It's almost time

Hard to believe Ty is almost a year already. This year has flown by, it truly feels faster than with Mav. I suppose I'm busier now and that makes the days fly (sometimes crawl). 

Next week I return to work. I am extremely thankful for Canadian maternity leave; 52 weeks paid at 55% of your regular earnings. If your lucky enough to have an employer who tops you up even better. Me not so much. Only the 55% here. It makes living tight but we get by and soon we will be back to our regular income. 

I've felt ready to return for a few weeks now, but funny enough the closer it gets the less ready I am. I'm going to miss these days terribly. 

So good bye pajama days, play dates, and afternoon naps. 

Hello alarm clock, paychecks, make up and the outside world. 

Ty did and half day at daycare last week and has another on Thursday. I have no real worries for him aside from naps and generalized worry with food. 

Fingers crossed Mav adjusts well to having Ty join him at his safe place. Daycare has been his get away and I really hope he's ready to share. 

But first we have to plan the birthday party. This Saturday, a week early we are celebrating and so this week will be all about getting ready. So much to do, so little time. 

Happy Halloween! Join the Teal Pumpkin Project!

Halloween is here! A night full of ghosts and ghouls and candy and fun! 

I hope every one has a safe and happy Halloween. And speaking of safe, have you heard about the teal pumpkin project? It seems to be getting a lot of news coverage as well showing up all over Facebook and Pinterest. 

If your wondering what it is I'll break it down for you. 

Paint one of your pumpkins teal and have it visible to trick or treaters to symbolize allergy awareness and that you have non candy treats available. It's fairly simple. All you need to do is run out to the dollar store and grab some knick knacks like pencils, stickers, glowsticks, spider rings, playdoh etc. you don't have to spend much but as a mother of an allergy kid I can tell you it means a lot to have these things available. 

Luckily for us this year Ty is too young to understand all the candy that's there. He won't really miss out on anything. But next year, next year will be interesting. Since we only go see a few of the neighbors I can easily make up treat bags and hand them out in advance, but I fully plan on plastering my neighborhood with teal pumpkin signs the whole month of October. I've been spamming my Facebook friends all month ;) because let's face it allergies are on the rise and Ty is not the only kid out there so if me spreading awareness helps make another kids night more enjoyable then mission complete. 

I remember how growing up each Halloween night when we got home my brother and I would dump all our candy on the floor and separate out all the choclate. Every year my brother would be in tears as my mother had to take all his choclate away and trade with me for things he could eat. Sure he got candy in exchange but he was so upset everytime. I really don't want to have to do that. It had to be heartbreaking for her as well. 

Teal pumpkin project can help avoid that. Allergy kids deserve to trick or treat the same as the rest of them. 

That's it. That's all. Just doing my bit to help spread awareness :) now it's time for a nap in preparation for tonight! 

2 ingredient pancakes

Today Ty got to eat pancakes! 

He gobbled them right up (as he does with most food) and ate three. I'm sure he would have eaten more but I wanted to save two to test how they freeze and thaw. 

Apparently different versions of these pancakes can be found all over the internet so I'm not really sure who gets the credit. I found them via Facebook. 

Seriously tho these are delicious, I tried them myself and a perfect addition to our FPIES cook book. 

And simple. Because remember I can not cook worth my life. 

Beat 2 eggs and mix with two small mashed (or one large) bananas. Cook in non stick frying pan or use a safe oil if available. 

That's it. Really it's that easy. 

The first couple I made looked pretty rough but by the last one I had figured out how they would cook and flip. 

the monster in my house

You know the one, he's approximately 3 feet tall, sandy blonde hair and blue eyes.
Often referred to as Mav.

I don't know how much more this I can take, I am pretty much at my wits end with him. I feel like I have not done anything except for yell and and timeout and more in over a week. I don't know why, but all of a sudden he's turned into an absolute psycho child. Dare I even say it.. an asshole. Yup I said it, it is the truth. He is being so aggressively bad that I can barely stand being in the same room with him at this point. I find myself making excuses to leave him with hubby any chance that I get so that I can get away. I need to for my own sanity.

