My throat hurts. I’m not sure if it’s perpetual lack of sleep, or if I’m getting sick. I hope I’m not getting sick, but if I do, I hope I don’t get sick ’til tomorrow, because I’m planning to go to the Songwriter’s Guild mtg tonight. I’ve only been one other time, and it was a year ago, which also happened to be the first night I felt pregnant-sick with Max. It was a rough night and they probably all thought I was mental, if they even noticed, squirming around in my chair the whole time. It was a bunch of men I didn’t know, though, so I couldn’t really say anything without it getting awkward.

I’m so tired. We slept ok last night, outside of the hour between 2 and 3 am, when Max threw up three times. Poor thing. We went to the doctor today, for what was supposed to be his 4 month well-check. He’s dealing with the illness fine, doesn’t have an infection and his lungs are clear.

Thank goodness for that! ‘Cause he sounds awful!

Here he is, watching me make dinner last night

We had margherita pizza, our first attempt, and it was fabulous!

My youngest brother-in-law spent 2 years on a mission in Italy, and we had him over to teach us how to make pizza a few weeks ago. His method is “throw it all in a bowl ’til it looks right” so we did our best to extract measurements of ingredients. This is what I got-

3 cups flour
1 egg
1T or so olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
about 1 cup warm water

You throw it all in a bowl and poke at it with a rubber spatula ’til it’s more or less mixed. Then you punch it around ’til it’s a dough. (I cheated last night and did some light kneading instead of the punching). Cool thing is, if it’s too wet, you can add a lot more flour and it still comes out. Ask me how I know :-).

Then I washed out the bowl, sprayed it with cooking spray put the ball of dough back in and covered it with a damp towel.

There’s no sugar in the dough, how weird is that? I thought yeast needed sugar, but apparently not.

So that’s it. It rises for an hour or so. I pinch off a handful and shape/stretch it into a circle (if you need help with that, email me or comment), I even tried my hand at tossing it in the air with moderate success. It got paper thin. We put thin slices of roma tomatoes on the dough, and a medium amount of mozzarella cheese. Baked it on a hot pizza stone for 7 minutes (500 degrees), pulled it out, put fresh basil on the top, some coarse salt (french gray this time) and drizzled it with olive oil. It made two large pizzas, plus the one small one in the picture.

Mmmmmm.

They’re not remotely filling, unfortunately. It’s a very light pizza. But the same crust works great with sauce and sausages and such, that’s what we did last week and it’s quite filling that way.

He has a great sauce recipe, too if you’re interested.

1 can tomato sauce (Safeway’s organic is my favorite. It’s sweet and less acidic tasting than the S&W)
1T dry basil
1/4 cup olive oil (you could probably get by with 3 T)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp + minced garlic (or 1 clove)

let it sit for awhile for the flavors to blend. It’s really good on pasta, too.

So there you go, easy pizza recipe. I like the fact that it only uses a mixing bowl, so cleanup is really easy and I don’t have to haul out my mixer and wash attachments.

So, the doctor’s office wants me to go to a GI pediatrician at the hospital to see what’s wrong with Clark. Weird thing is, right now, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s eating, (finicky as all heck, but he’s eating), his system is moving ok with a daily dose of Miralax, he looks healthier in skin tone and the circles under his eyes are lighter…

I don’t know what to do. It seems like there should be some symptoms before taking him to a specialist.

So, I’m going to wait it out, I think, and focus on trying to get him to eat as well as possible, which takes some considerable effort. If he has trouble again, I’ll take him in. He still claims his stomach hurts, but only when I ask, and he’s not very convincing anymore. The last time I asked, he said “no. Um, yes.”

Uh, huh.

Thanks for your input. It’s both helpful and overwhelming, hearing about how many different issues it could be. But I like the information because if something really rings true, it’s a lead to follow.

Stephanie, I need to call you. I’m curious about what kind of reactions Conner is having to wheat.

Clark is on a meatball kick right now. He and I just spent an hour making 80+ turkey meatballs that are in the oven now, and he’s anxious for them to come out. I’m relieved. For awhile, I couldn’t get ANY protein down him, with the exception of the occasional peanut butter sandwich on white bread- no jelly. And THAT’S not healthy. Once he started turning down chicken nuggets, which are a rare treat anyway, I kinda panicked.

I’m wondering if the vitamins are helping him to feel better?

I have some knitting to do, but I haven’t been able to leave my guitar alone. All of my free time finds me playing with it, and I finished writing another song last week!

I’ll check in again soon. The oven is done and Clark is not going to leave me alone ’til I get the meatballs out.

While I was truly not looking forward to hearing that Clark is allergic to most things edible, I was expecting it. The test came back negative for everything, as in, he’s not allergic to anything, food or enviornment. Not even milk.

This scares me. What the heck is wrong with my child?

His stomach always hurts. I don’t know where to go from here. And I can tell you right now, he’s not going to be thrilled at the prospect of more blood tests.

Dr. is out ’til Monday, so I get to spend my weekend “trying not to worry about it.”

