avoid it for cooking anything we’ll all eat. We really need to find margarine that contains no dairy products.
I have so much on my plate, I’m lucky to slip in a post. I had a crazy, way underpaid bit of work Sunday and Monday. I helped someone with a computer speedup and de-infestation yesterday. Apparently I have some big fans at the old stomping grounds. The bit of work yesterday might lead to more. I have some work we’re calling tech-marketing that I need to ramp up and spend some real time on, getting a handle on it. The cool thing is it reminds me of my favorite college class, which was named management seminar, and was a graduate-style case course on strategic management and, by extension, business development. It’s like being handed a case to work on for real. There’s some writing work still pending, which I need to check on, status-wise.
There’s everything being made interesting due to the baby’s medical/diet issues.
There’s an ongoing, fits and starts reorganization and cleanup of the office and the house generally, purging stuff we don’t need, traveling a bit lighter.
There’s the project of thanking all the awesome people who donated to us recently, which is up near the top of the priority list for today.
There’s marketing. It looks increasingly like I may be able to piece together a living from this and that, and may be able to do that and spend a lot of time on the home front, while Deb has the potential of some supplemental outside work. However, the marketing includes of her, on the idea we can both do this and that without more than part time or hit and run outside the house work.
So that’s the stuff I’m working on or concerned with, that may mean a post is slow to appear if it’s somewhat extraneous.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Jay: How About Them Apples
Real quick, as we’re busy with stuff this morning, a Henry update.
It seems apples are also a problem, at least if not cooked to death, even if not as bad as bananas. And we’d fed them as one of the likely “safe” foods.
On the 15th he started full fledged, go anywhere in the house crawling, which made him much happier.
Yesterday he managed to use an upside-down plastic bin as if it were one of those push walkers, getting on his feet and walking while pushing it.
When asked if he wanted to go on an outing today, he said ‘I go,” which is how we decided we would all go.
A shame he seems affected by pollen and dust and such, with the food just part of it.
I pointedly bought him two sweet potatoes the other day, as both a safe food and his favorite of all time. Also got a small amount of broccoli, so maybe we’ll make that the next reintroduction. He adored it, and any green veggie, when he had it before.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Jay: Crunch Time
This is going to be a different post from the one I started the night before last, with the same title. That one started out on the topic of needing to locate the taxes I’d done, for the partnership and personal federal, and to do the state ones and get them mailed. I since located the partnership ones and mailed them, along with two books from Deb’s book shop. One was an advanced computer book from my collection, so went for $17.50 at about the cheapest price available. For us that’s real money. When it arrives in the twice a month payout. I also rewrote the federal to be neater, and did the state, cursing Romney over RomneyCare. There’s now a form HC, which at 3 pages if you need the whole thing is longer than the main Form 1 at 2 pages. I had the urge to ignore it, but you are supposed to use it to determine your personal exemption. By running too low on money to pay the last $1300 of insurance for Deb and the kids to cover October through December, and failing to apply for subsidized coverage, we paid a penalty of $220 in extra taxes.
Anyway, that’s all done. I have to mail those today.
Looks like the interview last week was a bust, which is fascinating in that it was a temporary gig. Which I suspect they planned to try to get someone permanent out of, and looked accordingly. The interview the week before was obviously a bust as well.
I have a possible something in the works with an internet marketing business. I have someone putting in my resume for a well-paid support job that just happens to be in Lowell, so it’d be on the $25 a day commuting plan. If I can stop worrying about money and the household long enough to chase an income just slightly harder and keep the household, something - even something great - should come pretty fast. It’s probably a matter of keeping the balls in the air a few more weeks.
Trouble is, we’re out of time, and while some awesome people have picked up distress, we haven’t been forthcoming on just where things stand. I’ve threatened to have a fundraising edition of Carnival of the Capitalists, even though I’m too busy trying to raise money to try to raise money. I’ve pointed out the resume, Deb’s Etsy shop and used book shop, and my availability for side work.
