New Backyard

We have a new backyard! It's awesome.

Yard Before

New Fence in January, No Grass for Months

Yard After

Patio Before

Patio After

Obviously, Thomas loves it out here. Mostly he likes to throw his toys out onto the patio and into the planters. He misses the front yard with all of its cars but it's wonderful to let him wander around outside and just keep an eye on him from the kitchen window.

In other news, we were sick, sick, sick. We wished for death but it didn't come. Now we're better and will grudgingly admit that the death wish was probably overkill. The end.

Thomas Jump

Thomas Jump from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Another Trip to the ER

Croupy, Sick Boy

Thomas has croup. Croup sounds like a normal illness that every kid gets eventually. No big deal. But it was actually completely terrifying.

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Originally it was just supposed to be Alexa, Chris and their son Cam but then Jeremy's friend Nathan and his daughter Saige decided to drive into town and Nathan invited his friend David over as well. So what started out as dinner for six turned into dinner for nine. This always seems to happen. So, I was a little frazzled.

Before everyone came over for dinner, Thomas coughed a couple of times during his nap. I didn't really think much about it. It was a harsh, barking cough but he only coughed three or four times. And I was really busy.

Then, while I was cooking dinner, I noticed that he was wheezing. I asked Jer to keep a close eye on him and after a couple of minutes, it stopped. About half an hour later he started coughing again and wheezing and crying. I was afraid that he had something stuck in his throat. I saw one of those TLC shows about mothers once, Bringing Home Baby or something, where the older daughter, a toddler, got caught playing with some change. The next day she stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital. She had swallowed a dime but it got caught in her throat and moved around until it blocked her airway.

I called our insurance nurse hotline. She told us to call our pediatrician. But by the time I got off the phone, he was breathing fine and playing with the other kids. He seemed fine again.

Thomas stayed up late playing with Saige after Alexa, Chris and Cam left. Before we put him to bed he was really wheezing and breathing hard. But he was running around, laughing. I was really worried about him but we decided to put him the bed and just check on him throughout the night.

Twenty minutes after he layed down we heard him crying. He sounded panicked. I ran into his room and he was laying in his crib, gasping for air. It was horrible. I thought he was about to stop breathing. I snatched him up and brought him out into the living room where I could see him better. His lips were red so I thought he was still doing okay but he was working so hard to breathe. We decided to take him to the emergency room and by the time we got him strapped into his car seat, he was breathing easier but still wheezing.

We finally found a hospital without 50 people in the waiting room. He started to struggle to breathe again in the waiting room. I told the receptionist that he was having a really hard time and they called us in. He had a fever and a barking cough so they immediately knew it was croup. The gave him a breathing treatment and he fell asleep. (This took 3 hours; why are the staff in the emergency room so slow? We could see five and six people at a time chatting behind the desk. Ugh.)

He's still sick. His fever keeps coming back but he can breathe. If he had gotten the fever earlier, I think I would have realized it was croup and just turned the bathroom into a sauna. But he didn't seem sick. Jeremy thought he'd sucked in a bug or something. He kept getting better.

So, I managed to take my kid to the emergency room for croup. I feel a little ridiculous.

We Didn't Start the Fire

I guess Thomas doesn't want these toys anymore. That's a good thing because after 3 trips to the naughty spot (yes, it sounds like I'm sending him to a strip club but it sounds right when he's in trouble), I've decided the best punishment is just to leave them there.

Food Friday - Kasha Mexicana

Kasha Mexicana is a pantry recipe, onion is the only fresh ingredient. It's good for the end of the week when you've run through all your fresh stuff or those peppers you were planning to cook have gone all mushy on you. However, if you have some extra, still fresh peppers, they would be good in this.

This is one of the few recipes I have that calls for a brand-name mock meat. I use Morningstar Farms Crumbles. I try not to use them too much because they're expensive and they seem a little like frankenfood to me. Crumbles came out of a food lab somewhere; they weren't developed in someone's kitchen. I try to follow the rule that if your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, then you probably shouldn't eat it. (Or at least someone's great-grandmother, my great-grandmothers probably never ate fresh ginger or tofu.) There are more natural recipes for home-made ground beef substitutes but I haven't tried one yet.

Kasha is a whole grain (roasted buckwheat groats). It's traditionally eaten as porridge in Slavik cultures or as a filling for Jewish knishes. I like it here because it bulks up the casserole and adsorbs the flavor from the spices.


