#Microblog Mondays - Corn

I am loving Microblog Mondays...it's something I can accomplish during morning nap. :)

It was a big day for M yesterday - he tried corn for the first time! (It's one of the many, many foods he's allergic too - the allergist told us to start trying some of the foods to see if they are true allergies or just intolerances.) He really enjoyed it and did great with it. So far his face is looking pretty good...fingers crossed he doesn't react.

Microblog Mondays

Here is M sporting his Vince Wilfork jersey...too bad it didn't help his team. Thankfully he took his afternoon nap during the second half so he was clueless as to what happened. :)

Updates

I must admit I went back to my old habits of rocking M to sleep. Whatever I was doing last week was a complete fail. SO we went to the bookstore the other day and picked up some reading for me. The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight book. I am too much of a wimp and a softie for Dr. Ferber. I started reading the book the day after I bought it, so far it seems really good. Going to have J read it as well and then we'll start our sleep coaching.

We saw a new allergist for M yesterday. I am happy to say that the appointment went very well. Dr. M was a bit dry but we had expected that...our pediatrician warned us. :) BUT he was warm and welcoming. He spent about an hour talking with us...best part was that he gave us  hope that M might outgrow some of his allergies! yahoo!! We are going to try re-introducing some of the foods he tested positive for...if his eczema worsens during that time, we stop. Eggs and wheat are off the table until he is 2 years old. He gave us handouts on how to help the eczema and how to control the dog dander. Really glad he did not try to convince us to get rid of the dogs. We explained that the dogs were with us during our road to M and that we did not want to get rid of them unless it was absolutely necessary.

Trying brown rice pasta. Skin is looking good. :)

 

A bad skin day in Belize...who knew bananas could cause such a reaction??

Naptime hell

I have been working with M on "self-soothing" and falling asleep by himself for naptime. It's been miserable for both of us. Before this week, I would read to him then sing/rock him to sleep. It usually took about 20 minutes give or take. I realized I was probably creating a problem for myself so I decided it was time to tackle the sleep monster. (My brother has two boys, 4.5 and 9 yo, who still need help going to sleep and I don't want that in our future.)  It has been tricky, thankfully I can see a little progress but I cannot wait for the day when it takes less than an hour for him to fall asleep. This morning it took almost 2 hours before he fell asleep...thanks to the dogs the nap only last 30 minutes. The neighbor's dog was sticking it's head through the fence and both of our dogs were barking. Next think I knew M was crying. Any tips/advice is more than welcome.

M fought the nap and the nap won!

TGIF!

After reading Cristy's post today I realized how silent I have been with my blog because I've been afraid of hurting anyone's feelings due to where I am in my infertility journey. I am going to make a real effort to get back into blogging. I miss the connections I had made with fellow bloggers and would like to be a part of this world again.

So for today I leave you with some pics of M that we had taken while we were in Belize. It was his first professional photo shoot. :) The photographer was the same one that was at our wedding. We had a great time and M was quite the trooper!

(The pictures were touched up, as they were used on Face.book and our photographers did not want to deal with noisy people asking why his cheeks were so red.)

Random update from our end of the world

I hate that I have allowed myself to drop off the edge of the blog world. I feel lost when I try to type out a post so I decided to not think about it as much this time around and I'll just type...who knows what you are going to end up with. :)

Life is going well for us...I truly do love being a stay-at-home mom...is the house as clean as I thought it would be? not even close! (there is a stove-top waiting to be cleaned as I type and bottles need to be washed) Is the laundry done every week before the weekend comes around? HA! I wish :) Grocery shopping? that is getting better now that M sits in the shopping cart. He LOVES the shopping carts. He is such a people watcher...definitely gets that from my side of the family.

We are dealing with M's skin issues still...they all started around 2 months. Seems hard to believe that 6 months later we are finally getting some answers. After two pediatricians, one dermatologist and one allergist we have found out that he has some major food allergies and is allergic to the dogs. We were heart-broken when we learned about the dogs. The allergist called us with the test results and was not overly empathetic or compassionate when relaying the news. If we had listened to him the dogs would have been gone within the hour. They are not...instead we are distancing M from the dogs physically...no more licking from the dogs, no more petting the dogs for M and the dogs are no longer allowed in the bedrooms. We are also attacking the dog hair in the house...we've been doing a lot of vacuuming. (Love my Dy.son!!) (Just getting back to this almost a week later) It is amazing what a difference these small changes have made. M's face is looking so much better! He has not needed the antihistamine daily since these changes were made, which has made me very happy.

We met with our pedi yesterday...she is so great. Even though she could not do anything for us, she sat with us and went over the results and gave us names of other allergists in the area. She said M is definitely going to need one in  his life. We also discussed which foods we could try next. Poor M has the most boring diet right now. Turns out he's allergic to wheat, soy, corn, milk, egg, bananas and oatmeal.  Starting M on solids has been a challenge to say the very least. We knew oatmeal was a problem early on, without testing, but were clueless on the others. M was on soy formula for a month and had been eating bananas since early on.  Those are both gone from his diet now. We tried summer squash and that went over well.

We are traveling home to MA at the end of this week. It will be M's first trip there...some of the family was not too happy when he went to Belize first. Oops :) the airfare was a better deal, so we had to do it. ;) I wish I was looking more forward to the visit than I am...I am anxious about J's mom and how she is going to be. The drama with my family is still going on, so that is not helping me at all. I am really looking forward to seeing friends and introducing them to M. So there is definitely a positive in there.

Well, I've babbled enough for y'all...just wanted to let you know we are still kicking around down here.

I'll leave you with some pics of the boy :)

Out to breakfast in Belize

LOVED swimming in the pool in Belize :)

Mommy and M day at Sea World...selfie in front of the ducks

Out to breakfast for Father's Day

Sun.Breeze Baby

We took M on his first vacation to Belize :) J's mom was not too happy that his first trip was to Belize, not MA...oops! ;) At some point I am going to find time to tell y'all about it but for now I leave you with a picture that shows you what a hit he was. They nicknamed him the "Sun.Breeze Baby" (the name of the hotel is the Sun.Breeze hotel). He has lots of Belizean aunties and uncles that love him to pieces.