Random Thoughts

The kids and I are home again, thank goodness!

Walking in the front door felt like wrapping up in a cozy quilt on a cold day…HOME.

The kids were happy, too.  Mr. Charm had to explore every inch of ‘his’ terrain to make sure all his toys (tupperware, pots and pans, pot holders, etc.) were just where he left them!

It’s fun to visit Grandma and PopPop, but we are all very glad to be home.  Traveling is stressful for all of us!

So stressful and exhausting, in fact, that I’m completely incapable of writing anything coherent for a post.

Mama needs some sleep.  Without hanging on the edge of the bed every night.  (One Mama + one toddler + one baby + one twin sized bed = Mama sleeping halfway off the edge of the bed!)

So here are just a few random thoughts, each unworthy of a whole post but sort of interesting nonetheless.

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The Geek was home alone for a week and a half.  He was sick for about 5 days of that, and he’s not much of a housekeeper when he’s healthy…but do you know what that sweet man did for me?

He was chatting with a friend of ours who cleans houses (wish we could afford to hire her!) and wound up trading some small computer fix for her to come and CLEAN MY HOUSE!

I walked in completely prepared to be royally ticked off at the state of the house, and instead I found a tidy house, with vacuumed carpets, swept and mopped floors, sink scrubbed, electric range (almost) spotless – he had cooked after she was done!, bathrooms shiny and even most of the laundry and dishes under control.

I don’t care that he got someone else to do it for him – I care that he cared enough about me to get it done!  I loathe coming home to a house that requires 4 days of hard labor just to get it livable again; coming home to a house that I can just pick up and live in? Priceless.

Love that man!

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My dextrose came in to the health food co-op while I was gone.  The Geek picked it up for me, so I was able to read the label on it as soon as we got home.

Sure enough: corn-derived.

We had to think about it to realize that Mr. Happy is the son we think has a problem with corn.  So far, Mr. Charm hasn’t shown any problems with corn, and since the dextrose is for him and his fructose malabsorption, we’ll go ahead and trial it anyway.

If it’s okay, we may look into finding some tapioca-derived dextrose for future use, so it might be safe for Mr. Happy down the line.

Trying to keep track of two little boys’ different food issues is extremely challenging at times!

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Did you know that a toddler can completely trash a living room in under two hours?  My tidy house already resembles a frat house, thanks to the diligent efforts of Mr. Charm.

Oh, it’s still clean…but the puzzle pieces are spread all over the floor, toys are strewn across the carpet, all his coloring ‘stuff’ that was neatly piled on the coffee table is now tossed haphazardly everywhere.

It’s stunning, I tell you.  How could such a little person make such a big mess in such a short time?

I HAVE baskets for his stuff to go in!  I HAVE designated places for his toys and ‘stuff’.  Doesn’t matter.  Mr. Charm thinks the proper place for his stuff is all over the living room floor.

Sigh.  At least he’ll help me pick it up.

After all, it’s the only way he’ll get the pleasure of throwing it everywhere again!

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Mr. Charm is fructose-laden, and Mr. Happy has been reacting to who-knows-what for a couple of weeks.  Now that we’re home, we can re-implement the fructose free diet for Mr. Charm, and I’ll be able to stay strict on my diet (and avoid cross-contamination) for Mr. Happy, so hopefully by Christmas we’ll be a nice baseline family again.

I hope so.  Mr. Happy has figured out that the other members of his family EAT and he seriously wants to participate in this whole “put things in my mouth and they disappear” magic act we all perform at mealtimes.  He tries to grab my fork from me when I’m holding him on my lap at lunch, and if we’re snacking, he tries to grab the snack from me.  A couple of times he’s almost gotten the food into his mouth!

So we need him at a baseline so I can start him on some foods, and soon!

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We don’t have enough meat.  I looked in the freezer last night, and we just do not have enough grass-fed beef to last until our cow is ready to butcher.  (We get one cow per year for free; we had to buy the last one because our cow was a tiny baby then, and hoped it would be ready when we were out of beef.  Not so; he still needs more time to grow.)  So we’re going to have to figure out how to afford to buy another cow here very soon.

I figure I can make it about another month, maybe month and a half – and that’s if I don’t let anyone else in the family eat any beef.

Yeah.  Like that’s going to happen!

Being broke stinks.

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Well, it’s Thanksgiving week, so I plan to share with you some tips on traveling with kiddos with food allergies tomorrow.  Hopefully, that’s before you leave to visit your families!