Birthday

It was Simon's birthday yesterday, and there were lots of celebrations. Harrison proudly got Simon's presents out of their hiding spot first thing in the morning and helped him unwrap them. Then we had a nice fruit platter for breakfast (better than Simon's usual Up'n'Go in the car on the way to work). We had a "special" dinner of pan fried snapper with a caramelised potato and tomato salsa side dish. I had made a gluten free mud cake for his birthday cake, but the ganache hadn't had enough time to cool and solidify, so it was more of a sauce. Leah took some photos of a chocolate covered Harrison looking decidedly drunk, and one where he looked like a vampire with dark chocolate sauce dripping off his mouth. I'll add one to this post when I get a chance. After H had come down from his sugar high and gone to bed, Simon and I went out for coffee while Leah stayed home with Harrison. All in all a nice day.

Newsletter blog

For my sins I am the editor of the law librarians' newsletter in Western Australia this year (I did the same job in Qld a couple of years ago). I've been thinking about whether I could do the newsletter better as a blog... Looking at labelling the various elements of the newsletter so that people could sign onto an RSS feed just for the posts about union list updates, for instance. Blogger's new Layout feature might allow me to be a bit more flexible with what sort of content I have where. I might have a play around for the next issue and send out both versions - one pdf and a blog version for selected members to review. You can create a post by email (which I'm doing right now), so the president's report could be filed by email if necessary. There could also be permanent links to sites of interest - journals, blogs, research sites etc. The sticky issue is whether people could get an RSS feed just when a new issue is complete, rather than each time one element was updated.

Visitors galore

Leah is staying with us for a couple of weeks while she finds a house. It's lovely having her to stay, and Harrison is having a ball with her. She's fabulous with kids and seems to have endless capacity for playing games and doing silly voices or actions. That's what comes of having a "theatre person" in the house. Marg and Neil leave on Sunday for their drive across Australia. They should arrive in Perth on Easter Monday and they'll stay with us until their house is ready for habitation. They already have the lease, but they'll need to furnish it before they can move in. And finally, Simon's mum arrives in mid May for about 3 weeks.

Amidst all this excitement we have Simon's birthday tomorrow and Harrison's on May 7th. Harrison and I have done our shopping for Simon's birthday, but he's struggling a bit with the concept of keeping a secret. He told Simon this morning - completely unprompted - that he has a surprise for him AND that it's a DVD. I'd better remember to make the birthday cake tonight.

Coeliac Awareness Week

I went to my first Coeliac Society event this afternoon - a forum for Coeliac Awareness Week. It was fascinating. I learnt -

• if you don't have one of the 2 HLA genes (HLA_DQ2 and HLA_DQ8) you will never get coeliac disease (30% of the population have the gene, and only 1% have the disease). Simon and I don't yet know which of us has the gene, but we have had the blood test and neither of us has CD now.
• Gluten intolerance is a different thing, which may or may not be related. It doesn't do any bowel damage.
• There's a tribe in the Sahara desert in which 1 person out of every 18 has coeliac disease (the highest known incidence)
• It is very rare in SE Asian populations and in Australian Aborigines. And reasonably wide spread in Ireland, Iran and India.
• Instances of coeliac disease in young and old people (under 20 and over 50) are equally spread between male and female, but in the 20-50 age group there are 4 times as many women as men diagnosed.
• The average time for a diagnosis is 5 and a half years in Australia, and 11 in the US (our doctors are more aware of it, but still not great).
• The cause of coeliac disease came to light during the Dutch famine in 1944 when there was very little flour. Many patients with coeliac symptoms had miraculous recoveries during the famine, and then relapsed when flour became available again. Before then they knew of the disease, and that it was carbohydrate related, but not that wheat specifically caused the mal-absorption.
• It's a breach of the Food Standards code to label a food "99% gluten free" or "No added gluten" - these are labels I've seen in coffee shops.
• There was a study by Catassi (in 2006 I think) which showed that for 50 healthy coeliacs, given between 10mg and 50 mg of gluten per day, no coeliacs who ingested 10mg in the study showed any symptoms. At 50mg a day there were adverse reactions, and 4 people had to withdraw because of the severity of the reaction. To eat 10mg of gluten you would have to have 500g of a food containing 20 parts per million of gluten (which is a very low level of gluten). That would be 80 slices of a "gluten free" bread that actually had 20ppm of gluten in it, or 8 slices of what some overseas countries class as "low gluten" bread with 200ppm in it. Basically it shows that tiny traces of gluten ingested inadvertently won't adversely effect coeliacs, so they don't have to be really paranoid about it to the extent of never going out.
• "Gluten" doesn't really exist - it's the collective name for the several different proteins in wheat, rye, barley and oats.
• And on a lighter note, while the rule is "if in doubt, leave it out", the lesser known rule for coeliacs is "if there's no doubt, pig out." This quote just before afternoon tea!

