Chesed

tonight

i sat on your front porch with the peeling blue paint.

i walked through your new old house, able to appreciate beautiful moldings and fine antique furniture and the incredible amount of work you’ve accomplished already.  the house that was just waiting for your love although it makes us sad that you had to leave the other one.

i felt so happy to see you were up and around.  we were worried when you didn’t return our call and we can’t just pop in anymore now that you’ve moved.  we miss you.

so we sat there

sipping your coffee

mesmerized by the stories of your life

a life riddled with rejection, anger, guns, falls, being cheated, fear, illness, being ripped off over and over again by the people who should have loved you most, accidents with chain saws and things far more dangerous

a life that has experienced levels of pain so deep they make my worst experiences look like cat scratches

i see the glint in your eyes

the tension in your muscles

i hear the intensity in your voice as you retell the stories and i sense that you are only touching the tip of the iceberg because you are protecting our boys … and maybe us.

i watch you alternate back and forth between the inhaler to open your airways and the nicotine that closes them as it numbs the pain

i see the fighter in you

the fighter who longs for something better

for love

for a fair chance

we drive off as night falls

watching for more trains

talking to the boys

the headlights illuminate the tall purple salvia and pink vincas as we drive up to our house

i crawl out of the car

suddenly startled by the contrast that is my life

i stand still

reveling in the stillness of the country

a freshly mown lawn

a thousand fireflies dancing in the woods

the feeling of safety

the happiness that is our family.

he grew up rich

i grew up eating macaroni and cheese

why is he there

and i am here?

tonight i feel small.

and once again,

i will go to bed praying for our neighbor who isn’t really our neighbor anymore

that someday he will see Jesus as more than the man up above

that he will know what it means to be loved

but i will pray that for me, too

because he makes me see the too much me in me.

I can sum up those two tablespoons of milk in one word:

flatulence

So while it’s not exactly a rip roaring success judging by the level of appreciation I had for open windows and his level of, well, odorous noises …. a little bloating and lots of gas is a huge improvement from diarrhea and sleeplessness after trace amounts.

Maybe in a few years.  Meanwhile, what AM I supposed to give him for milk??  We are down to no options until the goat milk trial is over.  His knee pain yesterday is making me hope the two are unrelated, but it’s not a totally fair trial because of the re-introduction of cows milk.  

What would you do if your three year old complained of that much knee pain?  Keep looking for zebras when the big, likely things have been ruled out or ignore it?

Here it is, the promised treasures.

The clue to finding foods is to shop every grocery store in town and out of town. 

A few of these treasures are recent finds … as in the last week or two.

Most of the time, Liam eats staple items like rice, chicken, beef, sweet potatoes, and sometimes fish.

But what to do when it’s Saturday night and we are craving a carb loaded, gluten, dairy and tomato loaded pizza and he’s not about to eat roast beef aGAIN?

Or what do you feed a fifteen month old who suddenly can’t have crackers or cheerios or cheese cubes or pretzels?

Here is the list of foods we are avoiding:

dairy
soy
egg
peanut
oranges
pineapple
coconut
wheat
oat
gluten
MSG
nitrates
nitrites
tomato
limited cocoa

The following foods make Liam a happy camper.  It has taken me three years to find all of these and hopefully I can spare a mom new to digestive issues some despair.

Our staple when this first started was Redwood Farm goat milk yogurt sweetened with honey. I have found it available only at Whole Foods so far. He is absolutely sick of it by now and will only eat the little flavored ones (at $2 / pop), although sometimes I can get him to eat the plain if I flavor it with maple syrup. It was several months later that I found the first safe cheerios at Martins. Kroger started carrying them in the natural foods section a few months ago and happily, they are now also at Whole Foods as of a few weeks ago. Glutino also makes cheerios but they either have egg or dairy in them, I can’t remember which.

Pretzels were a no go for a long time, too, because glutino pretzels contain soy. Apparently lots of it judging by how much he cried when he ate them. Happily, I found this version by EngerG at Martins. It is the only place I’ve found them and unhappily Martins is not at all local for us. The other stellar item at Martins is gluten free ice cream cones! Seriously! Every child should be allowed an ice cream cone and I will forever be grateful to my mom who found these. We make ice cream for Liam since I have yet to find anything commercially that doesn’t make him sick. It melts in a minute or two, but at least it looks like ice cream.

{Goat Milk Ice Cream}
3 cans Meyenburg Evaporated Goat Milk
1 c. sugar
2 t. vanilla
Mix and put in ice cream maker until solid.

I was so happy when I found organic, preservative free turkey breast. And even happier when I discovered that I could make a sort of sandwich with enerG brand bread (see photo one), turkey breast, and homemade zucchini relish. The bread doesn’t last long, unless you freeze it. And it definitely has the nicest texture toasted. Which is still a stretch, but it works. I’d love to experiment more with baking bread for him; but the broiler fuse in my oven blew three years ago and it would cost $150 to fix it (in a stove not worth that much total) so we’re holding off. I can bake cookies, bars and cakes, but our bread always flops since then and his ingredients are too expensive to keep flopping.

These are the new things I’ve found and I cannot tell you how excited I was every time I found something new! Liam and I do happy dances in the aisle when I pick something up, dubiously scan all the ingredients, and in answer to his, “Can I eat that?,” say YES! Here’s to spreading happiness.