I haven’t asked for donations, apart from whatever is implicit in making the PayPal button available. And it feels wrong to do so, much as we get annoyed by unhelpful people who dwell on the fact history ought have been different, rather than acting on (or ignoring) what is. I could say and rue much about how we got here, but that doesn’t keep us from getting evicted.
Then again, I’d rather ask individuals for help than use public assistance paid for with stolen money. Or worse, stolen from the future, given the financing of so much of it through debt, creating a future need for inflation and/or higher taxes. But what do I know. I’m just a crackpot who saw the housing/credit bubble vividly starting years ago.
So yeah. Pretty much asking now, as I prepare to mail the tax returns and then throw ourselves on the mercy of the gas & electric department to avoid having those shut off tomorrow. When I gave them Henry’s birth certificate, which by itself should give us until August 20, they also wanted an income number. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I’d made last year. I would never have guessed it would be low enough for the EIC, or that rent, medical and health insurance technically took 2/3 of it. There was enough in residual, undrawn funds that it carried us a long time in the shutdown of the business (in which mailing the tax returns yesterday is the last major act, though I’ll have stuff to handle for a while).
If blogging is a bit slow, or you see as much on other blogs as here to keep them up enough to justify their value to advertisers, it’ll be because we’re scrambling. The ads, the selling things, the found money, the incredibly generous donations we already received, the Etsy sales - nothing to sneeze at but also in jeopardy because you have to have money for materials and shipping - and the bits of side work here and there only go so far. The fact I tend to stock the pantry as if I’m expecting to ride out the end of civilization - or something like this bad stretch - only helps stretch things so long before real money needs to be spent on groceries and sundries again.
Of course, if we lose power, that’s the end game. What money we do make is online. That would trigger a total meltdown of our situation. I don’t think that should be a problem, but we do have to start paying them Real Soon Now. We’ve been managing to get $250 or $300 a week to the landlord, staying basically half a month to a month or so behind. If we miss a week, game over, barring something like working with us because I just started a job and it’s all going to change. This week we’re sketchy but should manage it. Next week? No idea. I expect to do some small side work early in the week, but not likely enough.
Anyway, if you can hit the donate button, even in small amounts, that would be amazing. Alternatively, use the address deb at neatlytangled dot com for PayPal, as hers doesn’t have a transfer limit (to get it from there to the bank) and is useful that way. If we’ve ever entertained you through blogging, given you helpful advice, or even if you think I’m an idiot but want to keep the kids fed and off the street, perhaps it’s worth something.
Onward! Time to take care of business. Mail tax returns. Deal with utility crisis. Try to shake loose work. Planning to add Deb’s resume to the ones online and put a “hire us” box in the sidebar where “donate” is now, soon as I get a chance. So on. So forth.
Thanks for helping, or even just reading and quietly not saying or doing something unhelpful, no matter what you really think.
Update:
You guys are amazing. Not to replace individual thanks, but holy cow, we’re just blown away.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Jay: Tuesday
In case I don’t get time to post in the morning, I do have a couple birthdays to post later, and will presumably have an interview experience to mention retrospectively. I’m due in Needham at 10:00 AM for one, where I should also get to see the former colleague who has been responsible for getting me two interviews so far.
The truck is gassed up. It’s about 38 miles each way, which is expensive these days. It’s momentum, anyway. Temporary or not, I feel good about it.
I also have at least one tiny bit of client work expected next week. A little grocery money, anyway. Speaking of which, tomorrow I need to stop on the way home for Benadryl for Henry. He needs some most days. At least today we confirmed he is bothered significantly by the bath. Even Valerie seems to have been affected by it. Either there’s residue or growth that’s not obvious and hits hard, or something about the water itself, or something about the tub itself. In retrospect, this started when he started bathing in the big tub.
Tonight no soap was used while he was in there, and the temperature was reasonable. He went in there fine. He came out as rashy as he ever gets, which is in proportion to the length of time. It seems worst where he most touches the tub, counting that he gets on his belly and crawls/swims around. The thing is, his very worst spots are where his face gets washed regularly, usually with just a damp cloth - water with no soap, plastic, rubber, etc., and a cloth that shouldn’t hurt him that gets laundered in detergent we have no evidence hurts him, as it shouldn’t.
