Monday, July 18, 2011

The Craziness

Do you ever look at your life and just laugh? I do. Usually I laugh when I think about what's coming. Sometimes I laugh when I look at where I am today. Lately I've been laughing at how crazy things are right now.
Since having our second son 3 and a half weeks ago we've gone out of town visiting family, we've had numerous people over for dessert dates and I've had lots of girlfriends over for tea. In fact, last week the only day we didn't have people over was the day that we went out for a staff party with Matt's work.
I made serrano stuffed shrimp as part of a meal for company (should've used bigger shrimp I must say), I made butter tart bars for dessert that night, rice krispie squares the next day, date squares the day after that and individual mocha cream tortes for dessert one night.
I started reading some books again; I finished Jane Austen's Mansfield Park a few days ago and I'm about halfway through Persuasion again. When I'm done those I'm going to read a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan and then I may take another stab at John Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion.
Nathaniel is pretty good about giving me at least one 4 hour sleep a night, but typical is still on 3 hour feeds, which means that I'm still pretty tired consistently, or at least tired enough that when I wake up at 7 to feed him I go back to sleep instead of getting up and starting my day.
To add to the craziness, Gabe got a cold this week which he ended up giving to Nathaniel. Just so you are aware, when little tiny babies get colds, they swallow the mucus which ends up curdling the milk in their stomach and they spit up. Alot. I think I've also done record amounts of laundry this week.
Matt's been doing side jobs lately on the weekends and has hardly had a day off this month.
And to top it all off, I'm now having some medical issues. It looks like my elevated estrogen levels from my pregnancy may have given me gallstones. Fantastic, eh? I'm on a prescription right now to see if that helps and I've got an ultrasound next week to confirm the theory and from there we'll see if I need surgery or not.
Ha ha.
But really, what more can I do than laugh? I could freak out. I could stress. I could break down crying. And if you look at that list, it's not all bad stuff. It is all 'stuff', but some of it is good: company, baking, kids, improvement of the mind through reading and studying... all good. Just maybe a little compacted into an otherwise hectic routine :)
Granted, I will be making some changes over the next little while to help my craziness levels. First off, I'm going to limit my number of guests per week :) I should give myself at least one day of not having to be ready by a certain time. It will make my house cleaner, too! Secondly, I've finally started using some of those 50 million bibs that one seems to acquire when one has children. Gabe wasn't a spitty baby so we never needed bibs for him until he started on real food. Now, however, putting a bib on Nathaniel will save us from going through two or three outfits, 2 sheets and 5 receiving blankets a day.
Next, I plan to go to bed early a couple of nights this week to catch up on my sleep. I really do enjoy getting up bright an early and shouldn't have any problems working that into my routine assuming I start out well rested.
Lastly, I really need to change my diet. This one is a bit of a reluctant change. I'm not a particularly unhealthy eater (please disregard above mentioned list of desserts prepared this week). I crave fruit very regularly, can't stand the thought of potato chips lately, would much rather prepare a fresh meal at home than order in pizza (most nights) and you won't find anything resembling store-bought frozen meals or snacks in our house. However, that's not enough. In light of my medical issues, I have been informed that it would be advisable for me to cut out many foods that would otherwise be conducive to a healthy diet. Artichokes, avodacos, milk/cheese, citrus fruits, eggs, broccoli, red meat, nuts... all could aggrevate my symptoms. So tonight's dinner was supposed to be a goat cheese pizza with chicken, peaches and artichokes. Yah, that could kill me. Well, not really, but it could hurt me very badly. I was going to make a batch of egg salad to put on some mixed greens for lunches this week. That's out. Usually if I need to grab a quick snack I grab a handful of almonds. That's out, too. And while all of these won't necessarily make my symptoms worse, if you've ever had a gallbladder attack you know it's not worth the risk.
In any event, my diet will be changing drastically for the next few weeks. I'll be eating alot of whole grain wraps with alfa-alfa sprouts, cucumber and tomatoes. I'll also be eating a lot of rice and chicken. Yogurt seems to be safe and I think I'll make up some nutless granola to throw in that for my breakfasts.
These restrictions don't necessarily mean that my life will be tasteless - just require a bit more thinking on my part. For example, eating white rice every night for dinner would make me go crazy, so last night I picked up some basmati and some jasmine rice, as well as some turmeric. Add a teaspoon or two to a batch of rice and it tastes amazing without increasing sodium or fat levels. Hamburgers are a no-no for me, but that's no reason why I can't have a chicken burger. I have a great recipe for a figgy barbque sauce that would go great on a chicken burger. I'm far too prone to put loads of cheese on pasta, but if I use a vinegar based sauce for the pasta, like a roasted red pepper vinaigrette, no cheese needed - or at most the tiniest dusting of fine grated asiago.
So while I may have to forego the Mocha Cream tortes for a while, I'm sure that I'll survive, and perhaps be a better cook for the experience. At very least I'll now feel justified in ordering that subscription to Cooking Light!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

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