On the Verge...

I am sitting here waiting for a very tired, teething, stuffy, grumpy 11 month old boy to fall asleep. Instead of torturing myself with thoughts of any other ways I could help him sleep comfortably, I will concentrate on a few minutes of blogging! We have been incredibly busy since arriving in Austin. Mostly because last weekend, I officially started the Auto-Immune Protocol diet. I've been reading the very thorough book The Paleo Approach  by Sarah Ballantyne and I've seen and heard many encouraging stories from people who have done it. So before starting on a serious medication regime, I wanted to try going the natural route first. This is a pretty brief and good explanation of the thought behind the approach from Sarah Ballantyne's website,  www.thepaleomom.com : "Autoimmune disease is caused by the immune system losing the ability to differentiate proteins belonging to your own body with proteins belonging to a foreign invader (like a bacteria, virus or parasi...

Because I have had no time for a real blog post these last few weeks, but have had lots of sweet friends asking about how things are going, here's a brief rundown: 1. In Austin for a week now with wonderful friends who have opened their house to us. Our boys are getting along famously (and loudly!) 2. I have been grain, dairy, egg, nut, and nightshade free for 5 days and strictly on the AIP (Auto Immune Protocol) elimination diet for 2. My sacroiliitis is already feeling a lot better! Now hoping my fingers and skin will show improvement also as I continue.  3. I've been spending many hours a day in the kitchen (since I have to prepare all my meals) and it's a little overwhelming for my non-chef self. Hoping I'll get better about chopping massive amounts of veggies more quickly in the near future.  4. I haven't been too tempted to cheat yet, which is totally The Lord. But Jill's ice cream looked really amazing tonight ;) 5. Missing our friends and home in Fu...

Let's start with a cute picture of Abram and Selah in Spain: Adorbs. Now... I posted earlier today while I was waiting to see a rheumatologist in Dubai. I had been referred by the ortho doctor I had seen in Fujairah on multiple occasions over the last few months for my finger and back problems. My sister is a dermatologist and knows that I have had psoriasis for years and she also thought I needed to see a rheumatologist.  Just in case you aren't aware, psoriasis is basically an itchy skin condition. Basically. But there's actually more to it than that (which I wasn't even aware of until very recently.) It is a chronic auto immune problem. My body's immune system (for some undetermined reason) attacks healthy skin cells and it results in itchy patches of skin. Pretty awesome, right? In about 20% of people with skin psoriasis, the immune system will also start attacking the joints, which is why I found myself in a very nice rheumatologist's...

Simon is 8 months old. Due to a lack of variety in packaged baby foods and a lack of time on my part, he doesn't have the most diverse diet. He pretty much sticks to apples, blueberries, pears, and bananas, pumpkin, butternut squash, sweet potato, green beans, green peas, chicken and yogurt. We've tried beef (today), mango (once), and he's had carrots, potatoes, and prunes. He had rice cereal a lot when he was younger and then we ran out and I had a container of baby oatmeal cereal. But every time I would give that to him, he would spit up (or more like throw up) a ton for about a day afterward. I've tried giving him Holland toast - which he liked - but the same thing happened. And he looooves the Gerber puffs, but he spits up more the next day if I give him too many of those as well. So, not sure if it's a gluten thing (since the oatmeal seemed to do it to him as well), but we are experimenting with some things. He basically wants to grab any food at all that ha...

Yeah right. I don't think I've been actually "on the verge" with any birthday post in many, many months. I am thinking maybe I need to change the name of this blog to "Better Late Than Never". You know, in the interest of honesty. Anyway. Here are Simon's seven month stats, for curiosity and posterity. Weight:  Had him weighed with clothes on and before he had finally really pooped for the first time in a few days, so not sure if that skewed that number. But he was 8.4kg! That's 18.5 lbs! I guess that's about the 50th percentile, which is just like Selah at his age. He does not feel or look that big to me. I think that's mostly because he is literally my little monkey. I think I could completely let go of him when he's on my hip and he wouldn't fall off. Clothing size: 6 months. Very perfectly. Pulled out some new 6-9 sleepers that are a little big, but the 6 month ones are almost too short. Eating: 5 bottle feedings a da...

It is nearly 6am on September 12 and I am sitting awake, waiting for Simon to go back to sleep from his early morning feeding. In different circumstances, I would just let him shuffle and talk himself to sleep and head back to that wonderful state myself. However, he has been the reason each of the other kids has been up around 6:30 the last few days (instead of their normal 8 or 8:30) and he has lost about 5 full feedings in the last four days and so I am on high alert for squeal and up chuck. So instead of wasting all this precious time watching who knows what on Netflix (Criminal Minds, House of Cards, Peg+Cat...), I thought I would get an early start on the 6 month update that should be comin atcha in the next few days. Date:   12 September 2014 Weight:  I need to take him in for his shots next week, so I hope to have this stat Sunday or Monday. *as of 9/16 when I took him into both the ER and the regular doc for a very high three day fever, he weighed 8kg f...

Having three kids is a lot of work. Getting over a 9 hour jet lag, starting homeschooling, and doing a kind of kitchen “remodel” with three kids is so much work that Simon's monthly posts have completely fallen by the wayside. This (Sept. 3rd) is my 4th attempt to record something for his 4 th and 5 th months of life. I did the 4 th month awhile ago, but never posted it. So I'm going to post both in one. 11pm Jetlag You might ask why it even matters. I've asked myself that question as well. And then I've gone back and read what I wrote about the other kids during their first year and love it for two reasons. 1. It's just fun to reminisce. They are only babies for so long, I want to remember it as best as possible. 2. It's nice to be able to compare (in a good way) the baby with what the older kids did at his age. It's less stress inducing than stress relieving. So those are my reason's and here are the stats: Date: July24th, 2014...