Kasha Mexicana

1 onion, diced
½ package of Crumbles
1 cup kasha
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 can chopped green chiles
1 package taco seasoning
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
½ can sliced olives
1 can black beans
1 ½ cups water
1 cup cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

Saute onion 8-10 minutes. Add grounds and heat through. Stir in kasha.

Add tomatoes, chiles, beans, olives, taco seasoning, corn and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer covered 5-7 minutes, until kasha is tender and water is absorbed.

Sprinkle cheese over mixture. Cover until cheese has melted.

Serve as a casserole or to fill tortillas.

Uh Oh

From my reading notes on Amartya Sen's article "Rights and Agency" taken while I was studying for my comprehensive exam two years ago:

* Denotes my comments on the content of the preceding page.

22 Ay(x) = person x may do the act himself
Ax(y) = person y may do the act himself.
Based on all this stuff the following holds:
1) DN, VN and SN are bilaterally independent (none along entails any of the others).
2) Any two of DN, VN and SN together entail the third.
* This shit is getting ridiculously complicated. I’m changing it to make it easier. Hope I don’t completely screw it up.
---
26 VR: Is it the case that even if Harry has no obligation to stop George from taking the job, George still may not take it?
DR: Is it the case that even if Harry has no obligation to stop George from taking the job, then, Harry, may not take it?
The answers depend upon our view of integrity.
Integrity Respect = a general respect for integrity no matter whose.
Integrity Responsibility = a personal responsibility for one’s own integrity.
* I’m really losing Sen here but whatever.
From integrity respect, neither VR or DR comes into play. “No matter who takes the job and who views it, the same unfavorable picture of involvement in chemical and biological warfare, by someone who believes such involvement to be wrong, comes through.
However, from integrity responsibility, both VR and DR play in.
* Seriously man, WTF?
---
27 Tie Aims – people having different aims related to their own kith and kin.
Tie Respect – everyone having different aims related to their own kith and kin but valuing acts directly responsive to ties.
Tie Aims goes with VR – x may do something favoring his own children vis-à-vis y’s children but y – sharing the same tie aimed morality – must try to stop x from doing this.
Tie Respect goes with DR – parents should benefit their own children but it’s not so good if helpful strangers take the same actions.
Tie Respect also goes with SR – “Ed may do something helping his own children at the cost of Bill’s children, while Bill may not do that thing helping Ed’s children (not because Bill values benefits to Ed’s children differently from the way Ed does, but both value the action of someone helping his own children himself.)”
* I give up. Amartya Sen should be shot.

The second reader on my committee has raised an objection to part of my proposal based on this article. Clearly, I do not understand this article.

Isolation

I am lonely. Really, really lonely. I worried before we moved here that I would feel very isolated but I just wasn't prepared for it to be this bad. I had some vague hope that one of Jeremy's colleagues would have a wife who was in the same situation as me. Unfortunately, the only other faculty wife here who doesn't work homeschools her 5 children. We wouldn't have been fast friends anyway.

Thomas and I spend most weekdays alone together. I love him but until he's old enough to go out for a beer every once in a while, he just won't cut it in the friend department.

When Jeremy is home, he's working. He works 10-14 hours a day, seven days a week. A lot of that time is spent at home with us but he's not really with us. About half of the time that he's home, I leave to work on my proposal. Which I do alone. I used to go to a coffee shop to work but it got to be too depressing. Too many people there hanging out with their friends.

I try to find things to do during the day. I shop at 3 different grocery stores. That fills up Tuesdays. When I have to go to the post office or to Walmart, I walk the 2 mile round-trip with Thomas in the stroller so that it will take longer. I was jogging on the way home but I've stopped doing that because I get home too fast. The last two weeks, we spent a lot of time in the front yard planting flowers, an herb garden from seed and a couple of vegetable plants in pots. But now that everything has been planted there's not a lot to do. I've started cooking dinner at around 10 in the morning. Sometimes I take Thomas to Target even when we don't need anything because the little old ladies there will stop to talk to him. If there are no little old ladies, I'll find something to buy so I can talk to the checkout girl. They almost always ask how old he is.

I've looked for a playgroup to join. Our section of Sacramento isn't very family oriented so there's really nothing near us. Elk Grove, the suburb south of us, is lousy with families which causes the opposite problem. There are lots of playgroups but they all have waitlists to join. I think I've found an open group that meets on Tuesdays (I'll have to reschedule grocery shopping). We'll try it out next week.