Hot Dogs! The first hot dogs that did not make him sick. Not even thirty seconds of tummy ache! Did someone say camping and school picnics and cookouts and hot dog roasts???????????? Available at Whole Foods

Chicken Nuggets! Seriously, I thought I was going to hit the ceiling when I found these I was so excited! I still nearly pinch myself with giddiness. And I found both the hot dogs and the chicken nuggets in the same week! Never again will I have to say, “There are absolutely no short cuts.” Available at Food Lion

Bagels! Walmart inconveniently ran out of goat milk and I decided it’s time for the trial. Liam has been off goat milk for three days now and I have not heard ONE complaint about back or knee pain. I’m planning to keep him off for a week. But now, what in the world to feed him for breakfast? Bagels with jam to the rescue! He eats dry cheerios sometimes and one morning I mixed some jam in with them. He wasn’t terribly amused with breaking out of the box. I found the bagels at Kroger, but it looked like they were discontinuing them already. I can only hope Whole Foods will carry them in the new, bigger store.

This morning he begged for milk. I felt sorry for him and decided to try a tiny bit of raw jersey milk. After all, the doctor said I am not hurting him by cheating and trying things so I feel a little braver about doing it. He had maybe two tablespoons about fifty minutes ago ……. stay tuned!

And what child does not love popsicles? Edys to the soy-free rescue!

One of the other things I’ve started using (as alluded to earlier) is pure, organic maple syrup.  I use it as a sweetener sometimes in place of honey, on his pancakes, and mixed with powdered sugar to make a frosting.  It is delightful.  When we celebrated David’s birthday, I made his favorite chocolate cake with caramel frosting in a cupcake version and wanted a Liam lookalike. 

Maple syrup frosting on a chocolate chip cookie made us all smile.
 

Enviro Kids (I think) makes a nice cereal called Gorilla Munch that looks just like Kix.  It’s perfect for a snack during church.  So much of Liam’s food feels unsaturated.  Rice flour digests so quickly and holds so few calories, he gets hungry quickly.  Other things he likes in spurts and jerks and then refuses to eat the next time are raisens and grapes.  He loves, loves, LOVES cucumber slices and will sometimes eat baby carrots.  Sometimes he will eat an apple.  Most of the time, you may as well forget it.  Sometimes he will eat strawberries so fast you can hardly see them as they move.  The next thing you know, he will totally refuse to eat something because it has strawberries in it.  You’d think he was still two instead of three!

Some plain potato chips (like Utz) are safe.  How wierd is it that chips and pop are safer than orange juice and pineapple and cheese and other healthy things? 

And lest I forget, these chocolate chips made my day last year.  Now I can make Liam’s cookies at home instead of buying them @$4.00 for a dozen one inch cookies.

I realize that this is far from a comprehensive list, but it’s most of the things I can think of that were so terribly difficult to replace and to find.  If you want a recipe for something you’re having trouble making, please  feel free to ask.  Hopefully if I can’t answer it, I can help to point you in the right direction.  And please share or link up to your favorite safe treasures if you have some.

That took longer than I expected. It was a rough week. Busy, yes; but emotionally draining for various reasons. Like Adam always says when I start getting snappy, “Mommy, is it me or Liam who is being frustrating?” … well, this week it is partially Liam.

Monday we slammed back into schedule after a lovely weekend in West Virginia with extended family. Liam saw the orthopedist that afternoon who could find absolutely nothing wrong with his back on inspection. He said if we weren’t dealing with all the food issues, he’d pursue it further but at this point, we’re not going to look for zebras in Texas. Isn’t that a fantastic line?

Thursday morning we headed off to see an allergist for the first time. I. was. dreading. it. After having to hold Liam down and not being successful the last time they did a blood draw, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any painful doctor experiences at all. Liam cringes when he hears the word doctor and refuses to co-operate with anything, constantly asking, “will dem poke me?” Unfortunately he found out the night before that yes, he would get poked but it would be a little different and in his back instead of his arm and he wouldn’t have to lie on the table. The fear in his eyes shot like daggers. “I hate dem,” he kept saying. He was up at the crack of dawn, fell partially down the steps, and howled. The day began.

Thankfully he settled down on the bench to watch me water the flowers (how AWESOME is this ninety degree weather and WHEN is our pool going to get set up?) and the day improved a little.

And then, there we were. The nurses were exceptional. Nice office. The allergist … the jury is still out. I made notes before I went in, trying to condense two years of history as concisely as I could. I think I still spewed too much at one time and I think he’s one of those men who cannot type notes and listen at the same time because he missed a lot and would come back in and say something then when I’d correct him he’d say, “Oh, I thought you said you were giving him eggs”. Um, no. Not giving. He was convinced that Liam actually had lots of environmental allergies that were actually playing out as food issues now and in a year or two he would be showing all kinds of respiratory issues instead. I could kind of deal with that thought. I mean, it’s no fun, but goodness, it’s not quite as life changing and you can always get shots to help. Which is exactly what he said, “You know, at least we’ll be able to do things to treat it then.” But I didn’t quite believe him. To prove his point, he tested him for things other than food also. There sat Liam with over twenty-six scratches on his back plus a few on his arms because they ran out of room and had to repeat a few. The scratching wasn’t fun for him, but was a far distant cry from the way he thought he was being murdered the last time they dug around for a vein.