Further experimentation will follow, obviously, including no baths some days, either at all or going in the shower with one of us instead, and the cleaning to end all cleanings.
It remains clear that he handles bananas badly. It remains clear that something happened that was most likely related to dairy - probably a specific package of cheese and its histamines - or eggs, and was more topical than internal. It’s unlikely now that either Deb eating eggs or him eating raw pears was a factor recently. It’s unlikely he was bothered by anything he might have ingested in trace amounts yesterday. It’s clear that washing his hands with Dial was bad. It’s clear that he reacts either chemically, texturally, or both to some of the screen printing on my T-shirts. He can eat rice, oatmeal, apples, butternut, carrots, and unofficially peanut butter and raisins with no apparent issue. He’ll probably get to eat sweet potato tomorrow, as I made extra tonight to save for the purpose. That’s likely to be fine, too. But you can see how confusing it would be to feed something, then have him broken out in rash in the evening… after a bath.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode of As the Rash Reddens…
Jay: An Adventure
I tend to get to Friday and say “gee, I didn’t get X, Y or Z done, but hey, I have all weekend and can plow through it.” Then I get to Monday and wonder what the hell happened. It’s like that, and all I can say is I maybe didn’t go backward, so that’s relief.
Henry and I went to grandma’s house for dinner and birthday cake for me and my mother, which was fun. He seems to like my older brother, of all people, though he was friendly, or at least not freaking out, in general.
My information conveyed Saturday about what he can eat, centered on absolutely no dairy yet, didn’t filter through to prevent the butternut squash from being mashed with butter before it hit the table. The mashing part being kind of bad too, as it renders it something he can’t pick up himself. That left him able to eat chicken. And the puffed rice I brought. In practice he ate a pile of the chicken, a little rice, a pea or two, and a bunch of the puffed rice. The chicken was cooked in rice with chicken broth, green pepper chunks, and whatever flavoring. At some point it had gotten a little margarine, which was the only concern. The peas had some kind of buttery sauce, apparently one of those frozen packages, which included pearl onions. He stole a couple of them and some of the rice from my plate, after which I gave him a bit more of the rice.
I hung out there quite a while, because he ended up sleeping like a log in the car seat, up on the dining room table. He’s slept a few minutes of the ride there, after staring at me like I was betraying him for making him sleepy. On the way home he didn’t sleep. In both cases, he seemed to enjoy the ride and change of scenery.
It doesn’t seem like food bothered him. However, he got rashy after his bath. It’s increasingly apparent he is either sensitive to Dove’s sensitive skin variant, or something in the tub bothers him through contact, which would be less of a surprise.
Speaking of the older brother, we had a funny conversation that almost got his head bitten off.
He was telling me I might have to take just any job to support the family, doing something I don’t like. He compared his guitar playing with my using computers. He could have spent all his time playing guitar for the past 20 years, but that wouldn’t have made money, which in his case comes from working on cars. So I’ve wasted all that time “playing” with computers, and may have to accept that now I will have to just do “something” for work.
This would be like telling him he’s been wasting his time “playing” with fixing cars for decades, and instead of finding work fixing cars, he ought to get a “real job” even if he hates it. Too funny.
I left it at “good thing my work and hobby are the same” and “what do you think I’ve been doing for a living since 1992.” Probably did a decent job on the “you’ve got to be kidding tone” and the silent “you dork” trailing clause.
Anyway, it’s insanely late already. I rousted the girls from bed before they were ready this morning, in hopes of resetting their clocks so we’re not fighting with them at 10 PM about actually Getting In Bed and Staying There. This seems to have resulted in a cranky Valerie. Oh wait, she’s unchanged. Never mind. Off to the races…
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Jay: Dial Soap
Can apparently be added to the sensitivity list for Henry. Washing his hands with it made him identifiably rashy in the contact area.
And we’ve been washing our hands with it and then touching him.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Jay: Birthday and Many Things
So yesterday was my birthday. And that of a lot of other people, now up to a total of seven on that day in my calendar. That may be the largest number on one day. (Pauses to check, because he’s such a geek, finds that it’s tied with July 28, but no other day has more than five so far.)
