Milk the Allergy

So we've discovered, once again, that Hunter must be allergic to milk. When I nursed him as an infant, he would have bloody stools if I drank too much milk. When I weaned him and he started drinking milk, he had diarrhea. I would go back and forth giving him other things to drink (rice or soy), then eventually revert back to milk. Starting at about age 4, he had non-stop ear infections. We don't know if drinking milk influenced that or not. We finally had tubes put in his ears this summer (again) and had his tonsils and adenoids removed. His life is much improved, but I wonder if all that inflammation and distress was at least partially due to the milk. Then, late this summer he developed some eczema on his hands. I gave him fish oil for a month and it cleared up. Then a couple of months later it came back with a vengeance, with his skin cracking and bleeding. The fish oil helped at first, then not so much. I stopped giving him milk to drink, and within two weeks his hands were nice and smooth again. It must be the milk!

Late Thanksgiving

For no good reason I never did post anything about Thanksgiving. We made a 12-hour drive down to Kissimmee, Florida to meet up with Dean's family, who flew in from Oregon and New Mexico. Admittedly, neither of the car rides was enjoyable for us or the children. But the time there was a lot of fun. On Thanksgiving Day, Grandma Dee treated us to the Magic Kingdom at Disneyworld. Hunter must have thought he was in heaven, and gleefully had a magical day. We knew better than to take Master Kyler, but didn't have any other options for him. He demanded to sit on his throne most of the day (aka Daddy's shoulders), and expended a lot of energy trying to make the rest of us miserable, and fighting against his leash (during the few moments he was off his throne). There were many, many other people with the great idea of spending the holiday there, so the lines were long, but we had fun. We did take a stroller for Kyler, but he wasn't much interested so it mostly carried my purse.

The following day we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. The greatest excitement during the event was when Kyler attempted to climb on Daddy (possibly his shoulders again) just as he was standing up from a sitting position. The result was that Kyler's head landed on the coffee table, which happened to be wicker with a glass top. The top completely shattered. Surprisingly and luckily, Kyler was stunned, but unhurt. The men quickly cleaned up the mess, and Kyler recovered after howling for a while.

We took the occasion to make the announcement to the family that we are expecting a baby. The due date is late June. We are thrilled! I attribute finally being pregnant to the Naturopathic Physician I have been seeing since early this year.

Hunter is the Mancala Master.

Heiroglyphics and More Amaryllis

The amaryllis is in full bloom now, and is gorgeous! It was just in time for our Relief Society's progressive dinner last night, as I was one of the hosts. There are five flowers.

And, since I was hosting, I had to straighten the house up enough to be acceptable, so it was a fine time to take pictures.

Recently we discovered some heiroglyphics around the house, namely on the kitchen counter and the bean bag of all places. Kyler only scribbles, and I thought that surely Hunter was old enough to not do such a thing, so Dean actually crossed my mind as the possible perpetrator, but then I came to my senses and we both approached Hunter about it. He denied it, of course, but the evidence is there, in sharpie no less.

Blooming Amaryllis

So last year I told Dean that I wanted an amaryllis kit for Christmas. It quickly grew leaves, although being at the mercy of Master Kyler, said leaves got twisted Indian burn style more than once and there were casualties. It survived a week in the car as we moved to NC from OR in September, and I put it in the West-facing kitchen window where it gets plenty of sun. Well, it quickly grew all new leaves and a stalk for the blossoms. The three remaining leaves from last year started looking old and tired, so I cut them off. Now it is blooming just in time for Christmas! Beautiful! My mistake was in not turning it as it sat in the window, so it grew to face the sun and became very side heavy, such that it couldn't quite stand on it's own if wasn't leaning against the window or wall. So I've turned it and put it in the dining room with the sun far behind it, and it seems to be correcting itself as it doesn't just topple over now. It's taken a year, but it is paying off.