And then I feel guilty for feeling like this with my child.
 

I'm pretty sure he is purposely trying to get me angry at this point. Why I'm not too sure, jealous maybe of the time and attention Ty needs?

 I tried taking him out just me and him to see if that would help. We went to the movies we had a lot of fun, but as soon as the movie was over it was time to go home he turn back into his psychotic self epic tantrum battles hitting screaming you name it it's happening.
 

Time outs don't work. Time ins don't work. Tossing toys into the "garbage" doesn't work (punishment for throwing toys or causing harm with the toy). Yelling doesn't work. Talking in a serious tone doesn't work. Talking in a polite "please stop that etc" tone doesn't work. Sending him to his room doesn't work. Nothing works.

It's hard to give positive reinforcement when there is nothing positive going on.

So I guess starting tomorrow I'm just going to stop yelling. I'm not sure what I'm going to do but clearly he's trying to get a rise out of me.

Terrible two's my ass... this had better not be what three's are going to be like.

A FPIES update

Today October 14, 2014 is the very first Global FPIES Awareness day.

    The boys wearing the shirt we won.

Ty is also 11 months old today so it only seems fitting I post an update. 

At 11 months Ty is 19lb 4oz and 54cm long. We have been monitoring his growth monthly since meeting the specialist and despite being petite still I am very pleased with his progress. He is now the same weight Mav was at 12 months. Still on the smaller side of average but average none the less. 

He now has 11 foods we can call safe; sweet potatoes, butternut squash, plums, pears, lamb, quinoa, white potato, carrots, broccoli, banana, and apple. We retried his soy formula and are now using that to supplement as well for convienence (aka freedom). We have two food trials we are working on, black beans and avocado both are looking very promising. 

Unfortunately we had to remove peaches from his list of safes as they seemed to be causing some chronic symptoms. He was having increased reflux, excessive hiccups, stomach pains and poor sleep. All of which improved since stoping. I hope to re try the peaches again in the spring or summer and see if we can get them back. It may be ambitious but fingers crossed. He still has three trigger foods (rice, oats, milk) that cause acute reactions. 

I have been focusing on finger foods so that Ty can practice his pincher grasp as well as chewing. Now that he has a more varied diet it finally allows us to work on those developmental milestones and catch up. 

Focusing on that black bean... 

Cheecha puffs and freeze dried fruit have made life seem more normal, we have a quick easy no prep snack that I can carry in my diaper bag or purse. 

Air puffed potatoes! Canadian made!

  Enjoying his snack :)

This little guy seriously loves food so much it breaks my heart at times. We have been making such good progress tho and I have to remind myself of that at times. Some days the emotional toll hits me. Hits me hard. I would love to just be "normal" and feed him as I please. To go out somewhere and grab a bite and offer him a bite without the stress of a potential reaction. Even just doing the food trials is nerve wracking enough to want to hide away from it all. I worry excessively and watch the clock countdown to the two and three hour mark post meal before I dare breathe. Even trying different variations of a safe food is nerve wracking, you never know if the protein component is the same in each. 

I have been reading blog posts and stories all day, taking a glimpse into the lives of the other FPIES families. We are in a good place, I know that. There are many others more complicated with more triggers and less safes. It helps level my head a little but most of all it makes me feel for those families. Together we are getting through this, supporting one another, sharing recipes, tips, resources and sometimes just words of encouragement. 

Going forward the plan with Ty is to see his specialist as well as an allergist in December. I had expressed concern about Ty having IgE allergies, nuts especially since I developed that allergy while pregnant with him so the plan is to have him tested. Our specialist was ok with me taking the lead in planning our foods but did want us to try chicken so that will be coming up at some point. I return to work next month so the food trials will lessen as we will only have weekends to do them. That will be frustrating but we should have a good list of safes by then and it will give me time to play around with recipes and give his gut a little time to relax. 

