Update

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Ugh.  Another months-later blog post.  I want to update this blog regularly.  I think about updating this blog regularly.  I scribble half-finished blog posts on the back of grocery lists and college applications.  But actually get them typed and into blogosphere? 

It’s all Hunter’s fault.  Literally.  If I so much as pull the computer out of its case he’s scrambled over and into my lap and is begging “Babaggaa oooooohhhh mamamama meeeeeee?”  (Translated: I want to push allllll the keys and reprogram your computer, now get out of my way and let me at it!)

Anyway.  I’ve had some requests for an update and so I thought I would mash it all into one post.

Four months after leaving palm trees and beachs behind, and three months after moving into our Wisconsin apartment, we’ve settled in pretty well.  I found a new nanny job within a week (!!!) after getting to Wisconsin.  I’m watching only one little boy, a few months younger than H.  Keeping track of only two kids is a far cry (and several decibels quieter) than the six I watched in Florida!  I miss all the action of the family I used to work for, and I really miss the family themselves, but I also enjoy the one-on-one attention I can give with a smaller amount of children. 

Anyway, the job is going well.  The two boys are buddies—actually, they’re more like a really small gang.  They skitter around the house with eyes wide open for the quickest available trouble.  When I catch them unloading the recyclables or gleefully pulling all the tissues out of the box, they exchange glances and then turn vapid smiles on me.  “Who, us?  We didn’t do anything  We just found it like this.”  Riiiiggghhhttt.

I have also officially gone back to school.  I’m working on prereqs right now, hoping to enroll in the local RN program by nest fall.  More, definitely more, will be written about that.

Hunter is – well, complicated.  In my “Wisdom of Turtles” post I talked about the regression he was going through and mentioned food intolerances as a possible culprit.  Turns out it was food related and it was going to get a lot worse.  We went from lethargy and red blotches to vomit, diarrhea so acidic blisters popped out on his bottom, and two pounds lost in a month.  By the time we moved to Wisconsin I had a baby so skinny his shoulder blades poked like chicken wings from under his onesie.  Finally, we found a good pediatrician and under her supervision I started a modified version of the GAPS diet.  http://gapsdiet.com/   (I’ll be writing a more detailed post about GAPS soon.)

It took almost two weeks to see measurable results, but we are finally seeing some improvement.  No more diarrhea (I spend a disturbing amount of time examining poop now), no more acid burns, no more vomit.  He is totally grain-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, and additive free.  He’s also mostly fruit-free and he can only tolerate a limited amount of fiber.  The bad news is I spend all my time in the kitchen.  The good news is I am becoming an extremely creative cook.  The best news is that the chicken wings are gone and the dimples above the diaper are back.

He is still tiny, though.  And we have no real answers for what is going on with him.  Blood tests revealed no measurable growth hormone, but the endocrinologist said that could be merely due to his body being unable to assimilate nutrition.  Allergy tests have come back negative.  It’s discouraging, especially since I feel like a hypochondriac after the allergy tests came back negative.  I’m trying to (literally) trust in gut feelings and realize that even if the tests aren’t conclusive, I can see that he does better on a meat and vegetable diet and that he vomits instantly after eating dairy, etc.  We’re being sent to GI  and hopefully they’ll have some answers.  Next step is to make double sure what he does eat covers all his nutrition needs.   

So, in a few hundred words, that’s what’s going on with us.  There’s more, so much much much more, but that will have to wait for Hunter to go…to…sleep…

 Me?  Sleep?  Hahahahaha!