The Wonderful World of Potatos

Do you know what I dislike?

Working.

More specifically, working so much that I’m exhausted while AT work, and so exhausted when I get home that I’m almost comatose for two days after returning.

I took my computer to work with me last week, but, thanks to insane delays on every flight I worked I had neither the time, opportunity, or brain power to open the computer one single time to write. The computer stayed packed in my suitcase the entire time I was gone, which makes me mad for two reasons: one, I didn’t get a chance to write anything and two, that’s a lot of weight to haul around for no reason!

All told, for July I’m gone from home 16 days, netting me a grand total of 88 hours of paid flight time (plus the flight time for commuting).

I don’t know when I got old, but I’ll tell ya – I’m too old for this!

Sigh.

Anyway, I’m hoping things will ease up soon, but that explains my absolute silence here since last week.

Ever since the unfortunate Ritz cracker and Dasani exposure, we’ve been on a trial hiatus for Zac. We especially needed to give it some time to make sure he wasn’t having any mild reactions when we began our next food trial: potatos.

Tired as I am, when I returned from work Sunday night, we decided he was as “baselined” as possible, and yesterday morning Zac ate his first ever Russet potatos.

I made Potato Pancakes for breakfast and he ate 6 pancakes all by himself!

Later on he had some plain mashed potatos with steak for dinner, which he loved.

This morning, I made Hamburger Hash for breakfast, and he ate his serving, plus half of Jed’s!

So far, so good. He is potty training right now, so diapers are a thing of the past. That makes it harder to keep an eye on his poops to see how he’s doing, but I think I may finally have him trained to come get me before he flushes the potty after he goes #2.

Yesterday, he had a nice looking poop in the potty, a great appetite, and good sleep.

So far today, he’s had a huge appetite and a great attitude.

Not to mention the amazing speech he’s showing! He’s mimicking EVERYTHING we say, no matter what. The speech isn’t directly related to the potatos; he has been increasing his speech exponentially for the last two weeks. However, speech regression is a typical sign of a reaction to his foods, so the fact that his speech continues to grow is promising!

The other day at work, he and I actually had a short conversation on the phone. It basically amounted to telling me he was eating eggs, and me asking if they were yummy, and him saying yes they were, but that’s the most back and forth we’ve ever had on the phone.

I was thrilled.

Also thrilling? The fact that, for the first time EVER in his three years on the planet, I was able to cook ONE single meal for both breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday.

Three meals a day instead of 6-9 meals a day. The lightened workload is heavenly!

I even had enough time yesterday to whip together dessert for after dinner! I can’t tell you how long it has been since I’ve thrown together some homemade ice cream for after-dinner dessert, just because I could.

I do often make desserts (as evidenced by the many dessert recipes I have available on my site), but the untold story behind those desserts is this: on days when I make a dessert? Dinner is incredibly boring and not too challenging.

Something has to give, after all; if I’m spending time on dessert AND cooking 3 separate meals for dinner, those meals are going to have to be quick and easy!

Even if potatos prove safe for Zac, this won’t be an end to the large quantities of cooking. Jed and Darrel can eat far more than Zac can, after all, and I can’t limit them as strictly as I do Zac and myself.

Finally, though, Zac and I would be able to eat the same thing at meal times, so at the worst, I’ll be cooking 6 meals per day.

I’ll admit that I was hesitant to trial the olive oil and potatos on Zac. Not only because if they weren’t safe, I would have to wean Zac, but also because there are far more nutritionally “powerhouse” foods I’d rather trial.

I’m so grateful my brilliant husband kept his eye on the big picture, though, and pushed to trial these foods. The lifestyle simplification has been overwhelmingly greater than I’d envisioned. Once again, Darrel has proven that he is always thinking of how to best take care of me, since the whole reason he wanted these foods was to simplify my life in the kitchen.

I have a fabulous husband.

Jed is doing very well, too. We’ve recently increased our discipline for him, and increased his household responsibilities. While it’s not perfect, yet, he is stepping up to the plate and proving himself to be a good worker and a pretty good rule follower.

He’s also chomping at the bit to start school! Every day that I’m home, he asks me “Is today a school day, Mommy?”

It absolutely breaks my heart to tell him “No, not yet.” every time he asks. With my overwhelming workload in July, I just couldn’t get my brain firing on enough cylinders to even contemplate teaching him Kindergarten!

Again, I’m hoping that changes next week. My goal is to start school on August 4th. I think I’ll be ready by then, but if I’m not, I’ll just jump in to the deep end and figure out how to swim.

Oh, and last year I had a whole series on gardening called “Brown Thumb Gardener”. Since I didn’t write any more about gardening this year, I bet you thought I decided to give up gardening, right?

Wrong. I planted a garden.

However, because I’m working more this year than I did last year, I knew it couldn’t be a big garden. I decided to just grow cucumbers, zucchini, basil and stevia.

The basil and stevia are doing great, but the cukes and zucchini…not so much.

I got squash bugs.

A HUGE infestation of squash bugs.

I have no zucchini plants left. I had to pull them all up and burn them.

Half my cucumbers are gone, too. The ones that are left still have squash bugs on them, but I go out every night I’m home and kill as many as I can find. Unfortunately, since I’m gone slightly more than half the month in July, that explains why the little devils were able to decimate my zucchini so well. I can only kill them when I’m home, so they have plenty of opportunity to breed and wreak havoc.

I’m rather heartbroken that I’m not enjoying the cucumber bounty I did last summer. I really like cucumbers!!

Well, that’s a little update from our corner of the world. What’s new with you?