It would have pretty much sucked - well, it did - apart from getting a car, and a substantial donation.
My left knee, and to some degree my thigh, have been killing me beyond all reason. It may or may not be connected to gout, which had been quiet recently until today, when I seem to have a minor touch of it in my right foot. Nothing like it was. The knees have bothered me before, over the years, and can be sort of twisted easily, or hurt by kneeling on a hard surface, or standing in place too long (I tend to need to sit, or move around extensively, after sufficiently long food prep, for instance). This has been unusual, and tough to keep away because of the kids and the need for activity that stresses it.
Ironically, sitting in this chair tends to bother it, while taking a walk tends to help it. Stairs? Excruciating, once it’s flared up, bordering on impossible.
That was making me extra cranky. Part of today it was better, but we have kids and stuff. They are pretty much a guarantee I can’t take it easy on the thing, and Valerie managed to add a bit of back to the mix yesterday by doing a backward somersault off my lap and being prevented from landing on her head.
Speaking of Valerie, she needs to learn to tell us when she’s bleeding, rather than being fascinated by the artistic possibilities. Keeping a bandage on would be good, too, once Dr. Dad has ruined her fun.
So yeah, a car. My aunt got this silver/gray 1994 Buick Century with 86k miles on it in 2003 at a good price. She drove it to 174k miles, replaced it yesterday, and brought it to us.
She seriously downplayed its condition and overstated its degree of foibles, I think. It’s beautiful, body looking at least as good as he one on the ill-fated van of the same model year. The foibles are things like a fan blade on the AC being broken, so you have to turn it off and back on strategically. I seldom use AC, even in a vehicle that has it. The trunk apparently can leak some in heavy rain. There can be a little trick to opening the rear doors. There are rear doors! And room for three carseats, of which they left an extra, a spare of my mother’s, in the car. It uses a quart between oil changes, and she keeps it to 65 on the highway. We’d mainly use it on local roads, very limited driving to places we’d need to go together.
The trick now is to be able to afford to register it. That’s a tough one. My aunt is getting the form to declare it a gift and save us the sales tax, so that will help.
I’ve always been particularly fond of my mother’s sister, who is only 17 years older than me, but this is just amazing and a huge surprise.
Anyway, I parked it where we’d been parking the truck, moving the truck up into the main part of the driveway. We’d been using two spots deep in the driveway, then hogging a third, spare spot with the Sentra. That wasn’t considered a favorable spot due to the mulberries, and really neither is at least one of the others.
Today I got home from dropping off a trickle of rent to the landlord, ran into the gal upstairs, and she had moved her car so we could have our other space back, having seen that we got a second car. The very same day, they swapped his truck for something better, very nice. Funny how things synchronize that way.
I was amazed, as I figured we’d lost that spot fair and square. The spot we’d hogged with the old Sentra has a trailer in it now, which works out perfectly. They can be funny sometimes, in their youthfulness, but once again, the people upstairs are great.
What else?
I ended up doing a lot of dishes and cleaning. I took Valerie on errands with me, to the post office, Benny’s, the bank, and Stop & Shop, where her bladder almost made it through the entire lengthy trek. I was threatening to make myself birthday brownies, with a mix on hand, but never did get around to it.
That would have been no fun for Deb. On the off chance stuff bad for the baby translates into breast milk, she’s been off the likely suspects, bringing them back until it’s just eggs and dairy. She ate a single egg, in a sandwich with ham. He got rashy the next day. It’s back off eggs long enough to let him clear up and test it again. It could have been random environmental, or something stray he ate courtesy of the girls. He also tried pear, and while there’s room to wonder, that’s one of the least likely problem foods. I’ll give him more this weekend and see, maybe.
I did splurge on flour tortillas, so we had chicken burritos for supper. That was popular. He’s had seasoned chicken since we started reintroducing stuff, but I cooked a little chicken by itself for Henry, just salt and a little pepper. He loves chicken.
