Monday, December 8, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - A boy and his books


M loves his books, one of his new favorite activities is getting all of them off the shelf as fast as possible. Every once in a while a particular book will catch his eye, so he will stop and take a look at a page or two before getting more off the shelf. :) We read to M every night before bed, he is now getting to the point where he picks which book is read first. He also has favorite pages of particular books. I absolutely love watching M's love of books and reading develop right before my eyes.

Monday, November 24, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - Doctors Appointments

It seems our life lately has been one doctor appointment after an other...we had two (supposed to be three but I missed one!) last week and another three this week...it's been for all three of us...eyes, teeth, thyroid, gastro...you name it!

Last week M saw a gastroenterologist regarding his health/nutrition and the food allergies. We need to start him on probiotics and a multivitamin. She also suggested seeing the dermatologist again...she did not like the look of his eczema at all. Best part of that appointment was waiting in the exam room for 50 minutes! M had a great time pulling open the drawers and cabinet drawers! He also broke out while we were waiting in the room...no idea what allergen was present!

Today I see my endocrinologist...not really looking forward to it. Hoping I don't get "yelled" at. I was supposed to lose 20lbs before this appointment...I only lost 10. She is now treating me as if I am diabetic. She tested my blood sugars for my appt in August and she did not like the results at all. She said I am not truly diabetic but she is going to stop it before it happens. That means meds...I've been poking myself in the belly once a week for the last 7 weeks. :(

Wow - I sound like quite the Debbie Downer...sorry!! Just too many appointments all at once.

Monday, November 17, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - Our weekend

We bought some bins to store M's toys in...he LOVED playing in them. :) Getting in and out was sometimes a challenge but with a little help from Mom or Dad he was in and out at least 20 times. :)
 
Loves playing with his new Mickey car (although Mom still needs to put the stickers on)!


We tried oatmeal this weekend...another FAIL! This spot here is where a grain of the steel cut oats sat on his cheek for about 5 minutes.  No hives or coughing this time around but his eczema was irritated and it popped up on his tummy, just like it did when he was an infant. Only two more foods to try (soy and banana) and we are done trying the foods he tested positive to...I am not looking forward to it at all.

Daddy found M a new puppy while grocery shopping...M was excited about the tag and hoped we wouldn't notice him trying to eat it. :)

Monday, November 10, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - Update on Milk


It took us two full weeks to really test the dairy/cow's milk allergy for M but it's now complete and it went poorly. We tried yogurt, a cheese stick, provolone cheese and cream cheese. Why I thought provolone cheese was a good idea is beyond me. lol. It was the only cheese in the house and I really wanted one more attempt of dairy under our belt. Considering M took a bite and then wiped it out of his mouth before swallowing any we needed to try one more time. He didn't love the taste of the cream cheese but he got enough in him for us to realize it was a horrible fail. His lips got  hives, his face turned red wherever the cheese touched his skin and he started itching his cheeks within five minutes of eating the cheese. We gave M his prescription antihistamine and within an hour he was back to normal, but it really scared J and I.  It made us realize that there is a possibility that cheese/dairy could cause M an anaphylactic reaction. I am calling the allergist today. Both J and I  want an epi pen in the house.

Monday, November 3, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - Fun at the Park


We took M to the park on Saturday morning and a fun time was had by all! We started off on the swings and then took him to the fields. He loved the freedom of the field...unfortunately, our yard at home does not give that to him. J and I had a blast watching him run from us and then turn around and make his way back. :)

On Sunday we bought him sneakers. :)


http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2014/09/what-is-microblog-mondays/

Monday, October 27, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - milk


We are continuing to work through our list of foods on the allergen list. I forgot to update that corn did not work out for M. I think it was on day 5 of the two week trial period he broke out. I was so bummed, he really enjoyed the corn but his face did not.

Yesterday we attempted "cow's milk"...our pedi suggested trying yogurt or cheese rather than straight milk. We tried some plain yogurt with breakfast. M had a few spoonfuls plain and a few with mango. He seemed to tolerate it but not love it. Later in the morning he tried a few bites of my mango greek yogurt from Trad.er Joe's...now that he loved. :) J did not agree with my decision to let him try it but I thought it would be okay. Um, yeah, I think I should have listened to J. M's face broke out. :( We are going to go three days without any dairy and try again later this week.

Monday, October 20, 2014

#Microblog Mondays - A "normal" sick visit


We had to take M into the pediatrician's office today for a sick visit. We seem to only do this for an issue with his skin and today was no different. Friday night M came down with a rash and it was not a normal reaction to an allergen so both J and I were concerned. We were even more concerned because we were traveling at the time and no where near home. We watched him over the weekend and the rash was worse yesterday but he had no other symptoms. We went to see Dr. W this morning and it turns out M had a NORMAL childhood illness...roseola. Dr. W was pretty funny when she said she was glad she could help this time because usually when it comes to M and his skin she has to refer us to a specialist!

M had a fever last Tuesday through Thursday but nothing that made me overly nervous and it reacted well to the Ty.lenol. Both J and I assumed it was teething as M has been chewing on everything lately. Turns out we were wrong. Thankfully, we did not have the high fever that can be associated with the illness. So our blotchy boy is a normal blotchy boy this time. :)

(I tried to attach a picture but had issues...will upload one when I can.)

