Well, my day to myself did not go as planned. (Do they ever?) Joey woke up with stomach cramps and diarrhea today. This is about the 10th time in the last month or two that this has happened. Not just in the mornings, but in the afternoons at school she often gets stomach cramps and has to lay down in the nurse's office or she'll come home from school complaining of stomach cramps or diarrhea. This morning, it occurred to me that she was probably lactose intolerant. The only thing that all of these incidents have in common is following a dairy-heavy meal like mac & cheese or something like that or a bowl of ice cream. It was like a big old lightbulb just went on today in my early morning haze. So, I called the doc and set up an appt. to talk to her about it and to also get a prescription for Claritin for Joey's hayfever.

Joey's pediatrician, who I know I've mentioned that I adore, concurred with me and suggested that we take her off dairy completely for a month to cleanse her system and give her poor little immune system a chance to calm back down and then reintroduce dairy slowly using L@ctaid. Given Joey's dairy allergy history (she couldn't have any milk products until she was over 2 years old) and her ethnic background (approximately 50% of Hispanics are lactose intolerant), the doctor wasn't in the least surprised.

So instead of scrapbooking and watching my DVD, I hung out with Joey. She felt better by noonish so we went to lunch with Jaimie and her two youngest. And then we ran some errands, took some photos by a waterfall (landscape waterfall, that is), and visited the doctor. We capped it off with a visit to the grocery store and pharmacy. We're all set now.

I made a rather tasty Chinese chicken salad for dinner. It was my Good Neighbor Dinner night. Mmmm--it was quite delicious and I ate a huge bowl of it. And felt rather virtuous because I made the dressing very lowfat. It was so good I want to make another one very soon. I'm thinking I'll add that to the menu for the baby shower. That along with the shrimp and wild rice salad I make so frequently that I renamed it Baby Shower Salad. It will just be a salad and pie night because I'm planning to make a 3-layer lemon pie and a lime and coconut pie for dessert.

I watched House of Mirth tonight on DVD, too, after Joey went to bed (my bed, actually). I loved it--and highly recommend it, but no if you're in the mood for something light and airy. We'll be discussing it at book group tomorrow.

This evening I had a painful esophageal spasm that lasted for hours. It was so uncomfortable, feeling vaguely like having a burp stuck halfway out along with a pain right between my shoulder blades. It would be relieved temporarily when I swallowed some food or water but then it would come right back. I get these spasms every now and then and I'm always so glad when they go away. How unpleasant to have a charley horse in your throat!

It's after 2am so I need to go to bed. I have a full plate tomorrow--classroom volunteering, class, Joey's piano lesson (and my babysitting the piano teacher's 2 youngest children, including a 2-week-old baby), Ed's arrival home from Phoenix and then bookgroup. Hooboy--I'm feeling tired just thinking about it!

Ta!

--Lisa