Someone had a birthday last month ... Joy

For Joy's birthday we spent a lot of time together. Normally that means playing board games while the children are asleep, but I've been too tired with seminary for much of that.

We were very blessed with friends who wanted to babysit the children for us. So we went to see Macbeth. Or, we went and saw half of Macbeth at Tarleton. That whole "too tired to stay up late for seminary" showed up again, and Macbeth IS after all one of the more bloody of Shakespeare's tragedies ... so we called it a night a bit early (much to Joy's relief; she asked me the next night to never show her Macbeth again).

In review, Lady Macbeth did a great job. She spoke most clearly and was readily understandable. Most of the cast had no real feeling for the language, and much was lost in trying to sound Shakespearen and like Brooklyn gangsters at the same time. Macbeth's Marlon Brando impression fell flat and the lighting on every single one of his soliloquies was horrid. They were trying for a half-light/half-shadow effect, but it ended with the half facing away from the crowd lit and the whole face facing us shadowed, or the "window" outline covering his eyes and the top half of his face, leaving his mouth visible. The witches also blew their lines all to bits -- so excited about racing around the stage and cackling that if I hadn't known the prophecy by heart I never would have known they said he would be king. So, yeah, we weren't missing out too much in the second half, we're guessing. Most of the cast was also in Alice in Wonderland that we saw just before that, a 30-min production. The kids loved it to pieces. The actors did better in Alice than in Macbeth.

We also had a glorious drive to the Dallas Temple. Some friends in the ward drove up at 5am (from nearly an hour away!) so that we could leave before dawn. As we drove through the early morning mist and watched the sun rise, we had just the happiest, most peaceful time and drew closer as a couple. A very, very happy morning.

We enjoyed a morning at the local corn maze (pictures must be somewhere) and we went to the Chinese place for their ice cream - only hard-serve place in town.

Joy has always loved ice cream cakes, but this year she had me remake the ice cream too - we bought some dark chocolate, to which I added cookie pieces, and then arranged slabs of ice cream, more cookies, and chocolate/whipped cream layers. Add some Nutella to that and you've got a really good cake!

We also took several walks along the local trails as a family. 

Here are some more pictures of Joy and the happy children opening her presents. "I got books from my favorite author, Sarah Eden."

Hoo's there?

 

Parody: Our father just said brrrr

Superstar and I tend to be the most impervious to changes in temperature in our home. But when it drops from the 80s to 39 degrees, even Dad can get a little chilly. Here's a song for the morning to the tune of Rejoice, the Lord is King!

Our father just Brrrr! It's cold 'cause our dad said brrr.
Everyone come inside and put on a sweaterrrr!
Put on some socks! Put on a hat!
It really is as cold as that.
Put on a layerrrr and say a prayerrrr
Because our father just said Brrrrr!

JT gets his milk groove back

For something like 3.5 months, John-Thomas has not been allowed to have anything with milk-products in it. He's had some tummy troubles for years and that was the latest suggestion from the doctor after they stuck probes up his nose and down into his intestines.

It looks initially like it might have done some good. While he was in Utah, JT's gagging decreased. When they got home, it was only a once-a-week kind of thing, so it looked like this was a big part of the solution. By now, though, he's back to where he started and showing no improvement whatsoever.

We drove out to Denton to see the doc again, and he confirms it sounds like milk is not the solution. He now informs us that there were not only a lot of white blood cells in his intestines, but also a lot of histamines, so it's definitely allergy related and probably dietary but it might be environmental too. The thing is, the allergy testing he did came up with mostly negative results or minor results, 0+ or so. The only thing that is a 2 he doesn't eat regularly and he has nothing that came in at a 3-6, which is normally when a body gets noticeably bothered by something.

We know JT has environmental allergies - we do and he and Superstar both react to the allergens around here at the same time we do. So the next step is to take him to our allergist and get him properly tested for food and environmental allergies and go from there.

As we were driving to the doctor, JT calmly asked, "Is life supposed to be hard?"
Joy's inspired answer was Yes, but it's also supposed to be joyful.

To celebrate the return of milk and a couple other milestones in his young life, we took him to get a milkshake.

What have we learned from our grand 3.5 month experiment? We could totally live off soy milk (for cooking and baking) and almond milk (chocolate flavor for drinking) in an emergency. It keeps for a year and is a lot yummier than powdered, so I'm thinking this will become a fixture in our food storage.

