Thursday, July 3
increasing my oddsIf you like baby-wearing and like free stuff, go enter this contest! I am incredibly excited about potentially winning a Beco. Devan - if I win this because of your advertising, I will share some of the other carriers with you. :)
07:16 | Comments (1)
Monday, June 30
crying madSaturday morning a miracle occured: Lily’s eczema abated. Her skin looked good and her mood was fantastic. Her sleeping was fairly good, too, as I recall.
We decided to go out to lunch late Saturday afternoon. Since we NEVER go out, we let Lily order what she wanted (as long as it was safe). She wanted shrimp and french fries. Fine. I checked that the shrimp could be grilled “dry” (no butter/oil/spices) and I took special care to find which oil was used for deep frying. I even said, “I don’t mean to be a pain; we’re dealing with food allergies here.” The server didn’t know about the oil, so he checked with the kitchen. He came back and informed me that it was “vegetable oil”. Right. I asked him if he could find out *which* vegetable oil. Canola or soy or corn perhaps? He left and came back, reporting that it was canola oil. And I believed him (why wouldn’t I?).
By the end of the meal, Lily was itching. By that evening she was miserable - itchy, scabby eczema; moody and contrary; very weepy. Her sleep was pretty disturbed. The next morning found us cranky and crabby. I was feeling sick to my stomache and had a headache. Lily woke up screaming and crying and pretty much didn’t stop until we went to my parents’ house later in the day. Aevryn was cranky and clingy. As the day progressed, Lily had serious potty issues, extreme itching, tons of crying and random acts of physical violence (on her sister, on me, on her uncle, her grandma). Nighttime was a nightmare. She woke up SOBBING at 5 minute intervals, starting an hour after bedtime. Hysterical and scared. She said she was lonely and didn’t want us to leave. I ended up going to bed around 9:15 with both kids. She slept well enough next to me, but woke up the next morning (today) in rare form. Aevryn and I seem to be suffering digestively, with today being the worst. It seems to have peaked this morning, thankfully, and is going back down. Our sensitivity seems to peak 24-48hrs after exposure. Tonight seems to be harder on Aevryn, but Lily is doing okay (knock on wood).
I had planned to call the restaurant manager yesterday, but didn’t get around to it until this afternoon. I had figured that the fries must have been coated in something and I wanted to know, because we’d already confirmed via food challenges issues with dairy and soy, if it was one of our “knows” or if it was a new, unintended challenge with resulting confirmation. At any rate, the manager informed me that they use soybean oil in their fryers. Huh. So, our server just out and out lied to us. Fantastic. The manager is mailing us coupons for free meals and is making sure to (re)educate staff on the actual ingredients of foods on the menu, as well as talking to the server in particular. I didn’t demand the server be fired, but if we go back there and he waits on us, I will request a different person handle our table.
My point, though: allergies seriously mess us up.
I chronicle all of this not to be a whiner or to just vent (though that’s nice), but to demonstrate that even if this isn’t a “true” allergy as defined by some bloodtest, its’a true reaction. And it’s fairly severe. It is (quality of) life altering. If I didn’t know about allergies or just blindly trusted bloodtest results, I’d have a very unhappy, itchy and just plain ILL little one on my hands.
21:25 | Comments (2)
Saturday, June 21
let the sun shine inhappy solstice everyone! time to let go of things past and embrace the new. we’ve packed up clothes, toys, and other household items that we no longer need or have use for and are donating them to the women’s resource center. we’re having a bonfire tonight, burning the sumac we’ve been chopping down and clearing out in the back yard. it will be very satisfying to get that cleaned up, and even better that we can turn it into a blazing fire in doing so.
if anyone wants to share things they recently (or in the near future, plan to) have finished, recycled, given away, or let go of, the comments are open.
one thing in particular that we are focusing on is acknowledging the passing of time and the progression of child development stages. both of our littles have just had birthdays and we’re very much noticing just how much bigger and capable they both seem right now. lily has gone through a growth spurt, because suddenly she can reach things she couldn’t before. she also has had a cognitive leap, as she is learning spelling and honing her pre-reading skills fairly on her own. aevryn walking and working on running. she’s talking up a storm and showing us just how outgoing her personality is. this girl is NOT shy. i can’t believe it’s been a year already. i know the next one will drag and zip in the same way. such is the nature of time, i suppose.