Breastfeeding will continue as long as it needs to...  More on that later tho. 

an apple a day ...

What about 5 apples a day? 

Mav is eating apples like a power house. The one day he ate 5 or 6! Little bugger keeps sneaking them from the garage. 

We had a great time apple picking this year! Last year we combined our apple picking with the pumpkin patch and really only picked a dozen at most. This year I have plans for those apples, plans I had better hurry up with before Mav eats them all. 

Next year should be even more fun when Ty is big enough to walk around and pick apples too. Honestly these cute little moments make my heart want to explode. 

Next fall adventure? Pumpkin patch; hopefully this weekend with my nephew and nieces if the weather holds up! 

Our 18lb bag of apple goodness. Notice the bite missing ;) 

Flashback to last years apple adventures: 

Same hat ;) 

Throwback Thursday - Remembering Daisy

Tonight I was looking back at old Instagram photos and found myself staring at the ones with Daisy. I still carry her dog tag on my keychain, part nostalgia, part reminder. There is definitely a piece of my heart that belongs to her, misses her even but I still have not forgiven her. I truly hope one day I am able too. 

So many memories, I choose the good ones <3 

 One of my very first Instagram posts. 

Always wanting to be close.

* I am unable to link back to my posts about Daisy and how she came to leave our family. At first I was going to add them in later but I think instead I am just going to leave as is.

Hey Friday :)

Our week....


1- We have all been sick. Picture a little 30lb two year old hugging the toilet barfing his brains out. It happened. How he knew to hang over the toilet like that I'm not sure but it was the saddest yet cutest and funniest thing all rolled into one. If I had of had my phone on me I am not ashamed to say there would have been a photo taken. Hubby and I luckily did not have it so bad, Ty seemed to be feeling rough but he also had a more mild case.

2- Super exciting moment when I found these freeze dried pears at Walmart! Portable, easy access snacks are something Ty's menu is lacking. #fpiessucks Not only were these snacks single ingredient (yay pears!), portable, and cheap ($1 a pack) but they are also a snack that the boys can both share and that makes me crazy happy :)

3- Tomorrow is one of the big mom to mom consignment sales, I am sharing a vendor number with our cousin so I have been digging thru drawers, pulling out toys, labelling and packing up as much as I can and hopefully I will make some money! Ty felt the need to help naturally... That boy loves "helping" with laundry. Hopefully I don't spend more than I make tomorrow...

4- I made a big step this week and purchased cloth diapers. I need to get liners for them so we haven't used them yet but hopefully by next Friday I will be able to say we have started them. I'm very excited and nervous. Nervous about the potential mess and laundry, but excited to save some tons of money.

5- Family nature walk today to a local conservation area. There are birds that will land right on you if you bring bird seed so we decided to show Mav, poor guy was not having it. As soon as they fluttered  their wings he would panic. He still had a great time and ran all over the trails, it took us almost 2 hours to get to the end. Hopefully we get the chance to go back again before it gets too cold.

Wish me luck tomorrow! This sale is crazy busy, I already scouted out some things I want to grab so we will be arriving early to get into line.

Linking up with

 Have a good weekend friends :)

The Last...

I saw this idea over at Sarah's blog today and thought it would be a good ice breaker to step back into blogging. We've had a lot going on here so the blog has had to be put on the back burner,  but no shame in that sometimes you just have to focus on real life right? Hoping things are settled enough to get back on track, and I have a few different posts half written to post. So here goes...

The Last...

Person I texted was my childhood bestie. We have been friends since becoming neighbors at four years old, we go periods of time without contact sometimes but lately have become even closer as she has now become a mom for the first time. We were talking about all sorts of baby things including how her stupid doctor tried to lecture her about breastfeeding (her doctor is an idiot she is doing just fine) and about the upcoming  children's consignment sales this weekend and next.

Movie I watched was The Lorax (for the 100th time) with Mav this afternoon. Thankfully our movie selection has now expanded past The Croods, Ice Age and Nemo ( I probably know it start to finish word for word). He is loving the Lorax and is pretty into the Cars movie too.