We played basketball in the room for twenty minutes waiting for things to show up. And proved two things. One, Liam has few environmental issues. A tiny bit to a few trees and to dogs and that’s pretty much it. Two, reaction to egg and HUGE reaction to peanut BUT no longer to wheat or tomato. That seemed like good news. At the same time, my heart was kind of sinking. WHY does he not show positive and yet react to half a million things?

When the doctor returned he said he thinks Liam has FPIES … the acronym for food protein induced enterocolitis syndrome. How have I never heard of this before? Babies get it and don’t break down proteins well and it causes digestive issues. “Which is good news,” he said and went on to talk about patch testing and an oral in-office challenge for the true egg allergy. My biggest question, “What’s the long term outcome with FPIES?”

“Oh, they out-grow it. In fact, most kids outgrow it by the time they turn three.” And, he went on. “After the patch testing we’ll start re-introducing foods to see what happens….” I started feeling really, really hopeful and we had a happy afternoon meeting my mom for lunch at Chick Fil A and playing at the indoor playground at the mall. That night I started researching FPIES and started crashing. It sounds pretty similar, but not completely. FPIES babies are frequently hospitalized for severe blood-stained diarrhea that causes dehydration. The two most common culprits are rice and oats. Rice has never been a problem for Liam except for rice milk. And while he had multiple blow outs per day, he was never close to being hospitalized. Is that because I caught on quickly enough? Is his case mild? If it’s mild, than why is he reacting to so MANY foods instead of three or four and why does he keep on reacting to new foods instead of healing like FPIES babies do? Why does he have to do everything the complicated way? But strangest of all, WHY does he not get better when he should be healed by now?

Suddenly I felt angry and a little blown off by the doctor. It felt as though he blew off what I was saying about Liam being more symptomatic and handed out pre-conceived ideas of classic cases instead of looking at Liam’s case specifically. Like, there is syndrome X syndrome Y and syndrome Z and I need a box to check and we’ll treat him for that one. When I said he did not tolerate dairy but has done well on goats milk, he said, “People who can’t tolerate dairy can’t tolerate goat milk either.” I wanted to spit back, “Yes, I know that most people can’t but, hello, it has WORKED for us for a year and a half and you can’t argue with results.” I mean, come on. Liam went from under 5th percentile on the growth chart to 25th. And he does not have diarrhea. And until December he was the healthiest kid in our house with zero complaints about anything. Something is working. Plus, I am coming to you, not because I am muddling along with no idea what is going on, but because I have exhausted my mental resources and Liam is getting more symptomatic, not less; so don’t just ignore that and tell me we are going to start re-introducing foods without HEARING that. I am very capable of being wrong, but I am not stupid. I graduated at the top of my nursing class because I am capable of studying and learning and thinking and I HAVE been using every brain cell I possess to scope out hidden causes. Please, please listen to what I am saying and work with me instead of instantly discrediting things I say. But he was out the door already. And I wouldn’t have said half of that if he wasn’t.

I tried to hold things together on Friday because we had a wedding to attend. It wasn’t one of my best days. I sat there staring at a thousand small orbs that put my child at risk of death and held on to him with an epi pen at my feet. He was totally unamused at not being allowed to go play with the other children, but I couldn’t risk the residue. Some day maybe he will understand that a mom’s love is one of the strongest forces in the world, even when it feels mean. We got home and I lost it. Completely. I sat upstairs and cried and cried when I said I was cleaning.

That night when I was crying again David put it into words for me. “You feel alone in this, don’t you?” And that, is the tears in a nutshell. I DO feel alone. Not the alone in, “I’m the only one doing this,” but the alone in, “It feels up to me to figure this out and I don’t know how. It’s just way beyond my capabilities.” We talked some more and he prayed for me since I was completely incapable and finally the hopelessness lifted.

I feel hopeful again. I’m going back. Maybe to prove him wrong? Not really. Mostly to see if I am blinded. Mostly because even though he isn’t the best listener, he is very intelligent and knows enormously more than I do and I like that. And mostly because I am absolutely DESPERATE for help. Maybe he is outgrowing some of the things. Maybe he is reacting to new things. Maybe there are ways to re-train his body. If what he says works, I’ll be embarrassed at my unbelief and hitting the sky with excitement. And if what he says doesn’t work, then we’ll both know and go from there.

As the day wore on, I felt God showing me a picture of his grace. Of the way He gives light in the darkness if I can stay focused beyond myself. I am a control freak. I can cope with issues once I know what they are. I’m not afraid of the fight once it’s identified. Unknown muddles are my downfall. I still struggle with unanswered prayers. I don’t know how to micro-manage Liam’s fussiness and multiple complaints of belly pain / back pain / knee pain. But it will be okay. It really will. Some day we’ll look back on these days and know them as a bad memory while we revel in the joy of knowing. Just like we did with the summer of 2009. And maybe, maybe this will actually all disappear, just like the doctor says it will.

And I really will get to Liam’s favorite foods next.

There are two questions I’ve been asked repeatedly in the past two years. One is about allergies; the other about publishing a book. I love, love being able to share what I’ve learned, but it’s become a rather time-consuming job to start from scratch every time someone asks. Hopefully sometime this month (is it truly already June) I’ll be able to address both so that I have a place to refer people and answer specific questions after that. So, unless you’re dealing with food allergies, you will probably be just as happy to head somewhere else in blogger land right now. If you know of someone who is searching for help with this right now, feel free to share.

