Moog's meanderings

In all that’s been going on I have omitted to let you all know that Hubby has had his PhD Viva and it went very well indeed. He has been granted his PhD pending some minor amendments which he has a few weeks to complete. Hooray!! He is very relieved (and we are all very proud). Since that happened we have spent a week in Northumberland at a cottage near Bamburgh with my parents. It was really nice to get away properly without Hubby having to worry about being contacted about work (which always happens when he’s having time off but is at home) or working on the PhD. Pumpkin has started smiling a lot and gurgling and chatting back when he’s given the attention so it was great timing for my parents to spend some time getting to know him a bit. It also meant Hubby and I had the extra pairs of hands and eyes to help out! Mum and Dad took Munchkin out a few times and once took over for a full day so Hubby and I could visit Lindisfarne (Holy Island). Obviously we took the little one with us but he is very happy strapped to one of us in the sling so we were able to take our time reading the information about the Priory and Castle and soaking everything up rather than running around after the boisterous Munchkin!!

Both Pictures are of Lindisfarne Priory.

The last couple of weeks we have been having new potatoes from our allotment. They’re lovely! We’ve just started on the Charlotte variety which I am really enjoying (can’t remember what the other types are off hand). We are also just starting to get a few courgettes and hubby tells me that both the runner and french bean plants are flowering. I haven’t managed to get down to help or have a look since before we went away – timing it right with both kids is apparently more of a challenge than I can handle at the moment!

I have an appointment back at the rheumatology clinic tomorrow morning. Hubby will take Munchkin out to a picnic held by our regular ’stay and play’ group while I go along with Pumpkin. I don’t expect them to change any of my medication or anything. Healthwise things are going pretty well – just the odd blip here and there. I am so lucky to have (a very proactive and helpful) hubby working at home for the most part meaning that he’s available to help out at mealtimes (which for me are the most difficult bit of having to deal with both of them together next to bath/bedtime). I do wonder how my illness would be affected if I had to cope with him being away more on business. He does travel a bit, and generally is off on site about one day a week. I cope, but it’s obviously harder. When he does go away for a few days then I start to see things deteriorating. Lupus is affected by hormones and tiredness/worry/stress sends ones hormones off doing funny things, setting off the Lupus (apart from chronic fatigue being one of it’s big symptoms in the first place). So by the time he gets back I find myself wound up and tired suffering from a short temper from being worn down as well as the familiar arthritic problems in various joints making it hard to do lots of things including picking up/supporting the children. Anyway – I seem to have gone off on a whinge so I apologise!!

Both of the boys are doing well. Munckin will be 2 years old in less than a fortnight! It seems to have crept up on us so fast! He’s such a lovely little boy and he’s just hilarious at the moment as he’s learning to talk. He often stands there for ages looking at me and repeating the same word over and over and over, while I try in vain to decipher what it means. I often don’t manage and it either ends in tears or a very odd kind of lopsided look before he wanders off to do something else! Pumpkin is really getting interactive and smiles a lot. It’s a really nice stage when they get to chuckling and gurgling at your attempts to keep them amused! He is also quite often only waking up in the night once, which is a relief. Although not last night (so I am feeling rather tired especially as Hubby got up to disappear down South for the day at 6am). Isn’t it typical that as I ended up getting up that early having not had a great night anyway the other two boys carried on sleeping until 7.30am!!!

On the (gluten free) baking front I recently made some cheese, corn and bacon muffins (I found the recipe in Coeliac UK’s ‘Crossed Grain’ Summer 2009 Magazine but I can’t seem to find it on their website) and they were really good. A great savoury snack for when you’re on the go. I also made an enormous batch of chicken nuggets a few weeks ago (Most of them are now in the freezer). These were a variation on a recipe I found in How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy Balanced Diet, with Very Little Money and Hardly Any Time, Even If You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans (One with An Ill Fitting Lid) and No Fancy Gadgets – Unless You Count the Garlic Crusher… and they’re fab! I used coarse polenta to coat them and they’re really good. The apple and carrot in them gives them a very distinctive (good) flavour and it means that I can have chicken nuggets and chips without it costing the earth or being particularly unhealthy. Ironically, now that I have got around to making my own, Sainsbury’s have finally got their gluten free chicken nuggets back on the shelves again (it’s only take about a year since the scare about lactose that made them take them off).

Anyway – as both boys are asleep and the other one’s at work, I might see if I can make the most of it and go for a short rest or even a nap.

I keep having things to blog about but then not really having a chance to blog them. So I suppose this could be a long post. Or maybe there’s not much to say when the original desire to write about something has passed.

My parents-in-law have just gone on to see some more family. They’ve been with us since Friday evening and we’ve had a lovely weekend. The weather has been fantastic. Sunny spring weather which was really quite warm. Yesterday we took a picnic to Coughton Court. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to take any pictures to share with you. The grounds are lovely as is the house. On this occasion we didn’t go inside the house (probably a good thing – I keep knocking into things with my bump!) but had a good walk around the play area and some of the grounds. Munchkin had a great time and very much enjoyed going on the climbing frame and slide repeatedly as well as looking at chickens and sheep.

