A Baker's Dozen: Daily Life in a Large Family

Running, Photos, Teeth and other Stuff

I had a reader ask recently to see my current photo wall...I haven't taken a picture of it yet (it's right around the corner from this wall) but here is my other photo wall. I purchased these 12x12 frames from Adorama and asked my sweet and brilliant husband to hang them for me. I knew I could hang them myself, but I was really hoping to have them even and symmetrical. Chuck's pretty handy that way. Not only did he hang them, but he didn't once mention the fact that they hung there, photo-less for a month or two after his hard work. Oh, and in case you didn't notice, one of the frame broke before it even made it to the wall. That's called "a house full of small children". I need to replace it, but the shipping will cost more than the frame itself, so I haven't brought myself to do it yet. 

This photo wall, unlike the one around the corner, it simply to hold fun personality type photos- not more formal portraits. I love it and since I only pay $1.99 for 12x12 photos from ScrapbookPictures, I can afford to swap them out with new favorites regularly. Once I swap out a photo, the old one can go in their scrapbooks. Perfect.

This is Adalia with the baby from her latest doula work. She spent over 24 hours at that birth. What a great experience for her! 

*By the way- Adalia really needs to attend one more birth before May to become fully certified. If you are local and know someone who be interested in having a doula in training free of charge, please contact me*

Thank you for all of the encouraging words, advice and stories about running. I am now running that 1/2 mile and ending up less winded than when I was running a shorter distance. I plan to keep up my 1/2 mile for another week or so and then push to run a little further.

For those of you who mentioned it, I have looked into the Couch to 5K program, but don't quite understand how that could work for me (and I feel like I'm missing something really obvious). I can't measure the distances as I run on my rural road, and I don't quite get how I could "run for three minutes then walk for 90 seconds" without constantly staring at my watch (which is actually my iPhone) which would really mess with the rhythm of my running. If someone has a solution, or can point out some obvious fact I'm missing, I'd love to hear it.

The last two nights Chuck has gotten up with Apollo at his first waking and spent about 15 minutes holding him and resettling him. It seems to be working well. I'm not nursing Apollo until the early morning hours now. Unfortunately I am still waking with him (since I usually have to wake Chuck and let him know Apollo's awake) but it feels good to be working on his night waking. Several people have mentioned having our teenage girls get up to help with Apollo, but I really don't feel okay about that. He is our baby (mine and Chuck's) not my daughters. If I were truly sick with the flu or something and Chuck and I couldn't get up with him then of course we would have them help, but not under normal circumstances. 

And teeth. As I posted on Facebook: I'm glad my dentist said this shouldn't hurt because otherwise I'd think I was in pain right now. Yeah, I honestly haven't been pain free since he did the work Tuesday morning. I'm taking ibuprofen (my old friend) around the clock and having a hard time remaining civil to those around me. It's not excruciating pain, just bad enough and constant enough to drive me crazy and never give me relief. Other than that, I'm fine.

Thanks for joining in on my pity party on Tuesday. It really made my day to come home and read all those comments.

 

Scouts and Honduras

I sent Judah off yesterday on his first high adventure trip with the Boy Scouts. They are headed off for a week or so of canoeing up in British Columbia. Judah has worked any and every chance he got this summer to earn the $300 plus for the trip and all of the gear he needed. Thankfully, my friend Bridget is a Scout leader on this trip and took her camera along. Last night they stayed in hotel and she was able to post about day one of their trip here.

And Adalia has posted part one of her summer in Honduras here. 

Happy Friday!

Babies, Beans and Bread

Tilly with Abigail and Isaiah

It's always fun to see the babies I photograph grow up. I was at Isaiah's birth and did both Isaiah and Abigail's newborn photos. It has also been amusing this last year to see babies who's births I photographed, get bigger than Apollo! I photographed my first birth when he was just two months old (and I'm on call for my 10 birth)...that baby, Calvin, is now bigger than Apollo. I'm pretty sure a few of the other babies outweigh him now too...what he lacks in stature he makes up for in personality, I assure you!

Today is Keziah's last day home before she heads off to Job Corps. Our house is a bit chaotic. We are rearranging rooms in part because we'll have bit more space, and in part because Apollo needs somewhere dark to sleep at night. We'll do Phase One of the room switch on Wednesday and Phase Two after Boaz leaves...I'm so glad it's summer vacation...now if only the "summer" part would arrive.

The dairy free and (possibly) gluten free journey continues. I've actually been amazed at how relatively "easy" it was to give up dairy. First of all, I LOVE half and half in my coffee...I've been drinking it that way for over twenty  years (yes, I know I'm only 35...I've been drinking coffee for a long time, okay?) A good pizza would make it to my top five favorite foods list. And ice cream? My dessert of choice. Unless there is cheesecake....or creme brulee. Notice a pattern here?

It would have probably been difficult to "give up" these foods for myself...but it wasn't so difficult to give them up when I know it is for Apollo's health. He'll be a year old this month and I could technically wean him and go ahead and eat those foods...but that leaves him without a source of milk, which is still very important into the second year of life. I've done my research and chances are he wouldn't be able to tolerate goat's milk at this stage either. Besides, those five pounds I lost? I'm not really interested in seeing them again. Even in my coffee.

Right now I'm working on making a few lists to simplify my life: gluten free foods, dairy free foods, and gluten/dairy free meals. I'm basically making my own reference guide using foods we already enjoy...

Chuck and I have been discussing how we eat and why, and we're on the same page as far as changing out eating habits. We eat very few prepackaged foods...it's simply not affordable for a family our size, so I suppose this change will be a bit easier than it would be for some. Our goal right now is to focus on whole foods...fruits and veggies, meat, eggs, nuts, legumes, safe grains...all that good stuff that we eat anyway. We'll simply add more to our diet and eat less pasta and bread...it's all good and I'm rather excited to see how it all goes...

Apollo and the Milk Monster

I dare you to look at that little mischeiveous face and not smile...

So, Apollo and I are into week five of no dairy...or so I thought. I have been a label reading queen and been so, so careful.

But despite that all, milk protein has snuck in. We've had hot dogs twice. Hot dogs. I don't even like the things, but it is that time of year...and I just found out they have casein in them. Seriously?

And tonight I discovered whey in our taco seasoning.  Really? We eat tacos once a week around here. This stuff is so very complicated. I am also looking into going gluten free...what a mess that is. Gluten is in Every. Thing. Including oatmeal! Oatmeal is naturally gluten free but is contaminated with gluten in the fields and in processing...I keep hoping that if we just cut out the obvious gluten (in bread and things) that Enoch will not have to be so very limited. For example, people with severe gluten allergies can't even use a toaster that has had gluten in it . Yowzer.

Blog reader Sarah, sent me to these two cool websites: Coffee Catharsis and GFCF allows COFFEE! These have been very informative already. I'm not big on the idea of "substituting" dairy foods for fake versions. For instance, you won't see us eating dairy free "cheese". We'll simply avoid cheese. I figure that by the time nuts or beans or coconut are processed to that point, they are no longer healthy either.

I just bought the book Nourishing Traditions for my Kindle at the recommendation of several people. I already agree with most of what is in the book, but Apollo still can't have milk, and perhaps not gluten either. Any other great book suggestions?

It seems so very impossible trying to unravel all of this...but hey, school's out now and I need something to do for fun.

Right?