Our Ultimate Life: Voodoo Doctor and Christmas Parties

So...much has happened in the Emmett realm. I haven't been ready to document about it until I saw how things turned out...and now that things have settled I'm ready to share what we've done to treat Emmett since Thanksgiving.

I'll start by saying that Justin and I came [ ] close to to giving Jackson away. We decided we would see the allergist before making any drastic choices. The Tuesday after we got home from Idaho I met a new friend who told me she used to be allergic to strawberries - she would eat them and her tongue and throat would swell up - and now she can have strawberries again. Whaaaat? At this point I was willing to try anything to help his skin, so I had her tell me more. She said she was treated by a chiropractor who treats allergies. I wondered how that worked, since you don't think of allergies when you think of a chiropractor, but I was ready to give it a shot and made an appointment right away. This kind of thing wasn't far off my radar to begin with. Let's recap

-I did an unmedicated home birth with a midwife
-I had my placenta encapsulated and had that for 2 1/2 months postpardum
-I eat clay and use it in the bath
-I mostly co-sleep with my baby and have been since birth
-My baby drinks from a glass bottle to avoid plastic filled with phthalates and other gunk
-I use essential oils in various ways in our home and on/in our bodies
-etc, etc,

I was able to get in right away - it's a family practice and I know the son who used to be in our ward (he actually was the first to learn we were pregnant when he extended a girls camp calling to me last year and I had to say no due to giving birth at that time - ha!). His dad saw us and he muscle tested me first - wait a minute - we were there to help Emmett, not me. But he found some issues just by muscle testing - including a yeast overgrowth! I had only associated yeast with morbidly obese people who have fungi growing in their fat rolls. I said to him, "Where is it? Is it on me?" He says, "I don't know! Is it on you?" Ha! He told me no sugar - not even fruit - for two weeks straight, to take the highest-powered probiotic I could find, and to take oregano essential oil to kill the yeast in my gut. Looking back, it totally makes sense that this developed. When you can't have milk, soy, or eggs, you CAN have the sugar-iest candies you can imagine which I was eating to cope with my previous food restrictions. He tested Emmett after me and found that he had an issue with my breast milk. I am not going to get into what it all entails to be treated - if you want to know, you can call me and we can chat - but he treated Emmett for the milk, found a bunch of other sensitivities and cleared them, and most recently cleared his reaction to dog dander, hair, and skin. Two weeks later we went back and my yeast condition was cleared - and just like that, I am back to eating like a normal person - milk, yes. Soy and eggs, yes. Sugar, yes.

So, roll your eyes all you want. Make fun as you please. All I know is, two weeks ago I was restricted to meat and vegetables and now I can have sugar cookies and hot chocolate again and Emmett's skin is clear. He's my voodoo doctor chiropractor and for $13.50 per visit, it has been well worth it!

In other news, we did see the allergist. It turned into a $100 second opinion with no solution but to come back 6 months from then to see if I could MAYBE start eating eggs in baked foods again.... meanwhile, I've been enjoying eggs for breakfast and in baked goods with no issues with myself or baby. You tell me which treatment sounds more crazy.

In the meantime, we put on our ward Christmas party. My assistant Tilly and Justin and I have been working on the prep for this for quite a while, and really sprinted at the end to make it all happen. We didn't have any help, so the three of us put it all together, ran the show, and thankfully did have some help to clean up. Here is what it looked like:

-we had Santa's workshop - kids could make a Rudolph and snowman ornament, write letters to Santa, and decorate a bulb ornament.
-we had a hot chocolate bar complete with marshmallows, whipped cream, and flavor shots such as salted caramel, raspberry, mint, and vanilla
-we had a couple musical numbers - I ended up attempting Jon Schmidt's "I saw three ships" on the piano
-we cooked 100 lbs of chuck roast and served it with mashed potatoes. The ward was asked to bring a side or dessert - don't worry - we had plenty of dessert to go around...not so much in the "side" department...
-we had a "Merry and Bright" photobooth station

It was a party set for success, but then we had about 1/2 the numbers show that normally do, and we didn't have as many bring food to share as we thought. It felt like a LOT of effort and a lot of money for not a great turnout, but what can you do? At least we thought we did a great job ;)

we cooked five of these monsters...

lots of meat in the fridge....

Emmett helping me prep the ornaments - I pre-glued the ribbon for the ornament to attach to. I also spray painted hundreds of clothes pins for the snowman ornament and hundreds of popsicle sticks for the Rudolph ornament

Now we're just getting ready for a wonderful holiday. We've had some chilly days this past week. Nothing near the -18 Arco weather, but cold for Seattle! We've even had some snow!