Food Allergies and Birthdays

Baking in the oven are chocolate cupcakes for Colin's birthday at school tomorrow. Not ordinary cupcakes but gluten free cupcakes. This is the first time I'm trying the mix since I don't have any gluten free cake recipes sitting on my bookshelf. Nor any of the ingredients so I'm going the easy method in baking out of a box.

Originally Colin wanted me to make peanut butter chocolate cupcakes. His eyes shined with the thought of having those made for this birthday and passing them around the lunch table. I had him ask his teacher if there were any food allergies in his class because that could change what I make. He said it wouldn't be a problem.

The next day he comes home saying someone in his class has a peanut allergy. With this bit of knowledge I told him I'd bake different cupcakes for school and the peanut butter chocolate ones would be for home.

I find out later in the week the same student has a gluten allergy on top of the peanut allergy. He still wanted me to make cupcakes because it was okay for this student to be left out. I asked him if they were always left out. He said yes. I asked him how he'd feel being left out of a birthday celebration and he said he'd be sad. When I asked him if I should make something everyone could enjoy, the same shining eyes turned to me and he loudly said yes.

I left a message with his teacher confirming the two allergies and if this was the case I would make gluten free cupcakes. I got back a note thanking me for thinking of the student but it was okay to make what I wanted. The student's mom normally packs something special for when birthday's are celebrated at the school.

I don't like having a student left out because nobody bothered in finding out if there were any allergies in the class. Food allergies are common these days. It shouldn't come as a surprise a child might be allergic to every day products we all take for granted. While some allergies are pretty easy in working around some take a bit of educating oneself before whipping up a cake. Or something.

Fortunately I am only working around a gluten and peanut allergy. While I could have gone out, bought a gluten free cookbook and all the ingredients, we're fortunate enough food companies are recognizing these allergies more and more. I bought a gluten free cake mix from a box and dairy free/wheat free oreo's for the decoration.

I don't know how these cupcakes will come out. I will say they smell delicious.

Welcome to the neighborhood. Or not.

In the past several weeks we've become the center of some neighborhood drama. Not exactly sure why but it came to a head about two weeks ago.

Our house is situated in a way we've been able to meet quite a few families in the neighborhood. While we met quite a few people during our first month here we've continued meeting our neighbors during the past year. Brendan's baseball team has introduced us to more families around us and kids for the boys to play with.

A couple of the families we met have known each other for several years. One neighbor has come down on a regular basis to bullshit with us over coffee or a few beers. Every once in awhile we'd hear about how wild our kids were. At one point I even asked Jason if he thought the boys were out of control. We didn't think they were horrible but also know our boys are boys.

I finally had a conversation with the neighbor because he'd been getting shit from his family about hanging out with us, or me, in particular. He's defended us to them, saying he likes us and will continue hanging out. The line he kept saying was how they don't know us but aren't will to do so. No problem in talking about us behind our backs, saying I'm his new girlfriend or OMG, she stayed so late type of cattiness women are known for.

How our kids are wild. Only I've seen how the other kids play. I've seen one of his kids choke Colin twice but defend his actions. The same kid kicked Brendan in the head which I chalked up to Brendan being a drama queen and the excitement of sledding. We've seen our boys be antagonized. Yet over and over, our boys are the wild ones.

We were excited in moving here a year ago. Being in a neighborhood with families. Having kids of the same age. Only the drama is making me want to give the middle finger. How long can the excuse be used they don't know us when we've been here almost a year?

Spring is sprung

And we've started walking to school. I don't know why I didn't start this in the fall when I got the jog stroller. According to Brendan he's been asking me all year to walk. Don't think so.

Anyways, I've been slacking horribly in getting any sort of exercise. My body shows this. My moods show this. My back despises me for this. I figure the two mile walk, even if only 3 days a week, is better than my routine of the past few months.

The walk isn't too bad. It's also become a new threat for the boys. If they don't behave, they don't walk. Funny how little things can make a huge difference with them.

How many staples does it take?

