Oooh, twice in one day! lol

and it's not even 4:30 in the morning! LOL

Just wanted to post my latest "update" email:

The second “dairy day” went as bad or possibly worse than the first, so we are banning dairy from our house. He’s not bouncing back nearly as quick this time either, so we went in for a Toby treatment yesterday. It, of course, helped immediately.

We have just been utterly amazed at the change in his disposition when he’s off of dairy. Most of you may not have seen this side of him, but he was very often on edge, and just about anything we asked him to do set him off. While we’re off dairy, he’s so cooperative, and will even help me do the dishes without complaining!!! The allergy shiners are starting to fade just a bit, which also tells me we’re headed in the right direction. Adjusting hasn’t been near as difficult as I had anticipated (and my dear aunts replied). Soy milk really isn’t bad at all, and as another aunt pointed out, has a very long shelf life – a container I purchased at the beginning of the challenge has a sell by date of 12/7/08 LOL! Biggest challenges are adapting baking recipes to include olive oil instead of butter (which of course doesn’t turn out the same result, but if you want it bad enough………..) and figuring out what he can put on his baked potato that isn’t dairy.

We didn’t have a super-duper parent-teacher conference last week for Peyton. His attention span is pretty much zero. Thankfully his teacher knows what’s going on, and has taken the opportunity to do some one-on-one time with him and knows that he has the abilities, and understands what they’re learning, but simply cannot focus when the other kids are in the classroom, to apply it. We all decided that probably this is a result of his medical issues (and further investigation by us has turned up many stories of misdiagnosis of ADD in kids who really have food allergies, one of the main culprits being milk) and have decided to just keep on keeping on until we’ve got some test results back and he’s had his tonsils and adenoids removed.

Speaking of both of those things, we found out later last week that when we make our trip to Jewish on the 5th that we won’t be doing a TON of testing, but we will do a full set of back-prick, scratch-test, allergy testing (as I understand there are around 100 of them). I’m anxious to ask them how accurate they really are, seeing as though his sister tested negative for peanut allergies with the scratch test and blood test (which by the way is not very sensitive) but clearly has a peanut allergy (evident by swelling of the lips, stomach cramping, vomiting, etc). They did warn that we may still have to do some food challenges despite doing the scratch tests. At least we can mark one of those (the milk challenge) off of that list! Our family dr, as well as the rest of us, are anxious (dare I say excited???) to find out what all he really IS allergic to and get onto the path of avoiding those things.

Peyton’s surgery has been scheduled for December 2nd. We will head up to Longmont on the 1st for a pre-op office visit, Peyton will go in for surgery at about 7:15am on the 2nd, and will stay in the hospital for 23 hours for observation. Mom was able to get off from work so that she can keep the girls while we’re gone.

In other news……

Jazlyn had a WONDERFUL parent-teacher conference last week! She is WELL above where they’d like her for her reading abilities, and is even performing tasks that they don’t even expect them to start doing until the second half of the year. She’s really taking to school and is just a sponge right now. We’re trying to give her plenty to soak up while it lasts 

Brylie is just Brylie, a VERY busy little girl (seriously, I should be like a size 5 as much as I chase her around) and very much a 2 year old. The last couple weeks she started to have a couple of tantrums. And over funny things like wanting Mommy to brush her teeth again even though I had just done it 5 mins before hand and was in the middle of breakfast, or the fact that sister handed her her cup instead of Mommy. We just go on about our business, knowing that the more attention we give the fits the more frequent they’ll be. She’s also exerting her desire for some independence – like insisting on getting herself down from her booster at the table, or picking her shoes out by herself. This stage always just cracks me up! She’s also quite social and will “perform” for everyone that will give her even so much as a glance at Walmart, hehe! We sure are enjoying these stages with her much more, knowing that although they can be challenging, they pass so quickly!!!

I have reached my limit for stress/anxiety/worry and made a trip to the Dr this week. Besides heading into winter (which is often a struggle for me anyway), there’s just so much going on, and I don’t have time to let it get a hold of me any more than it already has. We also decided to test my thyroid as I’m having some other symptoms that are leaning toward possible hypothyroidism.

And last, but certainly not least……………..we are supposed to be leaving for my brother David’s wedding tomorrow (Thursday) morning. While I’ve been at the computer, unable to sleep, they have issued a blizzard warning for us from Wednesday evening through Thursday evening. Snow amounts ranging from 3-4” here to 6-12” east of us are in the forecast. PLEASE pray for safe travel for us, I was worried something like this would happen!