Thursday, September 25, 2014

One more week


Where has the time gone? I cannot believe that next Thursday will be M's first birthday! The year has flown by...it's been a roller coaster ride, to say the very least. There are things I would do differently, but all in all, I would say this family thrived not just survived the first year! I cannot believe how emotional I have been in the weeks leading up to M's birthday...I have even found myself nesting - how weird is that?!? I am so looking forward to celebrating all that is M.

Monday, September 22, 2014

#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.


Monday, September 8, 2014

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. :)

Friday, August 8, 2014

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??

Friday, August 1, 2014

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!

Friday, July 25, 2014

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.)



Tuesday, June 17, 2014

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

Friday, May 23, 2014

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.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Unsolicited Advice

I am racing the clock with this post...M is down for a nap and I have no idea how much longer he'll sleep. His morning nap is usually 30 minutes on the dot and afternoon naps are all over the place.

This past weekend J and I went shopping...I should say I dragged J to Car.ters and Babies R Us...thanks to coupons! When we were in Car.ters, the woman behind us was commenting on the bib I was picking out and all the choices out there for baby clothes today. She then told us how beautiful M was and asked if he was our only child. (It always surprises me when people ask if he's our first or our only...I think sometimes I prefer "only".) She then went on to tell us that she only had one as well and that we should learn from what she did and make sure we have another child. We both kind of chuckled...J used his usual line of "We got it right the first time so it's one and done." She told us how she's now in her 50s and her son is off to college. She said the best advice she could give us was to go home and - brace yourselves! - get knocked up. We both laughed and I said "If only it was that easy." We left the store wishing her a good day...she wished us a good day and a wonderful life. When walking to Babies R Us we said only in TX could someone actually tell you to go home and get knocked up. We laughed about and quickly moved onto another subject.

We did our shopping in Babies R Us and were meandering through the store as M napped. We  were checking out the car seats when we noticed a couple looking at the B.ob stroller. He happened to have on a Red Sox hat...they were chatting with a rep from the store about the strollers. I said to J we should let them know how much we love our B.ob. When the opportunity presented itself we let them know what a great stroller it is. We got a polite "thanks" from the husband and the wife and her mother listened for a bit longer. The wife got called away by her husband and after another minute grandma thanked us and said "we are all set".

When we were walking back to the car I said to J that I still could not believe the woman in Car.ters told us to get pregnant. J said that we know to expect advice from strangers when we are out shopping and to not worry about it. At the same time we looked at each other and realized we had done the exact same thing about the stroller. No one asked our opinion but we felt we should add our two cents to the decision making process for this couple. We had a good laugh over it. We decided that this couple had not lived in TX long enough yet to know that strangers are going to talk to you when you are out shopping. We then commented on how we were decked out in New England attire...J had on a Red Sox shirt and Bruins hat and I had on my Cape Cod sweatshirt...so the husband should have realized that we were "one of them". We wondered if the husband was just wearing a Sox hat and maybe he wasn't really a fan.

It made us realize that San Antonio is definitely becoming a part of who we are - especially when we are out shopping!

Woohoo! Wrote this post and the boy is still sleeping. :)

Monday, March 17, 2014

Monday, March 10, 2014

Our little man - lots of pictures

Thanks to the time change M is already down for his nap so I thought I'd try to get a post up.
This is going to be picture heavy...

My Mom came to visit in February...M loved having her here with us. It was great to see the two of them together again. I love this picture of my Mom reading to him.

 
We went to the rodeo while my Mom was in town...so much fun. M did great! It was loud and he did not get upset by it. He stayed awake for the entire show. J is convinced that when he's old enough M will participate in Mutton Bustin'...I am not as convinced. :)

M is really starting to interact with the dogs now...it's so much fun to watch them together. Garnett is super gentle with him and loves it when M "pets" him.

 
M is the king of tummy-time...rolling over, not so much. Still waiting for that to happen...due to his size I am not overly concerned that it hasn't happened yet.

We've booked our trip to Belize!! We are going for 2 1/2 weeks in May. I cannot wait to get there and to have him meet everyone. We are planning to do a family photo shoot while we are there. So excited to get back "home".

We bought season passes to Sea World...M loves the dolphins!

My walking buddy...trying to get out walking at least 3x a week. Dr. H was not happy with my weight at my last appointment so I am doing my best to get healthier.

Loving my "kisses" from my little man. :)

One happy family

The sweater that M is wearing was knit by my Nana for one of my brothers. It means so much to me that my Mom saved it for me. I love seeing M in it. It makes me feel like my Nana is right here with us.

M is loving his books.

Crazy hair day!

M and his puppies :)

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Another chilly morning here in San Antonio...a great day for cuddling on the couch. :)

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

I am guessing quite a few of you are dealing with cold and snowy weather right now so I thought I'd post some Belize pics for you. :) Believe it or not, we have a chance of frozen precipitation here in San Antonio later this week...




Tuesday, January 21, 2014

A boy and his dogs

Happiness is a warm puppy.
Charles Schulz

Here are a few pictures of M and his puppies. :)
Sadie and M...Sadie was attempting to lick his face while laying down on M's lap.

Garnett moving in for a few kisses. (He was told "No sir!"...we strongly discourage the kisses on the face.)

M and Garnett...best buddies. :)

Sadie making sure M's hands were clean.