While I'm talking about food, I'll mention that Joy started the Naturally Slim program I went through 2 years ago. We liked it when I was doing it; we like it again as Joy goes through. So we're going to be implementing some of the elements of it at home on a regular basis, trying to teach the kids to take small bites (as Princess always has), to pause between bites (the way JT does), and to be more aware of when they're full (Superstar can even say no to cake when he's full). After eating 10 minutes, pause for 5; oh, and no sweets after today until Halloween, and from then on
we'll be more purposeful with our sweets.

Funny little things on a Wednesday

I love the form I get from work, asking me if I have anything that falls under export controls. To help me know if I do, they give me examples, starting with military aircraft, and including nerve toxins and nuclear weapons. *LOL* Yeah, lemme look around a bit. Might have one hiding under this textbook. Ah, the life of an economics professor is delightfully dull. Except, of course, at home:
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The little one got to go on a field trip to the fire station with his Christian pre-school. The coolest thing he saw? A dog picking up a cell phone in its mouth.

He's got a doctor visit Friday. "That means I won't have Bible study!" he moans.
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When I came home, my daughter handed me a folded piece of paper with a barely concealed excitement. I read the invitation ... to a balloon's birthday party. Held two hours ago. "Oh. Then it's tomorrow." I'll be teaching a class then. "Saturday!" Saturday it is.
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The older one is writing a book that includes several of the other boys at school. He told me before bed how he is trying to convince the character representing one of his friends to become his evil henchman, but the character refuses.
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I came up with a new parody for my trade class at the beginning of the year to the tune of Uptown Funk. I have been chomping at the bit for us to cover enough of the class that the song will make sense. Tomorrow is the debut!

Except for last night at the dinner table. The two older kids enjoyed it very much and were proud that they got to hear it first. I was just pleased I remembered the lyrics without a cheat sheet!

Someone had a birthday a while back: me

I turned 40 just before school started, so that happened.

Joy made me this glorious chocolate peanut butter lasagna cake... that no one else liked. So I get to eat it ALL by MYSELF! I worked through a good piece of it over the next week and froze the rest. Wonderful, decadent, gooey, scrumptiousness! I got the recipe from a Facebook video - thanks to those of you who like tempting people with glorious recipes!

Thankfully for the rest of the family she also made some vegan chocolate cake muffins. That goes along with JT's non-dairy diet, so everyone could enjoy those. It's the recipe we got from Moosewood in Ithaca

My biggest present easily was having Joy return home with our two youngest in tow. Three weeks without my sweetheart were long and hard, even if Superstar and I could enjoy an amazingly long board game tournament.

I got some nice presents, including an expansion for Terraforming Mars, a food scale to weigh ingredients to a tenth of a gram, a couple new board games, some sheet music, and a lovely collection of books I've started working my way through.

I decided I really wanted a pinata this year, so I got this giant dinosaur. We had fun making a short movie of the JT running away from the dinosaur (below the fold).

Farewell to a hymn

With the First Presidency's announcement that Sunday meetings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be shortened to two hours, there are a lot of changes. For the most part, I am excited to move forward and see what the Lord has planned. When they announced three years ago that they were going to put a renewed and increased emphasis on making the Sabbath a delight, and worshipping at home, I had no idea they were preparing us for this. And who knows what this is preparing us for!?

But amid the rush and excitement, I do need to mourn for one of the changes. I need to in part because I know almost no one else will mourn its passing: The second hour will not begin with a hymn.

John-Thomas and the noodle nose

I've mentioned that John-Thomas needed to have a procedure done where they inserted a probe down his nose to scope out his intestines and find out what's going on. That was in late June.

I drove him up to the Cook's Children Hospital in Dallas. He took a teddy bear and a Sonic Underground CD for comfort.

They had a TV on with some cartoons. Gotta say, the cartoons they make today are weird and ugly. While I can appreciate the weirdness, the ugly was quite off-putting. He got bored with them quickly.

Finally they gave him the "giggle juice" and wheeled him away. The doc spoke to me eventually and said everything had gone perfectly and they found nothing unusual yet.

30-60 minutes later he woke up.