Disclaimer: I am not an allergy expert. Please, please get help from your doctor. I will share what I have learned and what works for Liam in hopes that it will help someone through the muddle. But know already that this is a very personalized journey and not a catch all basin! Please do not take anything I say as scientific fact or make claims based on what you read. I only know what has worked for us so far and it’s very much a trial and error lab in our kitchen!

How did you know Liam had food allergies?
We didn’t know. Not for a long time, at least. I suspected a milk intolerance back when he was three or four months old. His chin and upper chest was a constant mess of eczema and I remembered Lisa’s post on milk-related eczema that made her son look like he belonged in the burn unit at the hospital. I am not exaggerating. Around three months, Liam stopped napping. Instead of sleeping for forty-five minutes, he was sleeping for fifteen. Or five. But he was a generally happy baby (meaning I wasn’t walking the floor with a screaming child) and so I just ignored it. Had I not been breast-feeding, I may have pursued other options; but taking myself off dairy looked way too big for not better than I was feeling physically.

Fast forward to about ten months. I don’t remember exactly when it started. I just know that the more Liam moved toward a diet of solids, the more the fussiness and sleeping issues escalated. But this is prime teething time, too, so I assumed I had a hard teether. By the time he was a year old, he was really fussy. And still not napping. The “experts” now often say you can give a baby cows milk at nine months. Somewhere around eleven, I started Liam. He was “teething” even harder. Liam was sick all. the. time. From six months on he was a repeat case of bronchiolitis and ear infections. He immediately reacted to antibiotics and was on them so much that one ear infection had to be fought out on it’s own because he’d just had anything he could tolerate. At his annual wellness check I mentioned all the night waking in a previously sleeping all night baby. His pediatrician frowned and said, “He may not be tolerating dairy.”

And just like that the lights started flashing in my head. The very bad thing about an undiagnosed child is what it does to you as a parent. I was completely exhausted. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. Liam was so, so, so needy and fussy. He hardly slept and it felt like I never got a break. He did not want to eat. He was hardly gaining weight. He was always hungry, but when I fed him something, he pushed it away. Or gagged. Oh, the gagging. And finally about the time I’d get five tiny bites into his mouth, he’d gag and throw up.

A week later he broke out in hives when I fed him eggs. Then it was peanuts. I don’t know what was wrong with me except that I was truly mentally fogged with weariness, but I gave him a few bites of eggs a week or two later thinking it may have been a fluke. Minutes later, he vomited. Our lives turned into a blur of diarrhea, eczema, gagging, crying, screaming, cat naps, and gagging again. I would literally walk the floor with him until midnight while he cried and cried and cried and writhed and squirmed. At six the next morning he’d be up having what I thought were melt downs. And barely napping all day long. It was my mom who finally cut through my haze. “You have got to call the doctor.”

I already knew that Liam could not tolerate dairy, egg, peanut, soy milk, coconut milk, or rice milk and I was very suspicious about gluten. His bloodwork came back negative on dairy and soy (go figure) even though he is still super sensitive to both. Besides the egg and peanut, he also showed positive on wheat and tomato. I took him completely off gluten as well.

When did you see a difference?
The turnaround was almost instant. Suddenly the Liam I knew at two months was back in the house. He slept! In less than a week, we had way fewer night wakings. He was taking naps. I could actually read through an entire board book with him. He started saying words. He stopped screaming incessantly in his car seat (I’m talking screaming, not fussing.) I had no idea that he ran constantly to cope with the pain. Or that his delayed speech and what seemed to be an attention deficit issues was all related to pain and not feeling well. The meltdowns nearly stopped. And finally, finally, finally, he started eating by himself a little bit instead of us force feeding a few bites while distracting him. The night wakings and diarrhea completely stopped when I switched his probiotic to a completely vegan version that does not say, “May contain trace amounts of residual milk protein.” Best of all, he stopped getting sick all the time! He has not had an ear infection since being off milk! And he is rarely sick. When he does catch something, it’s after Adam has had it for a few days and he rarely gets as sick or stays sick as long as Adam.

Did he start tolerating things as he healed?
No. This is a sad question to answer. Instead, things got worse. He also got very sick on oranges, pineapples, and cocoa. He can tolerate a little chocolate in his milk or safe chocolate chips, but not cocoa powder. He also reacts to almost all preservatives, nitrites, nitrates, and sometimes food coloring.

Unfortunately, I don’t think his story is getting better. I’m starting to track the same symptoms. Shorter attention span. Way more meltdowns. Less sleeping. And most worrisome of all, back pain. Since December he’s been complaining of back pain and knee pain. In January, his pediatrician checked him for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and a UTI. Negative. He sent him home and said to watch him. Things aren’t getting better and in May, Liam started waking at night with back pain. I, a bit nervously, took him to a chiropractor even though it’s not recommended at his age. He stopped waking at night, but is still complaining during the day. His pediatrician is concerned and recommended we see an orthopedist next week and an allergist soon. I am feeling the fog of summer ’09 returning. We need to get to the bottom of this. I feel a little afraid. Afraid they’ll say there is nothing and I’ll still be trying to figure it out on my own. But even more afraid that they will take away even more food items from his already limited diet.