For that I pulled out a tiny frying pan I never use, big enough to fry a single egg, and now I want to use it again and own more like it. It’s stainless steel with a thick copper bottom. Yeah, I needed more oil than I am used to using, because the second I turned on the burner, it seemed, the pan was sizzling hot and the meat wanted to stick to it. But oh, it cooked so nice. I think I’m in love.
And hey, the non-stick pans are starting to lose their mojo. They end up with a spot in the center, where the heat focuses, that the coating loses its ungrip. Once that gets serious, you may as well have a traditional pan. The really bad one is Deb’s deep frying pan with a glass cover, which gets used constantly. I wouldn’t mind having more than one of those, including a larger version, if I were outfitting the kitchen more completely.
What else?
Today was better. Overnight was weird, in that I was up most of the night, but during that time the knee was better, after a couple hours of sleep. The very best thing for it is to lay down a certain way on the bed. I can coddle it some laying on, say, the floor, but the bed is better, and then sleeping while it rests is better still. It got worse again as the day progressed, but it does that. While it may be nauseating at times today, last night I experienced a revelation of understanding how someone can pass out in response to pain.
Ibuprofen is shooting up the “must buy some” list.
I have an interview Tuesday in Needham. That’s a Good Thing. Same former colleague who landed me the main interview Monday got me another, but this time it’s his own employer, for a 2 - 3 month contract supporting a new software rollout. Beyond that there hasn’t been much activity, besides a ton of additions in LinkedIn and correspondence stemming from that, including with my last manager from VB support, who was awesome.
I did up the root of elhide.com to be a resume links and simple supporting text page, to give it the shortest possible URL without setting up a new domain. Plus elhide.com is more memorable than, say, gphmo.com. Which stems from when I was going to setup a new business as “Geek Practitioners.” The HMO in this case, besides a play on the medical theme, stood for “home, mobile, office.”
Still have to do a blogging-oriented resume. Still have to retrofit the blogs with “hire me” sidebar sections prominent. Still working on the odds and ends side work, but that’s going a little slower than expected.
Anyway, off to bed, I guess. Wanted to do a post for the day and talk about the birthday and the car and such. Got delayed and now it’s after midnight, but oh well.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Jay: Apparently
I hit just the right food combinations yesterday for the kids.
First, I had bought 3 Bartlett pears on sale, sneaking them into a “can’t get everything I need and must keep it under $10, preferably under $7 in case the debit card doesn’t work and I have to use cash” grocery order, and the girls split one like they were discovering fruit for the first time. It was especially good, perfectly ripe.
Shortly after, at their request, we had grilled cheese and red soup. The latter being what they call tomato soup. Which was Wal-Mart’s house brand, and quite good. They each devoured completely half of a grilled cheese, made with colby jack, cheap bread and cheap margarine. Since we can’t afford cheese, but still have to buy some, and are using it slower while Deb avoids dairy, and I’m nervous about my beloved cheddar after the allergy incident in which it’s about 80% probable the specific batch of cheese plus pre-sensitization were to blame (I didn’t know cheddar could be loaded with histamines) and I reacted to it or something too, we’ve settled on that kind. Wal-Mart’s is good, and it makes great grilled cheese. One devoured all and the other most of a third or more of the can of soup. I gave each of them at least as much of it as I had.
Then when I was at a total loss for supper, Deb remembered I’d mentioned blueberry pancakes the night before. We still had part of a bag of frozen blueberries my father had gotten for Sadie, knowing her love of blueberries. Most of it went into an astonishingly good blueberry cake a while back, which oddly enough left the kids indifferent.
There was exactly a cup of Bisquick remaining, enough for half a standard batch, without stretching it or making scratch. I made that up for them, figuring they might not eat it all and that would be part of what I had. Using an eight cup measure to scoop relatively uniform pancakes, I made 12 of them, heavy on blueberries, ate one myself, and between them they ate all of the other 11. Sadie ate 5 2/3 and Valerie at 5 1/3 of them, with plenty of cheap fake syrup.
That’s just nuts, compared to their normal, or at least recent, eating, especially Sadie’s. She’s been doing a lot of living on moonbeams. And afterward she pleaded still hungry, at least enough for several jelly beans.