He was not terribly happy to be awake. Groggy and disoriented, he was very upset that his arms were in these two sleeves that stopped him from taking the noodle out. He got a yummy popsicle to eat and then we went to IHOP to try feeding him something before our long drive home.

Folks at IHOP were understanding. JT got to watch some 1960s Spiderman as a distraction, but Sonic Underground int he car was Much preferred.

Poor little guy got all the cuddles and snuggles he wanted, watched TV all day, and was loved and comforted in any way possible.

He finally fell asleep and stayed down the whole night. The next morning, we got to take the noodle out and I delivered it back to Cook's the next morning first thing.

They didn't find any major acidity problems, certainly nothing connected to his eating times. So that's when and why the doctor told us it was time to take all the deliciousness dairy out of his diet. He's done remarkably well like that so far.

Health updates

A non-dairy pizza

John-Thomas - The probe in his stomach determined he has too many white blood cells and that whatever's going on in his intestines is probably aggravated by a very mild food allergy. As a first step we took him off milk, with instructions to bring him back in two months.

Two months (and a few gallons of chocolate almond milk) later, JT is doing better. He has gone from gagging almost every day to only gagging 1-2 times a week. Sounds like it has helped but may not have been everything. We'll have to monitor a little longer.

Just a tiny tickle

Princess - Originally the x-rays were not the best and the doc couldn't see an actual break in her arm. He figured it must have been a very mild fracture, casted her, and told us to come back in a couple weeks. After Joy got back from UT, we brought her in and this time he got a better x-ray. It turns out she knocked a piece of her elbow clean off! She'll be in a cast for 3 months total at a minimum and is supposed to not put weight on that arm, but that's a really tall order with this one.

Princess also got glasses. She's got my astigmatism and has trouble seeing at a distance like both of us. She likes her new pretty pink glasses and she cleans them 7 times a day.

First day of school: pre-K for reals, 2nd, 5th

Superstar is doing just fine. His last turn was long enough, he can enjoy the time off.

A few days after

I had a topaz surgery in my ankle for my tendonitis, which is where they poke you with a hot needle in a checkerboard pattern in the hopes of jump-starting the body's healing process again to cure scar tissue. I will have been in a walking boot for something like 6 weeks before graduating to a regular boot again. When I went in this week, the tendon was still plenty tender, but that particular area doesn't appear to be hurting while I teach so far. So, progress, maybe?


Joy is back in Utah. When she got back home two weeks ago, we planned to send her back this weekend without the kids in tow and then again a month later. Turns out Grandma was transferred to a new facility the very day Joy flew out to see her! Joy has spent this weekend moving Grandma's stuff from Logan to Ogden, and helping her get settled in. We're very glad about the move - the staff there should be able to give her more of the care that she will need and they managed to convince her to get back on her medications, so that should help stabilize her too.

As evidence of the good Joy has been doing, Grandma was stable while Joy was with her last month, but as soon as Joy got back home to us her mother was back in the ER again. Hopefully this new facility will be able to help. (Mind you, we have no complaints about the other facility. They were patient and took good care of her for over a decade by my count. Grandma just needs a higher level of care than before.)

A childhood trauma, fondly remembered

I originally wrote this post in 2010 on our other blog, but something I read online reminded me of it and I wanted to share it again. Because it's funny.

Kids normally go through a stage of babbling random consonants as they practice sounds. Over time, these babblings start to sound like words. Then they become words. We've been trying to figure out this one sound Superstar [then 21 months old] LOVES making. What could he possibly be saying? We haven't agonized over it, but it has occasionally given his father some consternation.

Joy figured it out last night and as she told me, I leaned my head against our coat racks and relived an event from a couple decades ago..... (wavy flashback effect)

Ants have preferences

An ant colony is entering our house through a crack under our dining room table that I haven't been able to eradicate yet. This has given us a great incentive to keep the table and the floor under it really clean. We don't always succeed, though, and our mishaps have occasionally taught me some interesting things about ants and their ability to express their preferences.

I learned that ants have preferred foods and that they will completely ignore other foods if they have a more-preferred option available. For each of the following pairs, pick which one you think our ants attacked: (answers below the fold)

Cherries or grapes?
Bananas or bread crumbs?
Water used to heat frozen vegetables or flat, sugared cream soda (from Dublin)?