What do you feed him?
The absolute basics.
Breakfast choices:
Honey cake with goat milk or goat milk yogurt.
Gluten / soy / egg / dairy free cheerios (Nature’s Path Organic Whole O’s)
Puffins or Gorilla Munch by Enjoy Life
Sometimes a fruit smoothie made with goat milk yogurt

Lunch:
Leftovers from dinner the night before

Dinner:
See my food allergy tabs for a few recipes. In some ways, Liam’s diet has been good for us. I thought I cooked from scratch because I cook dinner pretty much every night. I thought we ate healthily because we ate a fairly well-balanced diet. But let me tell you, I had NO idea what cooking from scratch meant. There are pretty much no shortcuts when you eliminate soy and preservatives. Liam’s diet isn’t always well-balanced, but I love that we are eating much, much more wholesome food as a whole. It has taken me over a year to get to this point, but I rarely crave lasagna anymore. Definitely still love it when I get the chance to eat it, but I don’t give our food the sad eyeballing I did at first. A few things we especially love:

Grilled salmon with an apricot jam and maple syrup glaze and a rice pilaf

Bacon Potato Bundles

Steak kabobs, Rice, & Hummus

Bean burritos (Liam can have a corn tortilla), especially with guacamole!

Grilled Chicken Breast, sweet potatoes drizzled with olive oil, cinnamon, and sea salt and baked

Liam loves green beans and cucumbers and baby carrots.

What one thing would have helped me most?
Knowing where to eat on the road!! Restaurants are a land mine. When we need something fast, I get french fries at Chic-Fil-A and ask them to grill the nuggets without dipping them into the marinade first. Sometimes I skip the chicken and get a large fry and Liam eats them while I get groceries. It works perfectly. By the time the french fries are gone, I’m ready to check out after painless shopping! Subway’s oven roasted chicken breast is safe. You can order a sub for yourself and order extra meat on the side. We’ve rarely eaten out since he’s been diagnosed. Ruby Tuesday has a chicken breast on the children’s menu and they will grill it to specification. Red Lobster has broiled flounder on the children’s menu that can be made safely. We’ve tried one Mexican restaurant so far and found the beans to be the only safe menu item. They generously sauteed chicken in a bit of oil and he was fine.

What DID help you most?
A set of CD’s from Diane Craft. I wish they were mine because I’d have handed them out to lots of people. Unfortunately they were borrowed, but thank God we got to listen to them. She is educated in nutrition and learning disabilities and has found a number of links between the two. What helped us most was hearing how to start the process of elimination. Dairy first. And that means, “not one teaspoon.” You really do need to read labels and know all the names for milk. You should be able to tell in two weeks (I bet most people can tell in three days!). Don’t quote me on this (I’m too tired to look it up at the moment), but I think she said almost 80% of people with a dairy allergy can’t tolerate soy. After dairy, eliminate gluten. She also described yeast overgrowth in detail. Adam was having classic symptoms. Reactions to antibiotics and repeated fungal infections. We took him entirely off sugar that summer per her directions and gave him probiotics and grapefruit seed extract three times a day. When she says off sugar, she means off sugar. Not even “healthy” cereal for breakfast. We cheated on that one because I was way too overwhelmed with all of Liam’s issues to also cook buckwheat pancakes and eggs every morning! Adam’s fungal infections completely disappeared.

Do food allergies always look like this?
No.  Read this blog post.

What is still one of the hardest things about intolerances?
The way our entire social life is enmeshed in food. This is when I hurt for him. Every get together. Every birthday party. Every special night out. Every family reunion. Every camping trip. Every single thing we get together with people about is oriented around food. And rare is the day when he can eat even one thing that is served unless we head to my family’s house or his grandparents who look out for him.

The fact that your grocery bill doubles at minimum.

That it is so difficult to find vitamins that are safe! Currently, Liam can handle 1/2 the dose of Solaray brand chewable multi vitamins. I try to give him an extra 500 mg of calcium but it only happens if he eats yogurt (I open the capsule and pour it into his yogurt). Power Dophilous by Country Life. Omega 3-6-9 by Nordic Naturals.

So that was three things. Sad that I have to break my own rules.

What is easier now?
Thinking through things, but especially going away. I have made it through weekend trips by freezing meal portions. I’ve learned how to make a sandwich for him by using safe bread, my homemade zucchini relish, preservative free turkey ham, and home canned pickles. Grilled chicken can be cut into bite-sized pieces and frozen to eat with his fingers later. I *think* we could even get through a short camping trip!

Special treats: Marshmallows and Dum Dum Lollipops can save almost any situation!

What shocked you most?
How horrible most of our food is. Don’t read labels unless you want to change your life radically. It’s disgusting. Interestingly, I used to have blood sugar crashes all the time. It was the norm for me to come home from church a little grey, shaking like a leaf, and in a cold sweat because it had been too long since I’d eaten something. Now? I can’t remember the last time it happened. Real food feeds your body.

Absolute Favorite non-food products:
Enjoy Life’s Cookies for Everyone cookbook. This is a MUST HAVE for anyone with multiple allergies! There are tons of yummy cookie recipes and even a few pancake recipes!

Dreft … because a baby scent is better than no scent at all.

California Baby Super Sensitive Shampoo. Although I have to admit that after two years of using this product, I would LOVE to have a new scent. If you deal with eczema, what do you use safely?