Lovely.

While Max was perfectly willing to smile for me, he wasn’t giving it up for the camera.

He’s such a big boy!

Speaking of big boys, Clark had his blood drawn today for an allergy test.

He was super brave. I had him look away when they stuck in the needle, but the tech asked him to look before he took it out so Clark would know what was happening to his arm. That was probably a good call. Clark handled it well and didn’t say much as we were walking to the car. I asked him if it hurt a little. He said, “yes.” Then, with a little more vigor, he said, “it hurt a LOT! I didn’t like it.”

He’s so very sweet.

…though it doesn’t look like there’ll be much time for posting ’til the girls are back in school next week. Here’s a Christmas Eve picture for you

That’s so weird. I have a picture not unlike this one from a couple years ago where Clark is the screaming infant. Now, he’s just a dinosaur (hence the bizarre facial expression in the pictures).

Christmas was very nice. When we went to Barnes and Noble on Saturday to use our gift cards, I picked up this little book that I’ve been wanting for months.

It’s delightful. Abby and I are working on a couple of little sample designs on 4 inch hoops to learn the stitches.

I’m having visions of girls hand embroidering on cotton skirts dance through my head, made more practical by the acquisition of a new steamer we picked up last night using more gift cards. I couldn’t justify making cotton skirts before now as I totally don’t iron. But with that obstacle out of the way… I wanna sew some cotton skirts with the girls!

That was the theme this year. It was very fun. I’m giving up on my cookie cutters though. The kids’ houses always collapse. The roof needs a flatter pitch and the sides need to be higher so that the big, heavy roof pieces don’t have to be so big and crush the rest of the house. I guess I’ll have to make up a pattern.

But we had a good time,

and my internet shy friend scored loads and loads of cool candy/decorations for us to work with, highlighted by the edible snowflakes.

Nate’s was my favorite this year

But Dennis was by far the most creative. Full on pretzel chairs, fire pit, outhouse, wire spool table and all…

Clark had fun sticking candy to his house before it collapsed

and Veronica and the daughter of my internet shy friend made a house

Abby and Olivia had their own house, and I thought their idea was brilliant.

They wanted to make the house from “Up”, complete with Dum Dum balloons out the chimney. We colored frosting, and they were doing a great job but it imploded before they could finish.

Yay, team! I spent the night running around helping everyone, trying to rescue falling houses, making frosting and refilling the decorator bags. My internet shy friend held a rather fussy Maxwell.

I’m plugging along down my list of things to finish before Christmas. Doing rather well. Clark’s stocking needs 16 more rounds before I can start decreasing the toe, and that won’t take long. I’m not sure if it’ll have stars on it before Friday, but it should at least be functional. I made a gift for my brother this morning. Most everything is wrapped already…

We’re trying to think of something small we can give to the 17 or so cousins (I lose count) this year. Any ideas? They range in age from 18 months to 11 years old. We’re currently thinking about baking something.

Oh, the things we’ve made! (Ok, Dennis mostly).

And a couple more, for kicks.

Sort of. Abby and Olivia have been home sick all week, and I’ve been caring for them. I’m tired. They’re feeling better now but are still coughing and sniffling a lot, and they don’t have the stamina for a full school day.

Today, Abby’s working on book reports and Liv is finishing her sock monkey we started in September. I’m doing laundry and need to make more bread. We’re on our last loaf.

We’re making our first attempts at toilet training Clark. I don’t know how it’ll go, considering his bowel issues. But he’s been in underwear for a few hours now and it’s been ok.

I’ve finished the Rosebud socks, just need to weave in the ends. And I think I should restart Clark’s sock and make the toe wider. He has such blocky little feet.

I really need a nap though. Maybe I’ll try for one now.

Hi all.

I don’t know if it’s hormones, beautiful October sunshine, the miracle of life or what… but I’m euphorically happy. And it’s not just being “not pregnant anymore” because my body/joints/nausea/etc are still loose, achy, and not back to themselves yet. However, I’m feeling pretty good. Very tired. I’d say it’s more an extreme lack of endurance or stamina than sleepy tired.

But aside from physical complaints, I’m so incredibly happy and in love with this little baby. He’s perfect and beautiful and I’m thrilled to death to have him.

My mother-in-law stayed for five days this week, and it was wonderful. We’re all a bit sad to see her go home (20 whole minutes away). This morning, Clark declared it was “unfair.”

Max keeps barely failing his jaundice tests, so we have to keep getting blood draws. I’m really tired of that. However now that there is more than enough milk and he’s eating so much he’s soaking his sleepers with regularity… I expect we’ll get those bilirubins under control real quick.

It’s 2pm, Saturday afternoon. Nate took the kids out to see a movie and romp around town. Max is sleeping.

I’m about to refill my water jug and try to nap. I should take a shower, but unfortunately, shower induced nausea hasn’t passed yet, and I’m not really up to it.

No one’s complaining yet, and I have showered. 🙂

Here are some pictures from yesterday-

Op! I hear him. Guess I’m a little ways out from that attempted nap.