Hells bells, but I need chocolate. I think someone cosmic looked at my calendar and decided that it was laughably laid back, so today was a compilation of three, perhaps four days. Certainly enough happened today to have been happily spread out over a number of days...cetainly I'll spend that long catching my breath.
Two days ago, the Man turned to me and said, 'It sounds silly, but I'm a little worried. The Toddles used to have a 'da-da' sound months ago, and he isn't making one now.' I laughed, and told him to be patient.
Yesterday, the Toddles pointed to a photo of a baby and said, 'bay-bie!' I agreed. He pointed to his father and said, 'Da-die!' I agreed. His poleaxed father was too overwhelmed with love to appreciate the comic timing.
Since then, the little one has been pointing and naming, repeating words, producing them at a furious pace. Finally, we've begun serious language acquisition and use! This is almost as much fun as the parrot phase, except that sentences are now looming in the Toddles' world...to be followed nearly immediately by his first verbalized argument. He is, of course, fully capable of arguing with us now, irrespective of his linguistic skills. Natch.
Which takes us to today. Today, which the Toddles spent combining his new words or word variants in interesting ways, which skill we decided to take out on the town by taking Mary Jr to the clinic, for which we were amply rewarded by having the Toddles admired by any number of slightly infectious undergraduates. Whoops.
Still, the little guy had fun. Life is good in his world right now, with the Eldest learning ways to play with him successfully (games that have the Eldest shouting, 'no!' and bodily hauling the kid from place to place do NOT count). This, of course, makes things rosier in my world, making me more relaxed, flexible - I even got a hug when I picked up the (typically recalcitrant) Eldest from preschool today. Damn.
And tonight we invented By George Pizza, offspring of the By George, I Think We've Got it Bread. The Toddles declined this offering, but the Eldest nearly ate the whole pizza. Mouth full, he talked excitedly about other incarnations for this 'za (more olives, less basil, more sauce), and wistfully about being able to eat it at school. You got it, kid.
Balance, of course, is necessary. So, the universe served up a dose of new allergy mom, a woman I know to be sane from the hemophilia e-lists, who was shocked to see the number of her son's diagnoses double. And after a mild anaphylactic reaction, no less. I resisted the urge to list, pettily, my kids' allergies, because I remember this: she's at sea, shocked and worried. It really doesn't matter whose list is bigger or smaller at this point, what really matters is the throwing of the life preserver. Irrespective of how fine she is going to be or how pissy I'm feeling, it's only fair to let her be shocked and appalled and frightened for her child, without undercutting that process by minimizing the source of her fears.
Which is why I did not mention that today I had a meeting in which the Eldest's nursery-preschool told me that they cannot have the Toddles in their school next year. The class he'd've been in has the highest ratio of teachers per student, all loving, experienced folks. One teacher, grandmother to an allergic child, queen of the school kitchen, and the person who made sure that there were two kinds of milk in the Eldest's class - dairy and soy - finally looked at me and said, 'if it were my child, I'd be scared to send him. The little ones are unpredictable and fast. There's no way we could keep him from getting someone else's lunch in the face.'
Having seen the little buggers move (my little bugger included), I had to agree. We decided that while this was true of the tinies (15 mo - 2yr9mo) the same did not hold true for the following class (2 yr 9mo - 4 yr). Which means that there will be no school for the Toddles next year. the Man and I have said, over and over, that if any school could do it, this one could. They are so child-centered, fall so easily in love with their children, and have performed feats of organization and adaptation for the Eldest - all of which pale in comparison to what would need to be done for the Toddles.
Which cannot, as it turns out, be done at all. Which means that my dissertation will struggle haplessly for another year, which means that once again, allergies will dictate our family life - and mine, above all. Drop into the mix my mother, panicking over an upcoming visit, apparently paralyzed to do anything without me and still, still unable to remember whether anyone is allergic to tree nuts (the Eldest - he's anaphylactic), and I'm so glad I kept my mouth in lock-step with my brain while talking to this new mum, while my psyche was frothing at the mouth and shrieking unprintables.
She'll be fine. And eventually, so will I. But first, I intend to kick some pillows and rant a bit. (No, this didn't count as ranting. See 'unprintable' comment.) Some days, balance sucks. But pizza's always good...
*******************************
By George Pizza
makes one cookie tray-full of pizza, roughly enough for three hungry people.
