My sweet boy

I was walking down the hall after putting Leah to bed and noticed something odd in Jack's room.

Yeah, he's in a laundry basket. I grabbed the camera and took this. He caught me, though, so I made him pose for this one:

Reading in a laundry basket. Crazy kid. He told me it was comfortable because he added a pillow. Well, I hope so, because 15 minutes later, he was out cold.

Don't you just want to eat him up?

Bad news.

I reintroduced dairy on Thanksgiving. It was glorious. Especially when I realized the only thing I could have eaten was the turkey. :) So I continued to eat normally--not totally indulging on dairy, but not avoiding it either. I've been meticulously checking Leah's diapers and they've been fine.

Until this morning. If I was inspecting so closely, I probably wouldn't have even seen it. But it was there. Two little streaks of blood. Just like they looked a month ago when they first appeared.

Shoot! It's totally worth it, but I'm bummed. :(

Thankful for Thanksgiving

A month ago when I embarked on this dairy-free journey, I immediately thought about the upcoming holidays and what I'd have to eat. Well, more accurately, what I'd have to MISS. Like, everything. Sure, there are dairy-free substitutes for LOTS of things, but it's just not the same. I have absolutely no holiday traditions involving soy milk and dairy-free "buttery spread."

Well, at Leah's 4-month-appointment last week (which was also technically her follow-up appointment for this dairy-free business), the doctor was very pleased that the blood in her diaper left so quickly and hasn't been back. He said that, combined with the fact that she didn't have any other symptoms (more fussy, hard tummy, etc) meant that this probably wasn't a dairy issue. So he said I could go ahead and reintroduce dairy if I wanted and just take it from there. If the blood stays away, we're fine. If not, then the problem is most definitely a dairy issue.

So I could have reintroduced dairy last week when we got the green light. But I didn't. I am waiting until this Thursday to reintroduce. That way I can eat totally normal Thanksgiving food. No fake milk, butter, or anything. I'm excited.

Of course I'm thankful for more than just Thanksgiving food. Like my wonderful husband and beautiful, healthy kids. And a warm, safe home. And so much more.

Happy Thanksgiving, blogworld!

four months

Leah,

WHAT? You're FOUR months? Who on EARTH let you turn FOUR MONTHS? Seriously, this is all just going so fast. But I'm loving every moment of it (well, most every moment), so don't stop. I'm sure you're just going to get cuter and more irresistible.

I was just telling someone the other day that I looked back at some pictures from our trip to the cabin this past August, and you don't even look like the same baby! You were so tiny (well, it's all relative) and looked so much more like a BABY. Now you look like a little GIRL! And you just keep growing. You seem to outgrow clothes in a matter of weeks. Which is probably good because they're all terribly spit-up stained by then anyway. :) Yes, you are definitely following in your brother's footsteps with your spitting up. I'm just hoping you outgrow it around six months like he did!

I had the depressing realization yesterday that I haven't had a decent night's sleep in four months. Let's do something about that, shall we? Like, I don't know, stay asleep longer than three hours at a time? Please? Pretty please? More sleep might just make me an even BETTER mom! Oh, whatever. You'll get there. And I'm sure pretty soon I'll miss your cuddly little body next to mine in the middle of the night when you decide you want to stay in your crib all by yourself.

This month marked your first Halloween! You weren't impressed. You were a very cute little pumpkin! But you hardly stayed awake to witness much trick-or-treating. I think next year will be much more exciting!

Now we're getting excited for your first Thanksgiving. Not that it will be much different than any other day for you, other than some extra guests. And you'll get to watch us eat all kinds of yummy food. Sorry, we can't share it with you just yet. You're staying on the same diet for a couple more months. Speaking of which, we're conducting a little experiment. You seemed to have a little intestinal distress, so I'm cutting all dairy out of my diet. The distress seems to have disappeared, which makes me a little sad because the dairy-free diet kind of stinks. The doctor would like me to try reintroducing dairy in a few weeks, just to makes sure that, and not just a small tear, was the cause of some blood in your diaper. So, in the next few weeks, could you PLEASE decide that you DO like dairy and that your intestinal system CAN handle milk products? Because, seriously, it's in everything. Hot dog buns. Hot dog buns, Leah!

I think you're becoming more aware of your brother. I'm not sure what took you so long--he's been cupping your cheeks and kissing your face since the day you were born. And every time you wake up from a nap, he wants to come give you a hug and a kiss! But now you're really responding to him--smiles and laughs--and it totally makes his day! "Mommy, Leah smiled at me!" I mean, we ALL get excited when you smile and laugh. It's priceless. :)

Until next month, sweet baby! Love you lots and lots.

Mom

Got milk?

Nope. It appears that Leah has a milk protein intolerance, so I've cut dairy out of my diet indefinitely. Or really, for as long as I want to keep nursing. And since the alternative is feeding her a SUPER expensive formula, I'm going to deal with the dairy-free diet.
Automatically, I thought, "Wow, I'm going to miss milk. And cheese. And yogurt." But then I realized just HOW MANY things have milk products in them. The great thing is that since milk is such a common allergen, it will be listed in bold underneath the ingredient list with any others (nuts, wheat, etc). So it's usually pretty easy to spot something I need to avoid. And I'm starting to get used to what I can have. For instance, some brands of spaghetti sauce have dairy and some don't. Some taco seasoning has it, some doesn't. Duncan Hines (cakes and brownie mixes) is about the only brand without dairy. Oreos don't have dairy. :)
Now, I love chocolate, but I never realized how much I count on a piece of chocolate (like a Dove promise or a few chocolate chips) after dinner. Well, most chocolate has milk. Even dark chocolate has "milk fat." (Sounds lovely, right?) But today at Target, I found this:
And it's awesome. No milk or milk fat or anything else dairy. Love it.

You know you live with a 3 1/2-year-old boy when....

This is a shelf down by the cat's food and water bowls. I found this set-up when I went to feed Lucy yesterday morning.And yes, that's some weird all-black Spiderman. Likely a Happy Meal toy at some point.

I do love this kid's imagination. He's definitely ALL boy. And I adore that about him. Although sometimes I wonder--amid the sword-wielding pirates and web-shooting spiderman--if he'll still be the sweet, compassionate boy who will be gentle with his sister and still hug his mom when he's thirteen.

But then he'll go and do something like this

and I decide that he's actually a pretty well-balanced kid. ;)