Allergy Chronicles

Hello and happy Tuesday! An update on Emmett boy - he is doing much better! He is back to sleeping 4-hour stretches at night (rather than up every hour, but still not back to his 6-hour stretches) and seems to be his happy self once more! This is great because it means we've finally got his eczema figured out. This is also terrible because it means my eating habits are now drastically changed.

these pictures show a 24-hour difference in his skin

Today is day 8 of eating soy, milk, peanut, and egg-free. The milk and peanuts are no big deal...but eggs and soy take a huge chunk out of my eating options. Don't believe me? Go ahead and take a look at any food label in your house: 9 times out of 10 it will have either egg, soy, or milk in it. I have to really think ahead about what I'm going to be eating and when throughout the day. From my Leonard Sax readings, I got a book called "In Defense of Food" - it was good timing, since this is basically my life for now. The book's premise is to eat food - REAL food - not too much, and mostly plants.

The first couple of days were HARD. I was very irritable. Justin sat on the couch next to me while eating some leftover caramels from Halloween - I grabbed the caramel he was about to open and threw it across the room: "You can't eat that in front of me!!" Ha! All the way through Sunday it was like this - just mad and annoyed and frustrated. But come Monday, things changed. I'm not craving those foods anymore and I am settling into my new normal. My friend Kari said when he family went to Costa Rica, they had a really hard time because they have ZERO processed foods down there. She said she felt similarly - irritable and missing her regular snacks - but after a while they of course adjusted, and now she is going back to those eating habits. Except that she can have eggs...

Wednesday I got together in the morning with some women from church for a play date with our kids. Thursday we went out to dinner with Jon and Judy in Gig Harbor. It was nice to spend the evening with them. I babysat Jon and Laura's baby Eleanor on Friday.

I gave a talk on Sunday about when Jesus tells Simon-Peter to throw his net in the water one more time and they catch a ton of fish - I like that story. I'm still teaching my Sunday school class (14 turning 15 year olds) and currently working on the ward Christmas party. I asked to be released from my basketball coaching calling and the stake decided to ask someone else to do youth conference for next year. 12:30 church is tough with a wee-one. I'll be excited in the new year to switch to 9:00.

That's really it! Not much, but a lot at the same time. Can't wait to come to Idaho for Thanksgiving!
Enjoy some Emmett giggles:

Birthdays and baby drama

Do you ever eat your words? Well I am eating my words BIG TIME over here. Poor baby Emmett has had quite a painful month. It all started October 10th. I know this because that's when the "heat rash" appeared on Emmett's face that was later diagnosed as eczema... but this eczema is the eczema from hell!! As so many have graciously offered... lots of babies have eczema, "...but not that bad." Thanks dude.

I remember a gathering with the Rose family when Emmett was bran-baby-new. My mother in-law asked me if I was watching what I eat. "Heck no! I eat what I want!" I responded, confident in my new ability to rock this motherhood thing, while Emmett slept and ate like a champion.

Cue October, and Emmett was not his normal, happy self. I didn't think much of it. Thinking it was a growth spurt, or whatever, I knew it would work out in time and he would be back to normal. Then right before I left for Leavenworth Emmett's face was so inflamed, it was beginning to Crack and ooze. It began spreading over his whole body, with more cracking and bleeding/oozing.

All the while we were trying everything we could think of. Cue intervention with various opinions of doctors and nurses. What I've learned through this experience is you have to put your big mama pants on and be the advocate for your child - harping on doctors and nurses until you get help. We had tons of phone calls to the pediatrician office, only to be put through to various phone nurses and on-call doctors. Hydrocortisone was quickly prescribed with miscommunication running high between various doctor and pharmacy visits. And thus the irony, the mom who was avoiding plastic and phthalates was now putting steroids all over her baby.

We saw some relief, but here again came the frustration: doctors only seemed to want to treat his symptoms vs finding out the real cause. I scheduled another appointment. His rash was at its worst. The doc finally gave me a glimmer of hope for answers: allergies. We did blood work - I'll remember the phlobotomist drawing his blood from his tiny arm - my job was to hold him still so they could get it right. Ugh.

