August

August came and went (and my August due date too!).  It was filled with doctor appointments, summer camps, batch cooking food, and cleaning and organizing my house.   I started out the month taking Luke to the dentist that performed the tongue tie release.  She had a hard time getting into his mouth but said that it looked like his tongue tie had partially reattached.  That was a huge bummer to hear.  The dentist recommended that I go see a therapist who works with this exact thing.  We took Luke to see Ms. Chatham the following week.  She asked lots of questions, looked in Luke's mouth,  did cranial sacral work and other occupational therapy type things.   She noticed how Luke holds his head (chin tucked in and looking through the roof of his eyes) and recommended stretches to help stretch his neck muscles and hopefully elevate his eye line to horizontal.  Her hope is that if we get him stretched out that we may not need to do an additional tongue tie release.

 

We now have pegs in our wall, up high, to put our tablets on when Luke wants to watch something.  The portable DVD players gets set on the counter too.  This month was better for Luke in terms of following more directions and an I felt his receptive language got better too.  We tried introducing some foods (rice, black beans, GF oats and eventually GF bread).  Luke didn't do well with processed GF products and those came out of his diet just as quickly as they were introduced.  We also re-affirmed his dairy sensitivity.  I gave him some sauce that had cream and butter in it.  He slept poorly that night and had significant brain fog the next day.  The chiropractor confirmed that he had swelling again behind his ears.  No dairy for Luke.  I had allergy panels and a heavy metals test conducted on blood samples that we took from Luke.  He didn't show any allergies (histamine response) but he had very high arsenic!  How in the world was he getting arsenic?  We were given a regimen to help detox him slowly.  I'm hoping its done the trick.

Speaking of allergies and weird food stuff:  Alex.  Oh man.  We had no idea he had allergies.  It all started because we went to our pediatrician to discuss reasons why Alex was still wetting the bed.  It was really bothering him and we wanted to see if there was anything else we could do.  She suggested that we do a 'peptide test'.  This test tests to see if there are peptides (basically, improperly broken down molecules of gluten and casein) in your urine.  If there are, then they could be getting through the intestinal barrier, into your blood and to your brain.  These glutemorphines and caseimorphines can cause all sorts of neurological side effects.  Most notoriously, lighting up your brain like other opiates like heroin or morphine.  

Anyway....  Alex tested very high for both gluten and casein peptides.  Ooomph.  We decided to test to see if he happened to also be allergic to these things. Turns out he was.  He's allergic to wheat, gluten, dairy, casein, eggs, sesame and walnut.  Thankfully all of them were in the 'low' range.  It just seemed strange that we've never really seen a typical reaction (hives, stomach ache, etc).  We took Alex off of all dairy as well (some of us had reintroduced cheese in August).  He had two dry days for the first time ever.   He's had two more dry days in September.  This is going to be a slow process, but I think we'll get there.  

I should mention that the reaction Alex has on his face and arms, pictured above, is from poison ivy.  Poor kid.  We had to get him two steroid creams.  His poor ear was totally swollen and blistered.

We planted a garden in May and Lily's cucumber plant finally produced something we could eat!  Lily was very proud of her cucumber.  Lily was also very proud of all her sewing creations this month.  I enrolled Lily in a sewing camp at Joann's fabric store.  I recognize that I can sew and teach her, but I thought it would be good for her to take a class.  She absolutely loved it!  She made an apron, beach towel, fabric envelope and a backpack.  I wish I could find a sewing class for her during non summer months that was local.  We'll see.

Alex and Elliott did two sport camps in August: basketball and soccer.  I was glad we did basketball because our kids never used our basketball hoop and now they do!  It was great for them to learn the fundamentals of the game. Alex did one last coding camp at UTD focusing on circuits.  It was such a hot week.  I only remember because I had to walk Alex to and from the class and I was hugely pregnant.

Why do I have a bag a peas on my face?  Because a week before my due date, I woke up and my jaw hurt.  It was out of no where.  I scheduled an appointment for the dentist that day.  They took xrays and said there was some inflammation.  They couldn't really tell because I had a crown on the tooth in question.  I was also concerned about taking an antibiotic this late in my pregnancy.  I had my midwife appointment the next morning and decided to ask then if I could take an antibiotic.  All the while still in major pain. (tylenol wasn't doing anything...)  The next day my midwife said I definitely could, so I went to pick up my prescription, but the pharmacy said it hadn't been called in.  I called the dentist only to find they closed early on Tuesdays.  That was an extremely long day and night.  Lots of tears of pain.  I finally got medication but it took a whole day for it to start dulling the pain.  I'll be having it looked at again after the baby comes.

Here I am at 40 weeks and 1 day, going to church. I told everyone that I would go over, and I was right.  Sigh. I was tired but still plodding along.  I made food every day.  Usually doubling things and freezing some.  I was doing laundry every 4 days, going shopping every 3 and cleaning constantly.  All just in case the baby came.  The stinker didn't make her arrival until September 1st, but I'll leave that for a different post.

Last but not least, I got a few helpers lined up to come in and help me with Luke.  I needed some insurance that Luke was getting therapy every day, just in case I wasn't in a place to do it with him.  I found two girls, one in college, in a senior in high school, and trained them both.  It was a daunting task getting everything streamlined so that they could have stuff to easily use for his therapy, as well as setting up a designated space in our house for them to do therapy with him.  They started helping me the week before the baby came.  Luke doesn't seem to mind them.  We'll see what happens.

I should also note that Adam and I went to the temple a bunch in August right before the baby came, since I knew it would be hard to get to the temple after that.  On one particular visit I had question in my mind "Why does the question of Luke's future/progression seem to burden me but not burden Adam?"  I didn't mean it in a spiteful way.  It was earnest because Adam has always been the consummate worrier in our marriage and yet this never seemed to bother him and I wanted to know if he knew something I didn't.  Amazingly I got a clear answer in my head toward the end of the session.  It said, in essence, "This is not his burden to bare.  He has many other things that he needs to deal with.  This is your burden to bare alone.  Everything will be alright because of everything you are doing"  This was so reassuring and yet really surprising.  Everything would be alright because of everything I was doing.  What was I doing?!  I felt like I wasn't hardly doing anything yet, just reading lots of theories and trying stuff.  I felt peace and yet more pressure to press on and keep digging for Luke.