Here is the bread Wesley and I baked. We took the photos in the light tent I built a while back. He got so excited today. He kept coming to me and saying “Daddy come! Look at the bread it got bigger!” He was a little concerned when I divided it into two loaves and he saw that now the bread was smaller. But he got over it when it started to rise again.
We were supposed to eat it with dinner tonight, but when I got back from my run I was too hot for having soup and bread. So instead we headed to Amy’s and had ice cream for dinner. Wesley was a little unsure about it: “Ice cream is not dinner”, but he got into it pretty quickly. And easy going Jillian was into it from the start.
Does she look malnourished to you?
Last Thursday we had our visit with the pediatric dietician. We drove all the way out to the new Dell Children’s hospital (which by the way is in not very subtly shaped like a church with a tall steeple) on the recommendation of our pediatrician.
The dietician, Megan, was friendly, but wondered why we were there. She actually asked us “Why is she here?” and said “When I walked in I thought I had the wrong room. Because she doesn’t look the kids I usually see.”
When all was said and done she agreed that Jillian is fine. She is small (3% for weight, 5% for height, 15% for head circumference), but growing. She is clearly doing fine and is getting enough food. Megan reviewed the food journal Amber has been keeping for the last few weeks and was impressed by the number of and variety of foods that Jillian happily eats (like peas and bell peppers for instance).
She had two recommendations for us:
- Give her a little more healthy fat (this morning I sprinkled a little olive oil in her oatmeal)
- Find a new pediatrician. (Sort of the same feeling we got from the cardiologist)
At this point we’ve had two specialists tell us that Jillian is fine. She is small, but fine. And that our pediatrician should not have sent us for a visit, especially since Amber and I weren’t worried. They’ve have also hinted (cardiologist) and told us outright (dietician) that we might consider a new doctor. So we are. The new doctor will be number four since we’ve moved to Austin. If you have a good recommendation on a pediatrician in Austin I’d be glad to hear it. We had a fabulous one in Seattle I’d happily refer you to if you need it.
Even though we bombed out at Great Harvest we found some nice organic wheat and rye flours at Whole Foods for our natural leaven starter. Wesley and I put it together last night. He loves to help in the kitchen and he now knows what it means to tare the scale. He likes to do it a little too often, but he is getting the idea. He knows we always tare before we add new ingredients. The heat in our house (we keep it at a chilly 78F) is causing the starter to bubble a little sooner than it should so I think we’ll have to stay on top of it. I’ll post the instructions later once I know they work.
Tonight we were making a biga preferment for some bread we will bake tomorrow. He was doing great with the measuring and is stirring. He definitely takes after me though. He just wants to eat the raw dough. I think he’d eat it all if he could. We were kneading the dough here is a little transcript:
Me: “push, push, push, fold, turn … push, push, push, fold, turn…”
Wesley starts to eat more of the dough. Keep in mind we are talking about flour, water and yeast at this point.
Wesley: This is yummy dessert.
Wesley: This is yummy dough-ssert. (looks at me with a big smile)
Yes he made his first pun! Not a bad one either. He seemed rather pleased with himself. If I was opening a pastry shop I think I’d have my name.
I’m so glad he likes to make bread with me. I hope he always does. I’m almost reluctant to say, but I’m hoping that we can maintain the starter leaven he and I worked on yesterday. Then we can make bread with it his whole childhood. And we can remind him that he helped start this 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. I’m not big on giving material things, but giving something you worked on together, nurtured together that appeals to me.
25,034 items on Flickr
Today we hit a pretty big milestone on Flickr. Okay it isn’t really a big deal at all in the grand scheme of things, but today we uploaded our 25,000th photo to Flickr. And then kept right on going. Of those photos less than 11,000 are publicly viewable. Most of the rest are visible to contacts marked as friends or family while a few remain private for only Amber and I. We “censor” or trim the photos that are visible to the public for two reasons: 1) We take too many photos. Unless you are a dedicated Wesley or Jillian fan you’d probably give up when faced with fifty pictures of the kids in the living room and miss the photos of the kids at the park that we also uploaded that day. 2) There are a lot of weirdos out there. We make non-public any photos that show any parts of the kids that aren’t usually visible in public.
You’ll also notice we are closing in on 100,000 views (so keep looking at those photos people). I’m sure I’ll post about that milestone as well, when the time comes.