A week goes by. I'm calling the office daily now because they said we would have results in 2 days, 3 tops. All the while, we are dealing with people's frustrating comments. "Oh, is that a rash...?" "Oh, his face doesn't look too good, are you putting anything on it?" ... are they just trying to be helpful? Of course! Are these comments very helpful? Not so much.

Last night a triage nurse FINALLY called with some answers - and they mean big adjustments. Emmett has allergies to egg whites, peanuts, milk, and soy. And dog dander. Those first three aren't a big deal - but soy is in basically every processed food on the planet. Goodbye Pad Thai! And every other favorite food of mine! Yesterday was my first day eating gluten, wheat, corn, dairy, and nut free - all I can say is if I stick to this to continue breastfeeding, I am going to get SKI-NNY!! yikes. And we are still working out a plan for Jackson.

It's been 24 hours and we have already seen a huge difference. I'm grateful to finally have answers. I'm grateful Emmett is happy again. And I'm grateful for that distant day when I can eat Pad Thai again.

In other news, we had Justin's birthday last week. Or as I like to say, birthday weekend! We had a pie pig out with his family on Saturday - yum! Friday he took the day off and we had a yummy crepe breakfast, Red Robin lunch, and we saw Dr. Strange. Thursday night we made pie together and he opened his gifts.

I made coconut cream pie - yum!

Those are all our happenings. For now I anxiously await the healing of Emmett's skin.

Ward Halloween Party

Last Tuesday my assistant and I put on the ward Halloween party. Her name is Tilly, and I have loved working with her! Justin took the day to work from home (bless him) so he could help me with set up. The two of us, plus Tilly and her husband basically set the whole thing up ourselves. We had two saints show up to help with decorating with their kids. Emmett had come down with a cough and a rash all over his face, and the rash was beginning to crop up all over his body, so I had Justin take him to the doctor while I got the party started.

amazing trophies Tilly made!

We had soup potluck, a carnival, and trunk-or-treating. Tilly made trophies for costume and trunk decorating winners. We added a caramel apple dipping station and a doughnut-on-a-string station to the carnival this year that were both a hit! We had tons of people participate in the trunk-or-treat, and the weather was rainy all week EXCEPT Tuesday night! It was meant to be. The best part? I was voted the winner for best adult costume!! All night the primary kids would say, "Hi Pikachu!" So fun. We got many compliments, and some said it was the best Halloween party they've attended! #win

I got 4 dozen doughnuts for this stations...they were gone pretty quickly ;)

caramel apple station! I got 20 lbs of honey crisp apples for $20! Total steal - and we got all the leftovers

Poor Emmett--you can see his eye starting to swell up...

 I made Justin's costume - everything except the hat. I sewed white sleeves and a white collar on the blue shirt, sewed yellow trim to the shirt and gloves. 

I made my tutu and yellow shirt - I painted two brown strips on the back

His crocheted hat came just in time!

Poor baby Emmett has had a rough couple of weeks. He's had some kind of crazy allergic reaction and his skin has suffered. I got him to see his doctor and we had some blood work done. His labs will come back in a couple days with an answer. Our happy baby has been totally miserable! Today I finally saw my baby boy start to come back - his sleeping patterns went back to normal, his skin is improving, and he was ALL smiles all day today. When I tell people he's 3 months old, often they will say, "Really? I would have guessed he was older." - he is a chunk! Love him.

3 month stats: he's 13 lbs, 2.5 oz and 25" long

Last weekend we enjoyed family time to celebrate Jon and Eleanor's birthday. Laura threw Eleanor a "Cutest Pumpkin in the Patch" themed 1st birthday bash - so cute! We transitioned to the Hunter's house for Jon's birthday dinner - of BBQ of course! He requested we each bring the best chocolate chip cookie we could muster for him to judge and declare a winner. We blindfolded him and had him guess who made which cookie. He was hilariously 100% correct on all his guesses! I got him the book "Girls on the Edge" (imagine that!) and Justin got him "Rejected Princesses" - a memoir of historical heroines.

We had a quiet Halloween at home and enjoyed the many trick-or-treaters that came from the surrounding neighborhoods.