This morning we all went to a very busy Palm Sunday service at our church. It was a really nice service and I wasn’t quite prepared for it to be so packed! It was very well organised too. We all met at the front of church and had the first bit outside (in the beautiful sunshine) before parading into the church with our palm crosses after the choir and the ‘uniformed groups’ (Guides, Scouts, etc.). Munchkin enjoyed waving his palm cross around and was really well behaved considering he woke up with a cold and a nose running like a tap. Poor little thing – he was shattered by lunchtime. He’s enjoying a nice nap now – I hope that it does him some good..

We’ve been enjoying some really wonderful tasting purple sprouting from our allotment. The recent sunny weather (we’ve had some fantastic days over the last couple of weeks) has brought things on well. The broad bean plants are growing up well and will need supporting soon and the shallots and garlic that hubby planted a few weeks ago are starting to shoot. He also sowed lettuces and planted out some seedlings that are further on as well as sowing radishes and leeks. All of which are coming up and seem to be doing quite well. Our spring cabbages and leeks (which we should be having about now) are all on the small weedy side because we planted them later than we ought to have done last year. Ah well – maybe next time we’ll get it right.

I went to the clinic just over a week ago and saw my obstetric consultant and my rheumatology consultant. They’re very happy and my scan showed that things are all progressing well and as they should be. The thing with Lupus however, is that in the case of people with anti-phospholipid antibodies (which I have), there is a risk of miscarriage up to 24 weeks and stillbirth after 24 weeks and which is even greater at then end. So I, like many other Lupus patients, will go in to hospital to have the baby induced at around 38 weeks if it doesn’t put in an appearance before then. That’s the week after Easter. I am very much hoping that this one decides to show up naturally before that happens – as Munchkin did.

The other thing that happened to me over the last week is that I had an adverse reaction to something I ate. I am absolutely certain that it was gluten from bits of batter in a portion of chips I had from the local chippie. I have had chips from there before and it’s been fine – never found anything in them and to be honest I have always considered my gluten thing to be an intolerance rather than an allergy so I don’t bother too much about things that ‘may contain traces of gluten’. So I didn’t worry too much about it and hubby picked out the bits when giving me my chips. However, I didn’t sleep well and my digestive system spent the next 24-36 hours rather unhappy. I wasn’t able to eat anything all day Tuesday because I felt rotten (and Hubby was away with work from before Munchkin was up until after he went to bed – which didn’t help). It made me get to thinking about whether I should try to get myself tested for coeliac disease/gluten sensitivity. I also did a lot of searching on the internet about links between Lupus and gluten sensitivity – with interesting results. But as it’s really time I should get Munchkin up I am going to save that discussion for another day.

Today I have: accidentally pulled down the end of the curtain rail in the front room, half sorted my desk, cooked and eaten breakfast, made chocolate chip cookies*, made Rosemary Chicken with tomato sauce for later (we’re having my grandad and my brother and sister-in-law over for supper tonight). I still have to finish tidying my desk, make a cake for pudding tonight, make sausage rolls to freeze ready for when I am in hospital to have Pumpkin (they provide gluten free for lunch and supper, but not breakfast as I discovered last time around. I need a substantial breakfast otherwise my Lupus medication makes me feel VERY sick), rest and read the paper.

Hubby has verified that the transformer for one of the kitchen lights was duff (had to go under munchkin’s bedroom floorboards to get it first), been to buy a new one, fitted the new one, fitted a new dimmer switch, mended the curtain rail in the front room, done all my washing up (quite a feat considering the cooking I have been doing), had a long telephone conversation with his sister about his thesis and her dissertation. He’s currently on making modifications to Chapter 6 of his PhD based on the comments I made yesterday after reviewing it. Other things he has to do are go to the allotment and pick veg for tonight and help me with the crossword. And probably some more washing up

Munchkin is not here otherwise very little of the above would be possible! He’s with his grandparents having a holiday while we work on the PhD (and I make sure that Hubby gets breaks and properly fed) and catch up on a few proper nights of sleep.
So far so good…

* This recipe I made up and it worked a treat:
Gluten free choc chip cookies (not the gooey kind):
125g butter
125g caster sugar
1 egg
~1 tsp vanilla essence
150g Doves Farm gluten free plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
chocolate chips (I forgot to measure but I guess about 30g??)

Cream butter and sugar.  Add egg & vanilla essence and beat. Mix flour and baking powder together then add to the bowl and mix thoroughly.  Add and mix in choc chips.  Put teaspoon dollops on a baking sheet (well spaced – they spread!!) and cook on gas 4 for ~ 15 minutes until golden.

I believe that everyone who should know has been told so now I can broadcast to the wider community that hubby and I are expecting another baby!  If you saw me in person you’d definitely be asking yourself the question whether I was just overdoing the beer and getting a bit of a gut or whether there might be more to it..!  This one we shall refer to as Pumpkin.  Pumpkin is due at the end of April so I am almost 16 weeks now and (apart from this horrid cold) I am feeling well and generally happy.  The first trimester was pretty exhausing, especially with the sickness bug I had, but things are good at the moment.

Hubby and I are very excited and really looking forward to having two.  Although I must say that I do have occasional moments of ‘how on earth does one cope with a newborn and a boisterous toddler at the same time?!’.  However lots of people do and I am lucky to have hubby around working at home quite a lot so that makes things a bit easier.  Lets hope that the Lupus behaves itself again this time and doesn’t cause problems – so far, so good!