Apparently 20-30 staples per tread on our stairs. I started removing carpet staples yesterday from the stairs. I still haven't finished because my back gave out on me from bending over. I wouldn't have to do this if I had the tool for removing the tack strips. I also realized there are smaller ones which I glossed over on the first couple of steps. Oops.

Next week two waterproofing companies are coming out for estimates. One I'd initially asked about our carport roof will have his engineer in tow. We'd started talking about the mold issue after he'd shown me the roof. Mike called us yesterday saying he'd talked with his engineer about another possibility for grading our backyard. He won't have a proposal for us until later on next week.

Between the three, we'll have anywhere from waterproofing the outside again to regrading the yard. It'll be interesting to see the different proposals and final costs.

Would you like a side of penicillin with your house?

Awhile back I noticed the brick around our wood burning stove appeared to be wet. As I pulled back the carpet I found rotted tack strips, moldy padding and the dubious look of dark concrete.

Fast forward a few weeks I hear Jason cursing the 'goddamn cats' from downstairs. The carpet in front of our entertainment center was wet and Brendan assumed Pixie had peed. She's our usual culprit in pet issues at the moment. It didn't take long before Jason figured out Pixie hadn't caused the damp issue. He glanced at one side of the entertainment center only to find a dark, wet line on the bottom with a slight greenish tint on top.

Over the next two weeks we started pulling things out from downstairs. Random items were tossed in the trash. The spare bedroom turned back into a storage room. Over the holiday weekend Jason started the task of demolition on the one wall and carpet removal. He quickly uncovered mold on the wall. The more paneling he removed, the more mold he found. Once he pulled the paneling off the other wall, we both realized this was a larger task than we could handle.

Servpro came out last week for mold remediation on our basement. They also finished our demolition for us, leaving a blank slate for the next project. We did confirm a moisture problem coming in at the joint on the one wall. I'd taken pictures after the mold remediation so we could see a difference. The task now is getting estimates for waterproofing.

In the meantime, the boys are still banned from the downstairs. Neither one of us have finished removing the tack strips from the stairs or the gazillion staples used for attaching the padding. There are hanging electrical boxes everywhere with the requisite holes in the concrete from where they were attached. The guy yesterday said this was normal back when the basement would have been finished.

We knew the unexpected would happen in owning a home. We didn't figure on replacing the a/c two months into homeownership or mold remediation 10mths later. At least the mold is only in the basement because I don't know what we'd have done otherwise.

Conversations around the dinner table

Brendan: Mom, guess what I'm thinking.

Me: No.

Brendan: Please Mom. Just guess what I'm thinking.

Me: No.

Brendan: I'll give you a hint. It's either butt, penis or vagina.

Cue giggling from Colin sitting across the table.

Me: Butt.

Brendan: No. I'm thinking vagina.

Me: Why are you thinking of vagina's?

Brendan: Because there are some hot girls out there.

Let's play in the dirt again

And let's have a 3yr old track mud into the house and down the stairs.

Our neighbor, Matt, was over yesterday venting about the drama known as getting a fence built within the city of Fairfax. They bought their house about a year before we moved into ours. During the year, trees have been cut down, poison ivy dug up, mulch thrown down and one blue spruce planted. Their yard has a long ways to go which brought up the issues we have in our yard.

There are bushes surrounding the house. I've wrangled 5 of them down: 3 in the front, one on each side. Matt came over this morning for help in digging up the roots from the 3 in front.

My plans for this area are building up a small retaining wall for leveling purposes before planting galore. While I don't think I'll have everything planted this year I want a foundation. I'll be getting a trellis or two for sweetpea growth underneath the front window. I'm not quite sure what else I'll plant. Perhaps some dwarf dahlias in front.

The last time I planted anything was back in Rock Island. I had dahlias, tiger lilies, dwarf asters, sweet peas, phlox, liatris and poppy anemones. We didn't stay there long enough to see how everything grew in but I might considering planting some of the same here. We're still dealing with partial shade issues as we did back in Rock Island.

I'll be buying baby plants or bulbs since I'm not concerned about everything looking full from the get go. I'm fine with things growing a few years before spreading or filling out properly. We'll be here long enough where the fruits of our labors can be enjoyed.