Person I talked to on the phone was the receptionist from our doctors office. I don't talk on the phone much.

The last package to arrive... I honestly can not remember the last package we received. That's sad! someone should send me something lol our last piece of mail was a bill of course.

Outfit I wore was my teal stretchy pants, stripped shirt and pullover sweater. It was an awful day the weather was rainy, then cool and windy, then it turned humid and muggy. Eventually the sun came out. Pretty much needed all seasons of clothing today alone.

Thing I cooked was toast. Does that count? If not then dinner last night which was hot dogs and beans. Ha ha def nothing exciting its a low key week for meals around here.

Thing I ate was my cheeseburger and poutine from Harveys for dinner. Again low key week.

Picture I took on my iphone was of myself and Mav cuddling in his bed during nap time. Poor little dude had just puked and was feeling extra lovey. I was hoping for a super cute picture but that didn't happen lol

Show I watched was technically Toopy and Binou since I watched it a bit getting Mav ready for bed, but the last show I actually sat down and watched for myself was Big Brother last night.

Game I played on my iphone was Farmville 2. I play that shit multiple times a day, its my go to when breastfeeding Ty of just when bored.


And that's it :) time for bed for me, I am hoping to get a decent sleep and not get sick myself!

Good bye summer

We will enjoy you while we still can! 

Hey Friday

Ok, I admit Friday really has no significance to me since I'm home on maternity leave; but everyone always does Friday posts and I wanted to link up too!

ONE
 

I am in love with these Alex and Ani bangles. I just learned what they were (probably really late on that one but remember home with a baby isolated from the world). I have been checking out their website and definitely will be putting a few on my Christmas list as well as dropping hints along the way. It looks like we have two stores fairly local that sell them too so I shouldn't have to order online.

 

TWO

 

I had my second third fiftieth follow up allergy testing on Tuesday. This was to test after my reaction I had at my moms six weeks ago. Turns out it was not cross contamination after all and I actually have something called Oral Allergy Syndrome. Yay me.... So not really. Now I can add raspberries, blueberries and blackberries to my list of things I can not eat, but wait because I only have to avoid them if they are not cooked apparently. I guess this syndrome is not the same type of allergy and should only be oral symptoms and not lead to anaphylaxis and when the food is cooked the proteins break down and you don't react. I still have no intention of eating them cooked or not.

THREE

Mav had his final soccer practice and received his medal for participation. He was so excited and he likes to wear it around the house whenever he can get his hands on it. I am not sure yet what we will do with it but obviously being his first medal ever it is something we will keep forever.

 

 

FOUR

 

Ty has had some crazy bed head hair going on most of the week. It is ridiculously cute. Part of me hopes it is a sign of what is to come with his hair, Mav has such flat hair that it would be fun for Ty to be a little out of control.

 

 

FIVE

Mav continues to be a handful these days but we still are managing to get a few cute moments in between the chaos. This morning he was super excited to see a cement truck across the street so hubby took him out on the front step to watch. The rest of the day was not so sweet so I'm glad I caught the moment.

 

 

Happy Weekend!

Check out some more blogs linking up here:

Mary had a little lamb... and it was delicious! FPIES update

Ty is 9 months old this week so I thought it was a good time to post a FPIES update. That and the fact that we have recently added a meat to his menu!

Yup that's right, Lamb has been added to the menu. I'm pretty happy and relieved that our first meat was a safe one, I am hesitant to trial the chicken and turkey like the specialist wants. As I mentioned recently we saw the specialist in July and were given a list of suggestions that included lamb, chicken, turkey and carrots. In addition to the foods we also discussed trying a soy based formula to give us a fall back not only in the event of emergencies, but also just to be able to get out of the house say for a date with the hubby. Ty nurses so often I have not had any luck with pumping. My supply is most definitely not the same as it was with Mav.

