- Coffee with Catharine

Hi.

I hope you’re doing well.

We are percolating along. Our two sons, whom I’ll refer to as C and J, are doing great, thankfully. C is 5. We decided to wait to start kindergarten till next year, given covid, etc. We’re still deciding whether we want to do public school or home school.

J is 2 1/2. I’m still nursing him all the time. Our nights are wonderfully snuggly and also sometimes low on sleep.

J’s crib has been in our room since he was born, but we recently moved C’s mattress in with us, because he wanted to be closer.

So we’re all together.

😊

We also just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary! Alex made pizza and got me roses. ❤️

We are still pretty much completely isolated, as our kids aren’t old enough to get vaccinated yet. Even though the risks to kids are lower, we really want them to get vaccinated before being out in the world too much.

I’ve also been dealing with an increase in symptoms of my latex allergy.

I’ve been allergic for a long time, but it only recently became something that effects my everyday life. Suddenly, I’ve found myself reacting to latex in fabrics (elastic, and spandex/lycra can contain it), wood (wood from the rubber tree is used to make things, especially kids’ toys), and ink. Latex is also found in adhesives, shoes, and asphalt. In order to try to make my reactivity calm down, we’re having to go through everything we own, and attempt to remove anything from the house that contains latex. Since manufacturers need to be contacted for everything (clothing doesn’t list latex on the label even if it contains it), it’s been quite a saga, and we are nowhere near done yet. I’ve been having to shower off throughout the day if I encounter something that I start to react to.

So that’s been a huge challenge. I would appreciate your prayers.

We are searching for a new church, as well, as I want to make sure what we learn at church will align with what we’ll be teaching the boys at home.

In my free time, I started a local book club. We meet over zoom every other month. So that’s a big positive. We choose books together by voting in a Facebook poll. Right now our current book is “The Guest List,” by Lucy Foley. I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP) and I don’t usually enjoy suspense/thrillers, but I’m excited to give this one a try!

Affiliate link

(Please note that I haven’t read it yet so I don’t know if it has sensitive content).

Another thing I’ve been loving is the Bicycle Playing Cards iPhone app! It has rules for lots of new card games. I recently was looking up the rules for “Liar’s Dice” (aka “Pirate’s Dice”), which is played in the second movie of Pirates of the Caribbean! It’s also helped Alex and I settle on what ACTUAL rules for Rummy we want to play by.

I recently found these, and am pretty sure I need them. What do you think?