In between, they each got a green apple lollipop from the post office when we walked there. You may remember we have books for sale, and there was an order for one to go priority, rather than the usual media mail. Not only did the guy at the post office give out lollipops, he had me stuff the original package into one of the “if it fits, it ships” priority folders, to make it $4.60 instead of $7.50.
Too bad having a full belly didn’t prevent a total meltdown by Sadie, for no apparent reason, late last night. She did make the breakthrough of calming herself enough to be coherent, so that’s good.
And speaking of cheap bread, we fell in love with Stop & Shop’s cheap bread, in 3-packs for $2.69, so it’s the best price as well as quality. I went in there the other day, read the package and found it has no milk or egg, so bought that rather than making more dairy-free bread myself just now. But… it went up sixty cents, to $3.29, just like that. Wow! If bread everywhere else, in single loaves, stayed that same, that makes them comparable. I have to assume there was probably a generalized increase. But 22%?? That’s going to mean the cheapest breads start to approach $1.50 a loaf. Perhaps it’s not generalized. I’ll have to look, just to find out.
My next mission will be to persuade the kids that soup is still soup and can still be eaten even if it’s not tomato. I have three cans of chicken noodle, which they ought to like, if I carefully promote it and make sure they know what it is. There are some other cans that the three of us can eat.
Speaking of allergies, we tried reintroducing eggs to Deb starting last night. The two of us had fried egg and ham sandwiches. Eggs come out odd on non-stick with no source of grease, but it was still good. Within a few days we should be clear that it’s okay for her to have them, which will leave only dairy, which makes it not too bad.
Henry can now eat oatmeal, rice, butternut, apple, chicken, and carrots. I really need to hit the store with money enough to buy chicken this week, as it’s on amazing sale, and hello, he can eat it and it’s a nice boost from the veggie kingdom. I was thinking of trying the pears next, but I doubt they’ll last long enough. They’re a safe bet, anyway. We still have sweet potatoes he could try next, and that’ll cover the major orange food group.
Oh, peanut butter and raisins appear to be safe for him, too. He has sisters. Apparently the main reason not to give him peanut butter is ability to eat it without choking, because he’s managed to get some twice.
One of his biggest problems seems to be my printed shirts. Part of it’s an abrasion factor, on the heavier, rougher prints, but the ink can also contain stuff that can bother some people. Given that we know he is bothered severely by bananas, and that probably means a latex allergy, the ink thing would be no surprise.
I’m rambling. Need to get more coffee, and at least make it so the girls will wake sooner rather than later. Last night I was threatening them with an earlier bed time, starting with waking them early today. I didn’t, but it’s about time even for not so early.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To me! An amazing 47 years ago, near this time, a modest walk from this place, I was born on my mother’s 26th birthday.
Apparently I was born hungry, because at 5 days old they were supplementing me with cereal.
At 17 days I went into the hospital in Boston with meningitis, for 11 days, and unexpectedly lived.
Henry is a mirror in more than appearance, as I apparently had a similar personality. I also talked fast, walked fast, and was apparently way ahead until about four years old, when I slowed down to the point it seemed there was nerve damage.
Anyway, mostly to me it’s another day, though there’s a brownie mix I’ll probably make in lieu of cake. I might try making a scratch cake, but we’re low on flour and it might have to wait for me to buy more, and someone gave us the brownie mix, which has been calling to me.
I am getting one big birthday present, the timing of which is coincidental. My aunt is picking up a new car today, and is giving us her old one. She says it’s big enough to fit three car seats in the back. If I keep feeding Sadie like yesterday, perhaps she’ll get to 40 lbs soon and be able to get a booster instead. A shame we lost one of our parking spots to the upstairs neighbor. And that we can’t afford to register it until whenever. Then again, the neighbor is using the two spots most directly in the line of fire of the mulberries, and the big car will be easier to get in and out of the driveway near the street.
That should be good enough to do what the van couldn’t even handle, simply getting us to my grandmother’s or brother’s or other local places as a whole group, without heavy driving in between.