2 cups gluten-free flour mix (this is the same mix from the By George Bread, so make extra and use it for either. Keep extra in fridge in airtight container/ziploc. 2 parts white rice flour, 2/3rds part potato starch flour, 1/3rd part tapioca flour)
2 Tb sugar
2 tsp guar gum/xanthan gum (note: xanthan gum can have traces of corn)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
1 cup milk/soy milk. Warm 1.5 minutes in microwave.
2 Tb veg oil
2 flaxgel subs (2 Tb flaxmeal/ground flaxseed + just under 1/2 cup water, zapped in microwave 1 min 30 seconds, more or less, let cool a bit) or 2 eggs
1 tsp rice vinegar or other mild vinegar
Assemble dry ingredients. Mix. Turn oven on to 350 F.
Make up egg subs in microwave, warm milk. Add those and other wet ingredients to dry ingredients.
Using a cake mixer, mix. Then, beat on high for 2 minutes. Turn oven off.
Pour dough into a greased container, put into oven for 30 minutes.
Pull the risen dough out of the oven. Spray with cooking spray a cookie sheet and a rolling pin. (I prefer a nonstick, resuable baking sheet that I lay right down on the tray, and don't have to grease. Use the greased rolling pin to gently spread the dough out. Since I'm a klutz, I roll it directly onto the tray. Turn oven on to 450.
Bake at 450F for 15-20 minutes. It will go golden brown, a bit darker around the edges. Pull out, add toppings, bake some more - I was in a hurry tonight, so I zapped it under the broiler for about 8 minutes, on the lower rack. The goal is to bake the crust with the first baking (pre-sauce, since gluten free breads are notorious for going soggy), then to heat the sauce and toppings with the second baking.
Enjoy, but don't linger too long in the kitchen after you put this on the table - the Man was working late tonight, and came home to a paltry pair of slices remaining...Heh.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
demented rabbits and contented toddlers
Well, more bleeding and more cautery. This time, with the Eldest watching curiously. So, when the ENT asked me, worriedly, 'Are you okay?' The correct answer was a cheery, 'yup!' Ignoring, of course, the feeling like the inside of my nose was on fire.
The lidocaine, it seems, had not quite worked. Quite.
Again, with an eye towards snuggling platelets, the ENT shoved a bit of something up my nose. Placed somewhat differently than the first bit of platelet snuggling, this bit of whateveritis itches. I find myself twitching my nose, and looking a bit like a demented rabbit. Yay, me. I had dinner tonight with a superb listener, who not only let me rattle on for hours, but didn't laugh at my ridiculous nose-dance. A lady with a certain amount of aplomb, that one.
My Samantha-esque twitching gives me a slightly vague, distracted look that contrasts nicely with the Toddles' latest behavior patterns: from a vague, guess-what's-irking-the-child, we know have the Definitive Communicator. He is clear as to his wishes, tidies up after himself, and brooks no fluthering about by his parents. (This is the place where people remind me that the second one is easier. This is also the place where I laugh at them. What is this 'easy' to be -er of?)
Tonight, for example, he woke up and wailed at about 11.30pm. Mind you, he didn't even open his eyes - typically, he sits up and wails, eyes still closed, certain that the grownup of choice will appear. The Man went in and soothed him back to sleep - tried, anyway - but the Toddles shoved the soothing hand away and pointed, clearly, forcefully, down the hall, where I was working. The Man tried again, but again found the paternal hand shoved away as the Toddles began crawling off the bed to go and fetch me.
Accepting defeat, he called me. I went in to the room, lay down and nursed the wee tyrant. Once he was done nursing on one side, he tidily pulled my shirt down, patted me, and pointed. Other side, Mum. I popped him over, he nursed on the other side, and again covered me up when he was done. Tidy little soul, that one. Clear in his needs, focussed, but tidy when done.
I can live with that.
************************
The Eldest had his interview at the school of choice, and looking him with an eye to what a stranger would see, I could see just how far he's regressed, post-bleed. He hid behind me, thumb so far into his mouth that it tickled his tonsils. When invited to go into the kindergarten classroom, he declined, but agreed to peek in through the door. (sound familiar? Yup.)
When asked questions, he declined to respond - insofar as I could see, while I was still in the room. Now, as my friend the rabbi says, is where I start to over-interpret. What did the Director of Admissions see? In his focus on the Lego, to the extent that he didn't respond to her, did she see a child avoiding social interaction? Or does she see a child with tremendous powers of concentration? At one point, she asked him to write his name. I couldn't stop myself - here was a child who can log the date and the names of the veins that are used for his infusions. I jumped in and told her so, and then worried that I seemed like I was bragging.