07:19 | Comments (0)
Friday, June 13
back to square one.okay, maybe square two.
we reintro-ed dairy. it did not go well. again. this is after we failed soy a few weeks ago. at least eggs and oats seem to be safe (even the non-GF oats).
i got my allergy test results back. only positive for sesame. which we’ve been avoiding since november anyway. meanwhile, we all know about my severe and real allergic reaction to cashews. so, is this test worthless? perhaps. or maybe we now know that we aren’t dealing with IgE or IgG(4) mediated allergic responses. There are several other allergic response pathways. So, off to investigate, I guess. I don’t know. I’m making an appointment with our ND soon. I just don’t know what to do anymore.
13:37 | Comments (1)
Monday, June 9
walking around the aevryn treeAevryn is officially walking, since Thursday. Every day she’s getting braver and braver. She is VERY pleased with herself and apparently thinks walking is very funny, given the hysterical giggles she has every time she walks more than a few steps.
She’s also REALLY into “babies” right now. Or as she calls them “baaaaaaaaaaay-beeeeeeeees!!!!!!!” Lily really wanted a Groovy Girl (tamer version of Br*tz dolls - no make up; cute hair; cute/modest clothes) when she saw them while birthday shopping for Aevryn a few weeks ago. So, when the girls got birthday money from my aunt, they each got a doll and a change of outfit. Aevryn is in love. She carries it around, kissing and hugging and generally loving on it - until she moves on to something else that catches her attention.
And then there’s the talking. It’s NEVER quiet here anymore (especially since Lily talks in her sleep, ha). Words thus far include:
mama, daddy, baby, dog, go, book, ball, milk. Signs include: milk, water, food/eat, more, please, help, go, all done, baby, dog, cat, ball, hat. I can’t approximate how she says Lily, but it’s definitely the same sound every time - not quite a word and it really doesn’t sound like “Lily” but she says it every time she sees Lily, and she points at her, so…And finally, the motivation for starting this post (and the paragraph that will give the title meaning). Lily has been having some rather intense emotional outbursts lately (read: scary tantrums). They almost always involve Aevryn and Lily’s fear that Aevryn is going to steal/break/ruin whatever it is she is currently playing with. Aevryn can be across the room and just turn and face Lily’s direction and Lily will start screaming - loudly and hysterically - “NO AEVRYN STOP AHHHHHHH MOM AH NO NO NO NO AEVRYN” etc. Previously in the last week, she has suggested that we throw Aevryn away. When that didn’t take, she suggested that we might compost Aevryn instead. Yesterday, she told me she wanted to put Aevryn in the closet. She was very upset, so I was just reflecting her feelings back to her, “you really want Aevryn to go away.” Lily: “Mom! I just want you to use her for Christmas.” Translation: she wanted me to put Aevryn in the downstairs closet where we keep the holiday decorations. It was just such a random thing for her to say and I had to try very hard not to laugh. That brain of hers… No wonder she’s almost always flustered.
07:12 | Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 28
A quick convo with Lily re: the moonThe other day she expressed interest in grabbing the moon, hugging it and bringing it inside the house to play.
Today, just now, I asked her to draw me a picture of a moon. While she was drawing, I asked if people lived on the moon. She laughed and said, “No! Only dirt and sand!” And then laughed some more. She thought for a minute and then offered, “People live on a map…” She is now drawing a moon with two cities on it. One of whose inhabitants are called what sounds like “African missions” (they live in the old city, apparently). “African mission jahs” live in the smaller city. She just drew another city and asked me “who do [you] think lives there?” Then she told me it’s “michigans” (perhaps the missions of hte other cities were actually Michiganders). She now talking about how people (in her moon map) had to move houses because the old house was too moldy. This is very enlightening.
07:16 | Comments (1)
Tuesday, May 27
happy birthday aevy babyToday, at 8:24p, Aevryn turned one. Woah.
And everyone slept in until 7:45. And Aevryn is nursing well again. After an 18hr nursing strike (ouch - thank God for Lily & my pump) resulting from a four-day snot & puke fest. Fun!
