The Twins.

These are Reilly's monkeys.. or as far as Reilly knows, this is his monkey. I haven't thought to attach him to a "lovey", or any sort of other transitional object, it just didn't cross my mind. However, he has been particularly fond of his sock monkey lately, he likes to cuddle it when he is being held, hold him while he is being read to, and although he doesn't pay much attention to him when he is sleeping at night, he likes to play with him in his crib in the morning. The 8-12 month section of "the book" mentioned that you should have two of whatever your child's "transitional object" becomes, god forbid anything should happen to one, or it needs to be washed, etc. I glazed over that section because.. if you lose it- you get over it, or if you really love it you find a way to reconnect.. yes, I still have Sleeper, Jeff will no longer allow him in the bed, but he is very close by on a bookshelf.. and sometimes sneaks into the bed with us. I can't tell you how many family members had to priority mail that bear back to me, or how many times my grandma had to restuff and sew him up after one stuffed animal tragedy or another. However, Jeff read this section and insisted we have a second monkey.. and considering I have to pull teeth (or threaten their existence) just to get him to read a baby book, I definitely don't want to hinder any motivation. So.. Reilly has two monkeys! Rhonda is the best and picked up the second one at Cracker Barrel this week! As of now, I think he can tell the difference between the two because I experimented multiple times, and each time he chose the original, however.. original is going to be hiding in the closet for a while, while monkey #2 absorbs Reilly's smell, love, etc, and they will just continue to rotate for all of eternity. Until I die an old woman and Reilly is going through my things and finds out I lied to him his whole life about his beloved sock monkey..

A is for Anaphylaxis.

In December I gave Reilly a small bite of ice cream, that same night his face broke out in bumps, but he was also being held by a woman with too much perfume on at a Christmas dinner so I didn't put the two together. In January he got another bite, same rash-so.. no more ice cream. A week later he got mash potatoes, which came with a rash all over his face, red eyes, and eventually welts around his eyes.. and a realization that he might be allergic to dairy. We mentioned to his pediatrician and he said that it sounded like a dairy/cow's milk allergy, and also that he was allergic to dogs due to allergic reactions whenever Max (His aunt and uncle's dog) was around, but no other dogs.. weird. He said if he had a reaction again, just give him some benadryl, but wanted to have him tested for any other allergies just to avoid a worse reaction in the future.

A few weeks ago we had him tested, thought we were just confirming a dairy allergy, no big deal. The did a "prick test" which was AWFUL! It included a tray of little pricks of the allergens pressed into his back, about 10 of them. Within minutes the at one point millimeter sized pricks were almost inch long white welts on his back! Ew.. then the doctor returned to confirm that not only was Reilly allergic to dairy, and not allergic to dogs (just Max), he was also allergic to wheat, soy, eggs, and peanuts. Oh my gosh!! So what is he going to eat? Well right now it's very limited.. he pretty much eats vegetables and fruits, oatmeal although it has a "trace of wheat" and a very small amount of baby food meats that don't have any allergens in them. Not going to lie.. this sucks! We'll manage.. but.. it sucks. Fortunately all except for the peanut allergy should go away by the time he is 4, granted we are very strict about not letting him eat any of them. The peanut allergy he will always have, he is not the type that will go into anaphylactic shock if someone opens a jar in the same room as him, but if he eats a peanut containing product, or if someone else does then touches him, then we'd better have the epi pen ready. Yesterday we had his blood work done.. HORRIBLE, thankfully my dad and Rhonda came along because considering how easily I take a needle myself (not very), there was no way I would be able to hold Reilly down while they drew blood from him. The blood work will determine how allergic he is to each thing, and which could be more dangerous.. crossing my fingers that most of them are not that bad and he can still eat one or two. Otherwise.. 3 more years is not that long.