So we started with the soy formula and things were looking great. That is until I realized that he had developed a rash. It was mostly on his torso, little pink and flesh tone bumps that were raised and could be felt with your hand.

They almost looked like little zits. I kept an eye on them and watched for other symptoms but there was nothing else. Eventually on day 9 of the trial (four days on, 2 day break and 3 more days on) I called the doctor and he suggested I stop until it cleared just to be safe. Total downer. I was so upset at the idea of losing the formula that was looking so promising. Ty has only had acute reactions so far, I was a bit naïve about the possibility of a chronic reaction. Our doctor also had said he didn't fully believe chronic reactions were really FPIES but obviously he believes enough that he had us stop.

After waiting over a week for the rash to clear without any improvements hubby revealed he had been washing Ty's clothes with the regular detergent.  My spirits were lifted and after rewashing all his clothes we are now rash free. I'm very nervous to bring back the soy but also feeling very optimistic that the rash was not FPIES related. Fingers crossed!

Because of the rash we lost some valuable trial days, but went ahead and started lamb even though the rash was still present. At first Ty did not seem able to tolerate the texture of the meat and I instantly began trying to come up with a back up protein plan that did not include meat. However I discovered after the lamb cubes thaw they will turn into a pate like paste so long as I add water when heating it up. Once I realized this the rest of the trial was smooth sailing. We mix it with squash, sweet potatoes or peaches to hide the gamey taste. 

so good he's licking the plate clean lol

The one downside of the lamb I have noticed is that it makes the poor guy constipated. We have had to start giving him prune juice on occasion (luckily he had prune juice prior to his reactions so I felt ok without doing a trial).

Today we started quinoa. I had a bag of it in the pantry that was still good and figured out how to grind it into a flour and make my own baby cereal. I am a little extra nervous since Mav is on holidays from daycare this week but I don't feel like we can afford to not trial this week so here we go. Quinoa seems to have a high pass rate in the fpies community, and if we pass it then it will offer us a lot of versatility as well as the high nutritional value of it.

I am thinking of changing up how we do our trials, we never were given an outline of what we should be doing and I sort of just decided the time frame and break period based on what others were doing in the support groups I am in. I recently noticed someone mention they did 5 days of one food followed by a 5 day break where they introduced another and then went back to the first food for another 5. It got me thinking and I am going to try doing it but in 4 day groupings. If we find Ty has a chronic reaction to something we obviously will have to go back to the other way of doing it but this way should allow us to conquer more foods in the limited weeks I have left before returning to work.

So in summary we are on day 1 of quinoa and will trial that for the next four days; during our four day break I am going to introduce pears. After pears we will try carrots and retry the soy formula. Depending how the timing works out we may get a chance to try one of the other meats before our next appointment, but I am also not worried about rushing into them. Avocado is also near the top of the list for upcoming trials.

Our current safes include:
Lamb, Sweet potato, Butternut squash, peaches and black plums

Current triggers:
Dairy, Oats, Rice

Unknowns:
Soy, and Quinoa

It feels good to see that written out and have a reminder that our safe list is almost doubled our amount of triggers. It gives me hope, we can do this.

Good bye carpet!

Flooring installation is currently underway! Can't wait to see it!!

Our morning was spent outside and now that they are in the final stretch we are trapped upstairs. Luckily it's nap time 

Mav enjoyed his outdoor lunch, it took some convincing to get him into the "baby chair" lol

Before and after pictures next week! 

We have the family picnic/reunion this weekend so should be fairly busy. 

Hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Oh Hey August!

Wow. I can hardly believe it is August already and summer is almost over!

The weather here lately has been a mixture of summer and fall already. I love it.
I love fall, but lately this mixture has been a perfect combination with cool mornings and evenings yet warming up for summer fun mid day.

I have a plan for August. So much has been going on lately, and so much is coming up but when life gets busy I tend to think more about my blog posts than actually write them...

So this month I am going to aim to be on here every day. Not writing every day, unless of course I feel like it but being on here. Reading posts and commenting. I've been slacking all around lately and I have some new blogs I'm following and bookmarked that I want to catch up on.