I was. But what did she see? Did she see the hiding child, or the external view? Can she sift through the anxious child behaviors to see him? I have to trust that she did. I hate having to do that. In fact, i'm thinking of ruthlessly using the medical pow-wow to do a little PR, a little spin...I just can't stop myself.
But still, how many kids can draw you a picture of a fibrin net? Or name the veins in their arm and hand? Or backseat poke? The kid likes to give advice to people doing the vein poke, it's hilarious. (I think you are to the left of the vein. Did you advance the needle? try wiggling it a bit. Maybe it's positional?) The kid's just that cool, and I think the Director of Admissions should know that. Hell, I think there should be billboards on the Mass Pike letting folks know that, but that might be one of those maternal bias things I keep hearing about.
****************************
Finally, I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Guy Gavriel Kay, tonight at the Vericon. I never go to fantasy/scifi conventions (or 'cons,' as they are apparently called), but magid wisely hauled me to this one. Magid found the listing for the talk, bought my badge, acquired the as-yet not released book by Kay, and managed to maneuver all three (badge, book and me) to Harvard campus. She even showed up Saturday afternoon, before the talk, to make sure I wasn't trying to hide in my burrow.
And I didn't. Kay talked about the role of fantasy, as he sees it, and it was clear that he's a bit of a crusader. Disturbed by the lack of awareness that we have of our own history, Kay uses history as a base for his fantasy. Through the lens of fantasy, historical moments are universalized, he points out, making them more accessible to we modern, era-centric types. And thereby more easily used as a tool to analyze the present.
This smacks strongly of an argument that I've made to my own students, when teaching medieval literature. I tell them to treat it like a kind of fantasy, to picture an era that's different from ours, different enough that we create our own fantasies trying to imagine it, because we can't possibly get it exactly right. Can you imagine believing that an old fingerbone in a cathedral could cure you? Or, if you were a cynic, knowing that the majority of people believed that? I can tell them that there was an amazing paucity of objects, by our modern standards, but they don't understand it, they merely accept the words as something to parrot back on essays and exams. Invite them to imagine a room without the easy clutter of a machine-made material culture, with one cup per person, and they start to get it. Imagination, and specifically fantasy is a wonderful tool to get a person to accept difference, to loosen up and look calmly outside of their network, or pattern of known definitions and understandings. And my vague invitation to my students, trying to shake up their faith in academic teachings, their ethnocentricity, pales in comparison to Kay's precise, detail-careful narrative.
Fun, above all, to actually meet the man! And I am looking forward to settling down with Ysabel, his latest book, and a good cup of tea. Until 3 a.m., of course...
***************************
The SIL has issued a challenge: can I come up with a good birthday cake for the Niece's party? Here's my first attempt, an adaptation of an adaptation. I just hope the Niece likes blueberries! (Note to self: test the recipe sans fruit)
A Girl's Gotta Have...Cake
serves 6-8 happy cake eaters
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
4 eggs or 4 Tb ground flaxseed (flaxmeal) + 1/2 c water, zapped in microwave and let cool. should be thick, plus 1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder (gluten free folks, check for corn!)
1 cup white rice flour
2/3 cup sour cream or 2/3 cup Tofutti cream cheese (contains corn) or 2/3 cup plain soy yogurt (some contain corn, be careful - currently, Silk yogurt seems not to trouble either of my boys). If you use the dairy free options, add 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
4 TB lemon juice (in a pinch, it's okay to mix lemon and orange juice)
zest of 1 lemon. Oranges work fine, too
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup blueberries (frozen are fine)
Blend margarine/butter and sugar. Add eggs/egg sub.s, and blend. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Whip with cake mixer for 2 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease or spray with cooking spray a 8 by 8 baking pan. Note: this recipe might also work with a bundt pan, I simply have bad luck with those - my cakes crumble when I try to remove them, proving that I am more cook than baker. Also, beware! This cake will rise, unlike lots of gluten free baked goods. It'll fall a bit, too, but make sure the pan can hold it while it rises.
Pour batter into prepared pan. bake 50-60 minutes. Middle will fall, don't worry about it. Test carefully with toothpick, baking times will vary depending on oven.
Options: these would probably work beautifully as muffins, with about a 20 minute bake time.
The lidocaine, it seems, had not quite worked. Quite.