I would love, love to hear from you if you have allergy issues. Do you work with an allergist? Have you outgrown any of them? What are your favorite products? What have you learned that has most helped you? And if you have questions, fire away. I can’t promise that I can answer them, but I will try.

Up Next:
Some of Liam’s favorite food products!

I think I’m turning into a morning person. Here’s a hand. You can pick yourself up off the floor now. Ok, “morning person” may be a bit of a stretch, but I don’t hate them like I used to. Well, not after I’m up. My alarm clock still has lingering self-esteem issues from the glowering looks, wallops on the snooze button, and muttered words that aren’t complimentary. Nothing a little therapy can’t remedy.

Mornings in May are just beautiful. I love watching the sun … a red ball rising quickly above the tree line, burning through the white mist and drying the dew. I love hearing the birds singing through open windows, the cool of a house left open overnight. Most of all, I love the quietness. It’s just something about mornings in the summer. It feels different than mornings in the winter. Expectant, maybe. Because nearly every day in summer holds the possibility of so many wonderful things!
 

Saturday was one of those wonderful things! Liam celebrated birthday number three! He is usually a very light sleeper and pops out of bed before I wish he would. Saturday he was sleepy and it was beyond adorable seeing him squint and rub his eyes and sit up drunken with sleep. “Happy Birthday, Liam! Did you know today is your happy birthday?” He just smiled, rubbed his eyes and said, “and I can have cake.” Cake was THE most important part of his birthday this year. I think because he remembered Adam’s birthday cake and loved the candles. And thankfully, I finally found a cake option as opposed to last year!


In a rare fit of happy fun, we took the entire Saturday off and had fun. No, neither David or I had fever. And yes, we did restrain ourselves and did not go get a load of mulch Friday night to unload at six in the morning like we talked about. Sometimes I am afraid the boys will grow up and say, all Dad and Mom did was work. All the time. This is the part of building your own house that you do not expect. That you just never seem to get done … and instead of maintenance, you are forever falling behind because you are still tackling the undone projects. There are still a few big things, but I think we are down to one major final frontier so maybe, maybe in a few years, we’ll be able to do things like this a little more regularly. Because days like this really feel like living!

David borrowed a boat from a friend and we were off to fish! I felt so spoiled and luxiourious! I don’t have a fishing license and was afraid this might be the only time I’d use it this year so it didn’t feel worth the money to buy one, but I was kept quite busy anyway …. Baiting hooks, helping Liam cast his line, getting my and Adam’s hooks back out of the trees, and soaking up the sun. Adam is getting more adept at casting and as long as we’re on shore so that he has enough space, he can run solo. In the tight quarters of the boat it was a bit trickier, but he did well most of the time. And he caught one fish! I was much more proud of his incredibly good attitude than I was of the fish he caught or his great casts. He has a really competitive drive that can quickly suck the fun out of an outing for him and for us. This time instead of whining about not catching more and saying it’s not fun he said several times, “I hope I can catch another one.” “I’m glad I at least caught one fish.” “This is so much fun!” and most shocking of all, “Daddy, I hope you can catch another fish!” when David had already caught six to his one!!

Liam didn’t catch any, but for quite awhile he thought he did! Every time he’d reel his line in he’d say, “Oh, there’s a wittle one.” And finally I realized he wasn’t pretending, he thought the minnow was his catch!

It was hard to leave. The lake was so quiet and peaceful, not to mention the allure of that one more elusive fish. Liam’s belly pain helped us decide it really was time to go home. As we drove home, I told David it reminds me of when we were little girls and rarely, rarely had treats. Seriously, a piece of gum was enough to make our eyes sparkle. Sometimes on those hot summer days we would look over into the next car at a traffic light and see someone licking an ice cream cone. We would gaze unabashedly and talk about how good it looked and how much we wished we’d have one. I clearly remember one special day when WE got ice cream cones and we asked mom, “Do you think the other people are looking into our car windows and wishing they could have an ice cream cone?” Well, I had that same feeling Saturday. How many times have I seen a boat head out on a gorgeous Saturday and wished longingly …. Now it was me, riding along in front of the boat and feeling sorry for all the people who had to miss out on one of the best days of the year!

We got home a little after four and I had absolutely nothing done for Liam’s birthday. Nothing. Supper was supposed to be at 5:30 and then it stretched to 6 and finally happened at 6:45. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do with his cake until we got out of the boat and he said he wants a boat for his cake. Simple enough. We had fish tacos with extra guacamole, fresh salsa, and chips. Lucky for me it is actually cheaper to buy ready made fresh salsa and guacamole at Sam’s Club then it is to make it. What is up with avocados costing $2 a piece the last while?

Liam’s grandparents were here except Grandpa Beachy who is in Kenya. When I woke Liam in the morning I told him all about the day including who would be here for his party. He loves his Grandpa Beachy so I was surprised he didn’t say more about him not being there. As we started down the road he said (in a very pouty voice) “My birfday is in Tenya.” I turned around and saw his angry face and said, “Are you feeling sad that Grandpa can’t be at your birthday party tonight?” Vigorous head nod. “I HATE Tenya.”