So let's play catch up with July shall we?

I took the boys to my moms for a few days, the trip went better than expected but of course I could have used another holiday afterwards. My mom is great with the boys but I was still flying solo at night time and sleeping in a strange bed so I was pretty exhausted. We spent every day swimming either at my Aunt's pool or the beach, Mav got an up close and personal tour at the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) station where my mom works out of. One of the officers gave him a little badge and hat to take home and let him climb in a car.

                             Both kids love the beach :) 

My brother was visiting at the same time as us and let Mav sit on his motorcycle. Kid was obsessed and pretty much worships him now! 

Officer MV reporting for work! Gonna go catch some bad guys!

Ty had his first appointment with his FPIES specialist. I feel pretty good about the doctor who is a pediatric GI. He has great bedside manor, speaks to you as an equal and his outlook on trials is great. Sort of we never know unless we try kind of attitude.  He has been working with FPIES for thirty years I think he said, and he runs a clinic which we will be attending on a regular basis. Our next appointment is in September, in the meantime we are supposed to trial lamb, chicken, in hopes of gaining a protein source and carrots. I assume the carrots will be an easy pass just because we have done well with veggies so far, I will probably wait a bit to try them tho because Ty's menu is very orange right now. We tried lamb for the first time yesterday and will again today. I'm not sure if we will continue because he is having a hard time with the texture, makes sense since despite his age he really isn't eating much foods yet. I'm thinking of going rogue and trying avocado and maybe some quinoa for protein instead.

Enjoying some plums :)

Oh and we did try a soy based formula for supplementing but despite Ty not having an acute reaction like his other triggers we had to stop it. He developed a rash which may have been unrelated or coincidence but to be safe we will re try it later just in case it is a sign of a chronic fail. **update since starting this post  I have found out hubby has used regular detergent with Ty's clothing, the rash may be from laundry so fingers crossed we rewash and it goes away!

On the topic of FPIES; we have decided that Mav also had FPIES but was lucky enough to have one if not two triggers. I spoke with the specialist about his previous banana reactions and he suggested we try again. I was very hesitant, for one Mav is older and a reaction would be more upsetting for him, but a reaction would also mean an official diagnosis. On a whim I bought a few bananas while at the grocery store and we went for it... and he passed! He was sooo happy! The first day I peeled the banana without him seeing it and gave him half, I didn't want him to see it and react and then think he could eat bananas. He's been so good at knowing not to eat them. Day two I went ahead and gave him a banana, skins at all. His little face lit right up and he excitedly exclaimed "me eat?!" "me eat nanna mama?" " me monkey now!!" 

My monkey watching cartoons and snacking on his newest treat!

Seriously cutest thing ever. He isn't crazy about the texture so he wont eat the whole thing but he's happy and I no longer have to worry about him accidently eating one.

 Oh I know there was more about July but that's the other thing that happens, you forget!

So onto August... probably the most exciting thing to be happening here (and very soon if goes as planned) is the removal of the nasty carpets on the main floor! I wrote a very informative email to our property manager about Tys allergies and they agreed to replace it with plank flooring. I was so estatic when I read that approval email that I was on the verge of shouting, crying and dancing all at once. I honestly cant wait until we buy our own place but at least in the meantime we can have better looking floors! Before and after photos to come!

We also have hubby's family picnic to look forward to. Sort of a mini reunion sort of thing, typically there would have been a very large gathering of Italian for a two day bocce tournament and feast but this year things are a little more low key. That is happening next weekend so we will be pretty busy and have a houseful of guests. Both hubby's brothers and their spouses are staying with us. unfortunately his sister and her family are unable to attend. I'm pretty disappointed I was hoping for some nephew snuggles.

Hubby's birthday is also coming. That won't be too exciting lol but may as well mention it.

And of course we will just be enjoying the rest of the summer.

This post has taken me multiple days to write and attach photos. See this is why nothing ever gets posted. My life is chaos ;)

until next time!