Again, with an eye towards snuggling platelets, the ENT shoved a bit of something up my nose. Placed somewhat differently than the first bit of platelet snuggling, this bit of whateveritis itches. I find myself twitching my nose, and looking a bit like a demented rabbit. Yay, me. I had dinner tonight with a superb listener, who not only let me rattle on for hours, but didn't laugh at my ridiculous nose-dance. A lady with a certain amount of aplomb, that one.
My Samantha-esque twitching gives me a slightly vague, distracted look that contrasts nicely with the Toddles' latest behavior patterns: from a vague, guess-what's-irking-the-child, we know have the Definitive Communicator. He is clear as to his wishes, tidies up after himself, and brooks no fluthering about by his parents. (This is the place where people remind me that the second one is easier. This is also the place where I laugh at them. What is this 'easy' to be -er of?)
Tonight, for example, he woke up and wailed at about 11.30pm. Mind you, he didn't even open his eyes - typically, he sits up and wails, eyes still closed, certain that the grownup of choice will appear. The Man went in and soothed him back to sleep - tried, anyway - but the Toddles shoved the soothing hand away and pointed, clearly, forcefully, down the hall, where I was working. The Man tried again, but again found the paternal hand shoved away as the Toddles began crawling off the bed to go and fetch me.
Accepting defeat, he called me. I went in to the room, lay down and nursed the wee tyrant. Once he was done nursing on one side, he tidily pulled my shirt down, patted me, and pointed. Other side, Mum. I popped him over, he nursed on the other side, and again covered me up when he was done. Tidy little soul, that one. Clear in his needs, focussed, but tidy when done.
I can live with that.
************************
The Eldest had his interview at the school of choice, and looking him with an eye to what a stranger would see, I could see just how far he's regressed, post-bleed. He hid behind me, thumb so far into his mouth that it tickled his tonsils. When invited to go into the kindergarten classroom, he declined, but agreed to peek in through the door. (sound familiar? Yup.)
When asked questions, he declined to respond - insofar as I could see, while I was still in the room. Now, as my friend the rabbi says, is where I start to over-interpret. What did the Director of Admissions see? In his focus on the Lego, to the extent that he didn't respond to her, did she see a child avoiding social interaction? Or does she see a child with tremendous powers of concentration? At one point, she asked him to write his name. I couldn't stop myself - here was a child who can log the date and the names of the veins that are used for his infusions. I jumped in and told her so, and then worried that I seemed like I was bragging.
I was. But what did she see? Did she see the hiding child, or the external view? Can she sift through the anxious child behaviors to see him? I have to trust that she did. I hate having to do that. In fact, i'm thinking of ruthlessly using the medical pow-wow to do a little PR, a little spin...I just can't stop myself.
But still, how many kids can draw you a picture of a fibrin net? Or name the veins in their arm and hand? Or backseat poke? The kid likes to give advice to people doing the vein poke, it's hilarious. (I think you are to the left of the vein. Did you advance the needle? try wiggling it a bit. Maybe it's positional?) The kid's just that cool, and I think the Director of Admissions should know that. Hell, I think there should be billboards on the Mass Pike letting folks know that, but that might be one of those maternal bias things I keep hearing about.
****************************
Finally, I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Guy Gavriel Kay, tonight at the Vericon. I never go to fantasy/scifi conventions (or 'cons,' as they are apparently called), but magid wisely hauled me to this one. Magid found the listing for the talk, bought my badge, acquired the as-yet not released book by Kay, and managed to maneuver all three (badge, book and me) to Harvard campus. She even showed up Saturday afternoon, before the talk, to make sure I wasn't trying to hide in my burrow.
And I didn't. Kay talked about the role of fantasy, as he sees it, and it was clear that he's a bit of a crusader. Disturbed by the lack of awareness that we have of our own history, Kay uses history as a base for his fantasy. Through the lens of fantasy, historical moments are universalized, he points out, making them more accessible to we modern, era-centric types. And thereby more easily used as a tool to analyze the present.
This smacks strongly of an argument that I've made to my own students, when teaching medieval literature. I tell them to treat it like a kind of fantasy, to picture an era that's different from ours, different enough that we create our own fantasies trying to imagine it, because we can't possibly get it exactly right. Can you imagine believing that an old fingerbone in a cathedral could cure you? Or, if you were a cynic, knowing that the majority of people believed that? I can tell them that there was an amazing paucity of objects, by our modern standards, but they don't understand it, they merely accept the words as something to parrot back on essays and exams. Invite them to imagine a room without the easy clutter of a machine-made material culture, with one cup per person, and they start to get it. Imagination, and specifically fantasy is a wonderful tool to get a person to accept difference, to loosen up and look calmly outside of their network, or pattern of known definitions and understandings. And my vague invitation to my students, trying to shake up their faith in academic teachings, their ethnocentricity, pales in comparison to Kay's precise, detail-careful narrative.