Liam is my favorite age ever now. I love, love, love three year olds. I love how independent and grown up they are while still keeping enough residual babyhood to be absolutely adorable. I love hearing them talk. I love that they are potty trained but still little enough to make their miniature clothes look so cute. I love that he tries to do every grown up thing he sees Adam do, but when he’s had a bath, his feet are still tiny enough to make me want to kiss them just like I did when he was a baby. Sometime this year, that urge is going to leave and then I will know he is grown up for real. But for now, he is my perfect little three year old, charming me with his sweetness, trying to make me laugh when he was naughty (little stinker), and melting my heart with his kisses.

Happy Birthday, sugar potato.
  (where I found his birthday flashlight when I took the dishes inside)

First Grade is history!  Adam smiles hugely a few times a day and says, “I’m a second grader now, Mommy.”

He could hardly wait for school to be over so he could play outside.  He absolutely loved school until about March and then things started dragging a little.  “Mommy, all you do is sit and sit and sit and sit for so long.”  I started missing him more the closer we got to the end of school and could hardly wait to have both my boys home so we could go do fun things together.  And I absolutely could not wait to quit those school runs and actually get the chance to stay at home for an entire day (has not happened yet, but it will soon!).  Seriously.  I think we could have single-handedly kept a gas station in business.

It felt so good to get his school uniform out one last time.  To wake him one last time … although I rarely woke him the last few months since he’s been popping out of bed on his own ten minutes early.  He was all smiles all day long, relishing the fun that is the last day of school, packing his things to get home, and ceremoniously shredding his ripped-at-the-knee school pants.


The end of school is always a full weekend with a program Friday night and an annual picnic for the entire church and all school patron families.  Adam loves the church picnics.  At least he used to.

The rain was mostly mist and sometimes held off entirely, so, like usual, the children scarfed down their food and headed for the playground almost before the adults sat down with hamburger laden plates.  I’d just finished eating when I saw a dazed Adam being led up the hill by a child not much older than himself who said, “He fell,” and disappeared to play again.  Adam is the kind who gets knocked and jumps back up most of the time, so I knew this was a little worse than normal or then he was embarrassed to have fallen in front of a crowd (more likely).  He told me he fell off the zip line (which only mildly concerned me at first since there is grass underneath) and that his back hurt.  And then he quietly sat on my lap as I gently rubbed his back for a little.  Suddenly I realized that nearly five minutes had gone by and there was a new tear rolling down his cheek.  “Adam, does your back still hurt?” 

He nodded. 

“Is it the same or better or worse?”

“Worse.”

I rubbed a little again and felt his muscles spasm beneath his shirt.  After more questions, I realized that he had fallen pretty soon after taking off which meant a longer fall, that he landed flat on his back, that he could not breathe at first AND that he did not get up on his own, someone picked him up.  I pretty much went into adrenalin mode when I heard that.  He said it hurt worse to walk and I wanted to panic.  David pulled the car up to the pavilion and took care of Liam while I headed in toward town with Adam who was slumped over against the door. 

“You may not go to sleep,” I said when his eyes closed.  As soon as I had cell phone service I called his pediatrician’s office to see if I could get in.  The nurse insisted I head to the ER when I told her he dropped about six feet so I changed direction slightly and kept going.  About that time, silent person in the back revived and started jabbering non-stop.  “Mommy, do you think ….”

I called back and asked if I could come there instead of the ER now and she said, “No.”  Not wanting to be stupid I headed in, got him registered, and left him with the receptionist while I went to park the car.  We looked at the little tablet she’d given him and I taught him how to play hang man.  He was acting completely normal at this point and getting more and more excited about the game.

“Adam, how is your back feeling?”

“Good.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nope, not at all.” 

I asked him to lean forward and carefully pushed every vertebrae.  He giggled.  I did want him evaluated, but seriously, I could not see the necessity of sitting in the ER to have half a dozen tests run when he was learning a new game and giggling when I touched him.  I asked more questions.  Dizzy? No.  Tingling?  No.  Still hard to breathe?  No.

So we checked out with the receptionist and headed home.  I dare them to bill me to sit on the chair in the waiting room.

That night I felt wary.  What if I’d made the wrong decision?  I am constantly doing a mental juggling act … wanting to access the health care the boys need without a lot of unnecessary expense.  I love healthcare, but it is true that insurance and the probability of lawsuits have changed the way we look at what is necessary in some instances.  No one is infallible.  And one of my not-so-secret (ask David) niggling fears is that I will miss something important in spite of my vigilance.  We were barely out the door before we encountered steps and he took them very slowly.  “Why are you going slowly, does your back hurt?”

“No.”

“Then why do you want to go slowly?”

“So, it doesn’t.” I nearly turned around and walked back in the double doors.

I had the feeling I was being masterminded once again by the child who thinks nothing is ever wrong and who can cover up pain that would have some children screaming.  I had a little chat with him about being honest about pain and how that injuries that are not taken care of well when they happen can cause big problems later in life.  And I also gave him very strict orders to tell me if he ever felt the slightest bit of shortness of breath or tingling in his legs.  And it felt like I was constantly saying, “No running, no climbing, no jumping.”

(Unfortunately I am the only one in the house sans rain boots so I wore my yucky yard work shoes.  And ta da! Sometimes being without ends up being a very *good* thing!)