And I’ve started drinking a morning cup of coffee daily. And, we’re reintroducing foods. Coffee, chocolate, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, apples, ginger, grapes, oats, non-thistle honey, eggs (cooked only; haven’t tried mayo yet) are all good again, it would seem.
I made Aevryn a buckwheat/rice flour cake with coconut milk & chocolate frosting. Yum. [As a self-indulgent aside, I am getting amazingly fabulous with alternative cooking ingredients and making up tasty recipes on the fly.] Aevryn devoured her piece and made a huge, fantastic chocolate-y mess. She even picked up the plate and licked it. We took lots and lots of pictures. And if we ever find the transfer cable we will upload them and share.
And now I have two toddlers. Or a toddler and a “preschooler”. 3 really isn’t toddler territory anymore, but she doesn’t go to preschool, so the nomenclature is imprecise. We can just use Lily’s terms: “baby” and “big girl”. Although, she’s now decided that since Aevryn is one, Aev is now also a “big girl” and will now “know how” to walk and talk. We’ve been talking about this for a few days as we’d discussed Aevryn’s upcoming birthday. I have a feeling Lily expected to wake up today to find Aevryn had grown a foot and could carry on conversations and play tag and whatnot. Lily keeps asking if now Aevryn is as tall as [Lily] and other similar questions. Hmm. Perhaps we can promote Aevryn from “baby” to “little girl” relative to Lily’s “big girl.” I will see if it meets Miss L’s approval in the morning.
22:53 | Comments (1)
Thursday, May 22
remember this?I am now down that 20lbs plus a pound or three. this has been my weight now since march. i was down another 5lbs yet, but that was when we were doing strict body ecology diet and i was cranky, tired and hungry all the time. But, I did hang on to 2-4lbs from Aevryn’s pregnancy until we started our partial elimination diet last November.
as we wait for my blood test results, we’re slowly adding the forbidden foods back. we’ll see how that goes.
perspective is interesting…
14:45 | Comments (0)
Tuesday, May 20
all together nowplease, please, please. more positive thoughts. help counter the effects of chemo on a pessimist’s life. he can use all the positive energy and good thoughts he can get. help him to gain weight, healthily. help the chemo be effective with minimal side effects. help him calm his mind and body so he can rest and heal. help him to keep the love of his family in his mind at all times. help him to know that we will do anything it takes to help him feel better. help him to believe that he can do this. he is strong - stronger than disease. we will beat this.
20:42 | Comments (0)
Tuesday, May 13
listmania!something happened technologically and i couldn’t update for awhile. i’m overwhelmed with all i need to say. ergo: list!
lily’s party - her dinosaur fiesta extravaganza - was a smashing success. everyone had a blast, even if it was miserably cold out. aevryn was baptised the next day in dave’s mom’s church. meg & my brother patrick are godparents. aevryn SCREAMED hysterically throughout the entire thing. she wanted to nurse, more specifically, she wanted to nurse herself down for a nap, so she was none too pleased to be getting water on her head and being held by a strange man instead. aevryn can now go up and down stairs unassisted. and insists on doing it constantly. she also enjoys crawling out doors and down the deck steps. egads. lily has thrown herself very enthusiastically into “bodily functions = instant hilarity” part of childhood (yay! welcome! heh). unfortunately this has manifest itself in ways including constantly talking about poop, butts and farts. including, and i quote “wanting to toot in the fishes’ ear” at dave’s dad’s office. and yes she said this loudly and in front of everyone. woo. And finally, in a paragraph all its own, we got Lily another allergy test. The same as the one form this time last year. Drumroll………… According to this test, the same test that identified that she is reacting to: dairy, garlic, pinto beans, navy beans, turmeric and poppyseeds…. This test 1yr later now says that she is allergic to: nothing. NOTHING. With actual zeros returned for many items. Including dairy. A ZERO on dairy. I guess we did a good job avoiding allergens, then, huh? I have a long and complicated theory on this, that I may post later. The bottom line is, I’ve since ordered the same blood test for myself. We’ll see if it really is me who is mucking everything up. (My guess: it totally is).
And with that, Aevryn is on the landing calling to me. She is trying to WALK down the stairs now, not just crawl. Heaven help me.
13:09 | Comments (3)