Fun, above all, to actually meet the man! And I am looking forward to settling down with Ysabel, his latest book, and a good cup of tea. Until 3 a.m., of course...
***************************
The SIL has issued a challenge: can I come up with a good birthday cake for the Niece's party? Here's my first attempt, an adaptation of an adaptation. I just hope the Niece likes blueberries! (Note to self: test the recipe sans fruit)
A Girl's Gotta Have...Cake
serves 6-8 happy cake eaters
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
4 eggs or 4 Tb ground flaxseed (flaxmeal) + 1/2 c water, zapped in microwave and let cool. should be thick, plus 1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder (gluten free folks, check for corn!)
1 cup white rice flour
2/3 cup sour cream or 2/3 cup Tofutti cream cheese (contains corn) or 2/3 cup plain soy yogurt (some contain corn, be careful - currently, Silk yogurt seems not to trouble either of my boys). If you use the dairy free options, add 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
4 TB lemon juice (in a pinch, it's okay to mix lemon and orange juice)
zest of 1 lemon. Oranges work fine, too
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup blueberries (frozen are fine)
Blend margarine/butter and sugar. Add eggs/egg sub.s, and blend. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Whip with cake mixer for 2 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease or spray with cooking spray a 8 by 8 baking pan. Note: this recipe might also work with a bundt pan, I simply have bad luck with those - my cakes crumble when I try to remove them, proving that I am more cook than baker. Also, beware! This cake will rise, unlike lots of gluten free baked goods. It'll fall a bit, too, but make sure the pan can hold it while it rises.
Pour batter into prepared pan. bake 50-60 minutes. Middle will fall, don't worry about it. Test carefully with toothpick, baking times will vary depending on oven.
Options: these would probably work beautifully as muffins, with about a 20 minute bake time.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
oh, jeez. I have to drink that?
Did I say 'end game?' why do I ever say things like 'end game?' It's like the idiot in the horror movies who says, 'I'll be right back.' Oy.
Woke up this morning. Tried to ignore the chaos downstairs and go back to sleep. Failed. Sat up. Tried to fall asleep again (note to self: teach the Toddles to sleep. My bed, his bed, I really don't care at this point). Failed. Pried eyes open, stretched *pop* reached for a tissue and held pressure on the bloody (yes, I intend that pun) nose. Same spot, same side that the ENT cauterized.
Bloody, bloody hell.
An hour and a half later, it stopped. This time, I attached my phone number to the irritated email to the hematologist. She called back and told me not to worry about the platelets and advised Amicar, a secondary medicine that we give the Eldest to control bleeds in the mouth and nose. It is justly famous in the bleeding disorders community for tasting foul, foul, foul. It even has a finish, to borrow the term from the wine snobs, that is equally foul if not worse. Aaaaagh. But it's working. Whaddaya know?
I spent the day feeling vaguely out of place in my own skin. Why are the doctors talking to me about me? Why am I being dosed for bleeding? And - yes, I know there's no segue here, but I'm in a hurry - why oh why am I not surprised that the Eldest is too freaked out by the idea of gymnastics to even want to go? He made it into the room, but sat on the side with the director, too overwhelmed by the running, bouncing little people to participate. I'll take it - my crowd-shy, visually overloading kid made it into the room. Not bad for the boy who won't go to his own birthday party. Next time, maybe he'll join his group of kids on the mat. Maybe.
And on the subject of nothing especially relevant: a refua shlaima (complete recovery) for the MIL! Hoping you are right back to yourself tonight...
Note to self: vegan mayo tastes foul. Should've seen that coming, it's like the difference between butter and margarine, to the nth power. When n is higher than 67. No recipe posting tonight, sorry! But we're still enjoying the By George bread, which is apparently good the next day - a rarity in the vegan, gluten-free world.
********************************
Huzzah! The half-cloth diapering is working beautifully. For the past two days, I've collected wet cloth inserts in a nice little bag, hung discreetly in the pantry. Oddly enough, the poop was caught entirely by the flushable inserts, making tonight a real test of our system.
new to the blog? We're cloth/flushable diapering because many standard disposable diapers contain corn. My children are wholly responsible for my ecological virtue, thansk to their allergies. Daily, the Man flees the house for the office, where he eats a PB&J sandwich on wheat bread, and breathes a sigh of relief. It's a wonder that he ever comes home to our gluten/dairy/nut/peanut/sesame/egg/gourd/legume-free home at all.