 

Sunday he and Liam were acting like lion cubs and it made me nervous.  We opted to hike to keep him vertical instead of tumbling and to maintain our own sanity.  It was the most fun thing we’ve done in eons!  The boys had the time of their lives splashing through mud puddles, wading across creeks, and throwing stones in the water. 

On Monday, we went to see the pediatrician.  Diagnosis: minor concussion and probable broken rib. 

So we’re taking it easy this week since he’s not supposed to bike or engage in any other activity where he might fall and no playing with other kids because of getting jostled to avoid re-injury.

We’re reading lots of books.  The boys play fireman and train and truck and construction.  Aside from a terrible Monday morning taken up with re-learning how to play with each other, we’ve been having so much fun.  My heart just melts into butter when I see them sitting side by side at the kitchen table having a meeting about camp.  Adam says, “This one will cost fifty cents and this one will be $40,000.  And this….” as Liam interrupts, “Hey, dust ‘ait {wait} a ill {little} bit.  I need to talk to du baby,” and then turns his head to talk to his imaginary child. “Otay, ou {you} dan {can} talk now.” 



I’ve got to run.  Adam is painting a picture and I promised I’d join him and do one, too.  Goldi had puppies last night and needs to be checked on again.  And it’s time to make sure the chickens are still out of the flowerbeds.  Wait.  How did I turn into something so similar to a farmer’s wife? 

I felt ecstatic on Saturday as I planted pots of geraniums and ferns and filled the window boxes with petunias.  “I have never been so excited about my flowers,” I said to David who was putting up lattice under the front porch (YEAH for one more finishing the house project off the list).  He snickered and I heard him say, “Yeah, you say that every year.” 

“Yes, but this year is unprecedented,” I declared.

   

Maybe.

Check back in August.

Adam’s first creative writing assignment. At least, the first one I found out about. The difference between boys and girls, I have been discovering during these school commutes, is that girls tell you about every ache and pain and minor incident in 500 words and they reiterate every story at least three times, “Did I ever tell you about that time I dreamed that Carson was crying in his crib …..” and boys barely remember to tell you the essentials, like the fact that someone’s having a birthday party the next day and you don’t need to pack a lunch. He finished this one at home so I got lucky enough to not only hear about it, but to see it. The assignment: To have a problem and solve it. His problem: the fence got knocked down.

I have a cornfield. It is ten miles long. But sometimes the fence gets nocked down. So I made the fence stronger. Now I have to plow the field. And now I have to plant the field. I have a big tractor. It has twenty wheels. And it is a John Deer. Now the seeds have to grow. And now I have to harvest the corn. And now we have corn day in June. Then we will eat it. And can it. And put it in jars. And stack it on shelfs. And save it and save it. Til the shelfs are full. And wate till next winter.

He did ask me later if we have corn day in June and I said more like August. But if he lived in Georgia it could be June. He says he has a special kind of corn that grows terribly fast. I figure that fits with the twenty wheel tractor and ten mile field, don’t you. And clearly by the time we hit packaging on corn day, he is out playing in the mud, not helping or observing. So just in case you are dying of curiosity, we do put our corn in the freezer. 

It seems that April closed without my permission.  I want these days of near perfect weather to extend into at least thirty-six hour versions of themselves.  There just isn’t enough time in one day to soak up enough sunshine or do all the fun Spring things.

Spring is a fun time for us.  In four months time we celebrate four birthdays.  I love birthdays.  April is Adam’s month.  A very special friend of ours celebrated in an even bigger way on Adam’s birthday this year.  She got married!  Adam was a little disappointed that it meant no big family birthday party for him.  He’s gotten so used to having tons of uncles and aunts and cousins to come celebrate that he thinks it’s the norm.  We talked through all the, “it doesn’t always work that way” talks and the, “look at the special ways you do get to celebrate and look how we’ll spread your birthday out and you get to have lots of birthday” talks and in the end he was his normal, flexible, adorable self.  In fact, I’ve heard him tell several people since, “I got to celebrate my birthday all weekend!”  Oh, I love him.

Since David and I had music rehearsal for the wedding the afternoon and evening before his birthday, we went out for dinner two nights prior.  Adam had chosen Red Lobster months before and we told him he could choose anything he wanted.  Well, he wanted alright.  He wanted crab legs and lobster and shrimp and I think he mentioned octopus at one point.  He ordered the biggest lobster platter on the menu and ate. every. single. bite of seafood on it except for the taste David and I both got.  David ate his fries because he was stuffed.  I wonder why?

The next day he celebrated his birthday at school.  Having a birthday means you get to forget the blue uniform for the day.  It also means your mom will bring a snack to school so you can have a little party.  Since Adam is all into space related books right now, his party was pretty easy to plan.  A space shuttle cake, astronaut outfits for the attendees, and snacks that defy the lack of gravity.  I made hi-fiber bars in the shape of balls and wrapped them in tinfoil.  We drank out of plastic bags with straws and, of course, there is always cake.  And after that nice little sugar high I bet his teacher was glad to only have a little over an hour of class time left. 

The morning of his birthday before our out of town guests got up, Adam opened his present.  Can I just say how much I love my little scientist?  Already we get to discuss all kinds of cool science facts and it delights me to no end.  He absorbs facts like sugar in a bloodstream and spits them back out at random times completely surprising me with all he remembers. 

From the baby in the flowerpot to a responsible seven year old.  Happy Birthday, little man with the missing teeth.