Anyway, enough with the post. I need coffee, and to work on the “how to pay some rent next week” project.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Jay: I Have To Note
That I am sitting here in size 38 jeans right now.
I was trying on old non-jeans and a couple jackets and some shirts, in preparation for tomorrow’s foray to Boston for interviews. I was fitting comfortably, even loosely, into pants that were size 40 and not jeans. When an unexpected size 38 came close, we decided to try size 38 jeans. They aren’t even excessively tight. Enough so I might prefer to stick to loose in size 40 jeans for another several pounds, but not as you might expect.
I was wearing size 42 jeans three months ago, and had nothing that wasn’t jeans that could fit me.
Yay for losing 30 pounds! And a disproportionate amount of belly in the process, for whatever reason.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Jay: I Once Had A Title In Mind
So today should be fun. I need to take some rolled coin to the bank for more readily spendable and carryable currency, so I have enough to buy train tickets for Monday morning, and potentially a small bite to eat or whatever if I have to, entirely aside from the cash being useful in a couple days when we need more something like milk from Hannaford or Stop & Shop. Maybe I’ll deposit $8 in change too, so I’ll have $10 available on the debit card.
Train? That ought to be an adventure. I have an interview in Boston Monday morning, which will probably be followed by meeting with someone nearby who has a potential temporary gig during part of this month.
I’ve never taken the commuter rail before, but it’s great it’s so handy. I need to check out precisely where and how for getting into it and buying tickets and all that.
This also means having to dig out clothes that might be remotely appropriate for an interview. I’ve spent too many years casual, and with clothes one of the last spending priorities on too little income. A casualty of insane housing and even more insane medical insurance costs, you could say.
Shoes? It’s going to have to be my almost formal looking black sneakers, because I last got new shoes 20 years ago, and if I can find them, I can’t wear them without them scraping my feet raw. That’s if the gout is calm enough to get them on, which it may be, since it seems to be attacking my knee instead. Or that might be something else, but it’s that kind of painful.
At least I’ve lost enough weight that I have pants that aren’t jeans that should fit me.
The last time I interviewed for a job at a company I wasn’t already part of was 1994. Internal interview was 1997. The closest I came since then was 1999, when my partner who was the face of the business to the big client left for a day job and I had to talk them into keeping us, pointing out that in reality they may have noticed I’d been doing most of the support for them for months.
I always had a hard time getting to an interview, and an easy time getting a job based on an interview.
Apparently my resume and the internet and my networking are taking car of the first part for me. Besides those two, I have an e-mail about a WordPress development gig, which is intriguing, but I cautioned them I am far from a PHP expert, which is what they say in the description.
I need to find a bread recipe that doesn’t take milk, as Deb is going to try adding back wheat, but not milk. I still haven’t found milk-free margarine in a store. I can’t believe it all contains milk, when the point was that margarine is a sub for butter. Also need to make banana bread today, or else accept throwing out some bananas at that stage of ripe.
I really hate taking the first two hours of the day to dash of a 15 minute this and that post. Plus I should probably post to the other blogs instead, since this one lost Page Rank, those didn’t, and those could use a traffic/activity boost.
Let’s see…
Did I mention I need to setup a computer for Henry, on the living room floor, so he has that as a distraction?
Today I’d like to make significant progress in my office arranging and cleaning project, which stalloed yesterday and went backwards as Valerie trashed things, even stuff that had been in reach for months and not touched.
Off to it, I guess. If there was anything else, I forget. Oh, I stopped at my grandmother’s and picked up a special mattress cover my mother’s cousin bought for Henry. It’s pretty astounding that a cousin I’d forgotten existed until a few years ago heard about his problems and did something like that. Apparently she has major allergy problems herself, so knows all the places and stuff to get from them. Even if all this means is he can nap in the crib for a couple hours at a stretch, that’ll help. Previously he couldn’t go more than half an hour before he was awake, scratching himself frantically and complaining. Poor kid. But he still can’t be exempt from being put down sometimes. We go entire days sometimes with him on one of us for all but a couple waking hours, tops. And when he’s on one of us and awake, he wants to be active. All your keyboard are belong to us.
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