I had just washed all the cloth and stuffed a diaper cover with fresh cloth inserts - which were promptly pooped on. Now, the point of the little waterproof bag is that one does not have to endure the smell of an unwashed poopy dipe, nor do I have the mental icks from it sitting in the rest of my laundry. No, indeedy, one tosses the poopy object into the little bag, to be joined by other, similarly soiled objects.
but how does it smell, over the pair of days between entry into the bag and removal for washing? To stack the deck in my favor, I dripped a little tea tree oil onto a rag and dropped it in. Tea tree has some antibacterial properties, but mostly is a nice, pleasing (and strong!) scent. Let the poop and the tea tree battle it out - I'm curious as to the results.
Three days later: no stink, and I have enough diapers wet/dirty to wash. Hurrah! The system works. I could use about six more cloth inserts so as to be able to go longer between loads of laundry, but all in all, we have a functioning system.
Woke up this morning. Tried to ignore the chaos downstairs and go back to sleep. Failed. Sat up. Tried to fall asleep again (note to self: teach the Toddles to sleep. My bed, his bed, I really don't care at this point). Failed. Pried eyes open, stretched *pop* reached for a tissue and held pressure on the bloody (yes, I intend that pun) nose. Same spot, same side that the ENT cauterized.
Bloody, bloody hell.
An hour and a half later, it stopped. This time, I attached my phone number to the irritated email to the hematologist. She called back and told me not to worry about the platelets and advised Amicar, a secondary medicine that we give the Eldest to control bleeds in the mouth and nose. It is justly famous in the bleeding disorders community for tasting foul, foul, foul. It even has a finish, to borrow the term from the wine snobs, that is equally foul if not worse. Aaaaagh. But it's working. Whaddaya know?
I spent the day feeling vaguely out of place in my own skin. Why are the doctors talking to me about me? Why am I being dosed for bleeding? And - yes, I know there's no segue here, but I'm in a hurry - why oh why am I not surprised that the Eldest is too freaked out by the idea of gymnastics to even want to go? He made it into the room, but sat on the side with the director, too overwhelmed by the running, bouncing little people to participate. I'll take it - my crowd-shy, visually overloading kid made it into the room. Not bad for the boy who won't go to his own birthday party. Next time, maybe he'll join his group of kids on the mat. Maybe.
And on the subject of nothing especially relevant: a refua shlaima (complete recovery) for the MIL! Hoping you are right back to yourself tonight...
Note to self: vegan mayo tastes foul. Should've seen that coming, it's like the difference between butter and margarine, to the nth power. When n is higher than 67. No recipe posting tonight, sorry! But we're still enjoying the By George bread, which is apparently good the next day - a rarity in the vegan, gluten-free world.
********************************
Huzzah! The half-cloth diapering is working beautifully. For the past two days, I've collected wet cloth inserts in a nice little bag, hung discreetly in the pantry. Oddly enough, the poop was caught entirely by the flushable inserts, making tonight a real test of our system.
new to the blog? We're cloth/flushable diapering because many standard disposable diapers contain corn. My children are wholly responsible for my ecological virtue, thansk to their allergies. Daily, the Man flees the house for the office, where he eats a PB&J sandwich on wheat bread, and breathes a sigh of relief. It's a wonder that he ever comes home to our gluten/dairy/nut/peanut/sesame/egg/gourd/legume-free home at all.
I had just washed all the cloth and stuffed a diaper cover with fresh cloth inserts - which were promptly pooped on. Now, the point of the little waterproof bag is that one does not have to endure the smell of an unwashed poopy dipe, nor do I have the mental icks from it sitting in the rest of my laundry. No, indeedy, one tosses the poopy object into the little bag, to be joined by other, similarly soiled objects.
but how does it smell, over the pair of days between entry into the bag and removal for washing? To stack the deck in my favor, I dripped a little tea tree oil onto a rag and dropped it in. Tea tree has some antibacterial properties, but mostly is a nice, pleasing (and strong!) scent. Let the poop and the tea tree battle it out - I'm curious as to the results.
Three days later: no stink, and I have enough diapers wet/dirty to wash. Hurrah! The system works. I could use about six more cloth inserts so as to be able to go longer between loads of laundry, but all in all, we have a functioning system.
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