The other good news is, I never knew how easily replaceable some things were in food.. eggs can be replaced with.. not wanting to look it up right now, but vinegar, yeast.. and other stuff. So that's manageable. And we found a lot of cookbooks on the FAAN website for some really good looking stuff! The not so fun news is that cow's milk cannot be replaced with soy milk when we wean him off of nursing, and rice milk is just not as nutritious so his doctor would prefer I keep him on breast milk as "long as I can".. ugh. So my plan is to still wean him from nursing at one and then just pump after that. Absolutely no offense to anyone who continues to nurse after a year, it's just not for me. And the other fun, but not fun news is.. we are THINKING of getting pregnant again sometime in the near/distant future, however.. in order for Reilly to get his milk, which takes 500 calories a day from me, and baby #2 to get it's nutrients, another 300 calories from me.. I'm pretty much going to have to eat a house everyday of my next pregnancy. Which is exciting because I have a real excuse to be fat.. but not exciting because.. ew... fat.

So anyway.. that is the allergy update. Took a while for me to post about it because I couldn't think of a way for it not to sound like something horrible, which.. it really isn't, we just have to make a few adjustments. He is perfectly healthy and happy, which I am thankful for everyday, he just can't eat a few things. And if anything.. it's just one more motivation to make sure he doesn't consume unhealthy or processed foods.

Hide and Seek

While most of you may be teaching your children sign language and how to read.. my kid is a one man circus show. His "tricks" include making piggy noises and dancing on demand, and now.. hide and seek. We're still working on sticking his tongue out. He's got the rest of his life for literacy!

We played this game for about 5 minutes before I thought to video it, so he was pretty much over it.. but you get the gist.

Laughing Baby.

THIS is my absolutely favorite thing in the universe!

Mr. Independent

Since I was pregnant I have been trying to think of ways to make my children as independent as possible. My cousin, Jen, has three amazing daughters and they are all so independent. She lives in California, so I don't see them often, but we were there a few times last year for the holidays and my Nana passing :(. I remember sitting at the table one morning watching as the three of them, 2, 4, and 6 at the time came downstairs and worked together to make their own breakfast.. frozen egos with syrup and milk. They were able to get their own dishes, get their own egos, the oldest daughter got the milk for the younger two.. AMAZING!! Minutes later they got themselves dressed and were able to pick out their own clothes, despite her fashionable advisement. As I watched those girls I decided THAT was my goal, and I'm starting as early as possible with small things such as routines, keeping Reilly's dishes as low to the ground as possible, and although it may be a disgusting mess and take three times as long- not baby'ing him while he is already trying to do things on his own.

Today was particularly frustrating though and it's just getting harder, but I know the end result will be well worth it! I should have known he was going to be a fun day when I offered him his pacifier while we were sleeping this morning and he swatted at my hand, took the pacifier, and put it in his own mouth. He has been doing this new thing lately where he slaps the food right off the spoon when you try to feed him.. and he is quick! It's so frustrating because I want him to eat so that he getting enough nutrition, but as soon as I pull the spoon out of the bowl his hand is in the air like he is about to spike a volleyball. I decided to go ahead and start letting him try to feed himself, he likes to take the spoon, turn it around backwards, and chew on the end- I even tried giving him the spoon backwards, but the kid cannot be tricked. He did get a few bites in, but considering he is already 6oz shy of staying on his growth curve for weight, don't want him to fall behind at all. Meanwhile, I gave him some bananas and cut up puffs- he is still working on the self feeding, but it's so cute. So of course he is COVERED in food, his high chair is covered in food, I am covered in food.. massive mess, but that's fine.. I'm sure their will be messier days in parenthood, so I stripped his clothes off and washed him down, then took him out of the high chair and set him in the floor for a minute while I wiped the high chair. Earth to Sarah.. he can crawl now, and of course he went straight for the dogs' water dish.. where else would he go? When I called his name to stop him, it startled him and he fell into the dish and started crying, so I'm covered in puree'd food, holding a soaking, naked, screaming baby with no clue where to go next. It was pretty hilarious in hindsight!

Fortunately after two meals of making a mess and making pterodactyl noises at me when I tried to feed him, he was pretty willing to be fed at dinner time. I'm excited to start giving him little pieces of food, but can't go ahead with that until after he sees an allergist (he is allergic to dairy and pet dander.. so they want to test him so we know what else he may react to before giving him foods), which he was supposed to do today but they had to cancel his appointment, so we will wait another week! But I did give him some green beans at dinner tonight, he didn't seem too stoked.