Parentheticals

So we were gluten-free for a week. It wasn't impossible, but it wasn't exactly fun. Andrea might be a little better, but it's not very clear, so we'll give it one more week and then reintroduce gluten. If it doesn't get worse when gluten comes back, we'll give this up. We might take just Rea off dairy this week as well, but the whole family can't do that. If it's not gluten or dairy, most likely it's a condition called "functional abdominal pain," where kids just have their stomachs hurt for no discernible reason. It's not uncommon and usually goes away on its own after a few months. We're trying probiotics, which might help. Other than that, it's been a fairly busy week. Wednesday was Rea's last dance class. She would like to keep doing it, but it's right at dinner time and just too stressful for Alison to get her there. Maybe in the fall we'll let her sign up again. Thursday we had a Board Game Design Group m...

This week we were still sick.  Timmy's pinkeye finally cleared up today, but he had the sniffles last night and during their naps both girls were coughing, so we might be starting again. Timmy is getting pretty good at sitting up and moving around and being happy on the ground. He is especially happy outside, and when he's not tired or hungry he'll play happily inside unless his diaper is wet; then he always cries for Mommy. He is also now crawling around the ground foraging for food. I estimate that he is at least as smart as any given dog in the world. (Alison remarks that this may be, but he is far less obedient than many dogs.) Sara has decided to rename him to Pigger (See Amy's blog for more info.) Sara has been saying wonderful things to us this week. We were talking about Rea's stomach problems (more on that later) and said that we were going to put her on a wheat free diet to see if that helped her. Sara chimed in with "Let's have muffins!...

This week we had more sickness. There was a persistent cough that many of us got, and Timmy is still producing eye mucous. We went to the Poulson's house for three days as Mike and Alison went to SaltCon. Our main purpose was to present my games "Moar Moai" and "Hungry Oni" to the judges for the Ion Award. After I presented on Thursday we attended the convention and had a generally fun time (though my voice all but gave out after I presented on Thursday). On Saturday at 5:00 the awards were announced, and I did not win. We went to a bunch of panels, talked with various publishers and gamers and played a lot of games for the first time. The games that we played for the first time include: Tokaido, Tsuro, Seasons, Kingdom Buider, Toc-Toc Woodman, and get bit for Alison. We also played Moar Moai and Above and Below. We traded some games and got some new games during the convention. Probably you will hear more about them soon. We got three new expansions of ...

This past week out kids have all gotten pink eye. I used to get it when I was a kid, so I am not too worried about it. As I recall it mainly was itchy. (Though sometimes my eyes would get glued shut by mucous.) Rea attended her first dance class in the new dance program that she is a part of. She said that it was boring. Hopefully she likes future ones better. We went to the brick oven for Ellie (Becky's daughter)'s birthday. The kids liked it a lot and had good fun with their grand parents. I ordered a medium of what I thought was a personal pizza, but it turned out to be a full sized medium pizza. I didn't eat it all, so the girls ate it for breakfast the next day (and we also ate it for lunch too). Saturday we made butter and more brie. The make went very well, so hopefully it will age well as well. It is currently in the cheese cooler. The butter didn't go wonderfully, but we eventually got it to turn to butter. I swear, goat cream is about the consistency of ...

This week Alison was sick, so I am going to ask the girls to sum up all of the points and just type what they say. Concerning Alison's sickness, Rea says "We don't know why her neck hurt." and then went back to reading. Sara said "We gave her a breakfast and a new breakfast called a 'bar'. We read a book to her called 'a little breakfast book'... Look I'm twirling my hair around! Is this a good talent of twirling?" "She is pretty much better now" Andrea added. After finishing talking about Alison, the girls started throwing around duplos which they had been building pyramids out of. It snowed this week. Sara comments that "We went to Sheila and Scott's house there and we played and we brought Ice cream and smoothies and pizza and rootbeer and bootbeer and snortbreat and wootbear and snoopbear. And we brought kittybeer, and runnybeer and mermaidbeer" Mike had Sheila help him make business cards (since sh...