We were all given 2 big sample bags of GF food (most of which I'd tried for Harrison or knew about). One was a chocolate mud cake mix - I might make it for Simon's birthday.

The Alternative Bites people also put on a spread. I had heard about Alternative Bites but haven't been there yet. They are a totally GF cafe that also sells takeaway and frozen foods - pies, sausage rolls, cakes etc. I had heard many times that the food is indistinguishable from the gluten equivalent, but didn't really believe it. I was stunned at the variety and quality of the spread. It was about 5pm when the talks finished, so I took a few things home for H to try. He had a piece of pie for dinner and a couple of little treats (a bit of lamington and a wafer biscuit). He loved it all - particularly the pie. He used to love pastry and of course hasn't had any since he was diagnosed. The lamington was really really good quality and I was amazed that they could even make a wafer biscuit.

This is one place we'll definitely be visiting. Now that Terena lives south of the river we'll be going in that direction more often, so I'll make a point of dropping into Garden City.

1-0 to Carmel

I'm sure everyone knows that there is a friendly rivalry between Simon and I over what Harrison is called. I agreed to the name Harrison on the understanding that it wouldn't be shortened, and Simon is determined to call him Harry.

When Leah arrived on Monday she asked Harrison whether he liked to be called Harry or Harrison, and (with Simon whispering Harry, Harry, Harry in the background), my little darling thought for a moment, and then said quite assuredly - Harrison. What a trooper...

Leah's come to town

Leah arrived in Perth yesterday for a job at Curtin. All very unexpected and quick, but lovely to see her again. Simon picked her up from the airport and she came for dinner last night. Harrison was a bit shy at first, but soon he was chatting and flirting. He was quite excited because he's heard Leah sing on Simon's CD and he was looking forward to a bit of a jam session with her. He got out his plastic (silent) electric guitar and his ukelele and they did a bit of air guitar together. He was very sweet - suggesting she try his accordian and his maraccas. There was a bit of singing - I ended up with the maraccas, which is indicative of what my son thinks of my muscial ability ;-) It is great to watch Harrison go into total enjoyment mode over music. He really can't stop his body moving and the joy on his face is wonderful to see.

Leah is hoping to live either in Leederville or Fremantle, and is looking around for places to rent over the next few days. It will be interesting to see whether having Leah in town will mean Simon does a bit more music.

Belfast Mill

Harrison seems to have the same taste in music as his Dad. Simon sang Belfast Mill (the Furey's song) to him the other night, and the next night he asked me for the "town" song as he was going to sleep. I didn't know what he was talking about and asked him to sing it for me. He sang two verses word for word - At the east end of town at the foot of the hill there's a chimney so tall, called Belfast Mill. But there's no smoke at all coming out of the stack for the mill has shut down and it's never coming back. That song and Simon's original song If I were a fish are his favourites at the moment.

Harrison would be delighted to learn that Simon wrote If I were a fish as a nonsense song for kids after we visited Michael and Jenni for Christmas in 1994 when Nathan was about 3. He had a T-shirt with if I were a fish printed on it. In January this year, Harrison met Nathan for the first time and the two were instant best friends. Harrison adored him and Nathan was the most caring and sensitive 14 year old farm boy you could imagine.

I dug out a Furey's CD and Harrison loves listening to the folk music. I tried to sing Marie's Wedding to him yesterday but couldn't remember the words, so he corrected me and sang the whole thing. Of course, the Wiggles do play Marie's wedding on one of their albums, so Irish music has had the stamp of approval. The good thing about the Wiggles is that they do a lot of traditional music. It seems to strike a real chord with kids. Harrison is always on his feet for a Greek or Irish song.

Photo of Adam

We visited Adam today (and Terena of course!). I think he looks a bit like Rhys, but darker reddish-brown hair. He was pretty sleepy when we were there (as most newborns are). Harrison loved him - gave him the most tender kisses on the forehead and feet. After making quite a fuss on the way to the hospital about Adam's gift (he decided he was baby Adam and he needed the teddy bear), he gave it to Terena very graciously. Terena looked very happy, if a bit tired. She'd just been moved to a room with a double bed and a nice view, so hopefully the remainder of her stay will be pleasant. Second time around she's taking advantage of the rest times and trying to get some much needed sleep. We took a couple of photos. Here's a cropped one of Adam... I told Terena I'd e-mail a photo to the playgroup mums, so I'll probably just send a link to this page.

Terena's new baby

Terena had a little boy, Adam, on Friday. Rhys is now a big brother and apparently is besotted by little Adam. Harrison was very excited to go shopping for a gift for Adam, and we're all going up to St John of God to see the baby this afternoon. Terena looked extremely good on Thursday - it was hard to believe she would be giving birth the next morning.

Stella's new baby

Stel became a mum yesterday at 10am. She had a little girl - Madeline Elizabeth Margaret (Mem) weighing 6lb 3oz. Lovely for her family to celebrate a new life following her dear Dad's passing last month.