biopsy results...sort of

I heard from the gastro today. The pathologist in town who looked at Katie's samples thought there was some inflammation, indicating celiac's disease, but wasn't certain. So they sent the sample to the Mayo Clinic. The pathologist there doesn't think she has celiac's.

Okay.

Dr was sure to remind me that this is really kind of inconclusive since she doesn't consume any wheat.

Okay.

Asked what we should do about the fact that wheat and dairy make her vomit, scream and stop sleeping. Apparently it's up to us whether or not to feed it to her. Go for it, don't go for it, whatever.

Okay.

So we learned what from all this? Oh that's right...nothing.

I'm on my third drink.

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Because of the impending winter storm Daddy came home from work early today, which was exciting. Extra play time with Daddy is always fun. Bummer that Kelton's not here this weekend.

For dinner Bugs chowed down. The highlights were scrambled egg and mandarin oranges. For dessert, we had chocolate chip cookies! It was Katie's first taste of chocolate, which we'd been delaying because chocolate can be a reflux trigger. I had to use margarine that doesn't contain milk, so the cookies came out more cakey, but they were super good!




I'm always amazed at how much Katie wears, sits on, and feeds to the dog.




I finished up the quilt I was working on in time for the bday party we were supposed to attend tonight. Supposed to attend. Inches of ice changed our plans. This is the 5th one of these that I've made and while I realize they all pretty much look the same, I think they turn out super cute and go together so quickly. I didn't even start sewing this one until Tue night.


Katie's scope on Wed went well, although we didn't really find out much. Apparently the sphincter that is supposed to close to prevent the acid from coming back up doesn't always close or close all the way. This explains some of the reflux, although she didn't act like it was that big of deal. The tissue in that area looked healthy which means the prevacid is doing it's job. All the other tissues she visualized looked healthy as well, but she did take biopsies to be sure, which won't be back until next week.. Her gastro did mention we might have trouble being certain about the allergies because we do not feed her the offending foods.



Checking blood pressure.



And trying to stay happy while waiting. By the time they took her back it way WAY past breakfast and nearly nap time.


Mimi had come over to hang with Kelton while we were gone. She was all Katie wanted the entire afternoon after we got home.



Check back soon! My last post was #100, so it's time for a giveaway!!

Keeping Busy

Katie's scope is tomorrow and by the grace of God, somehow it's hardly on my radar. I felt pretty anxious before Kelton's tubes and adenoids, but this time I'm managing to not think about it.

I'm a bit preoccupied with this quilt that I'm trying to get done for a special little man who's turning 1 on Friday. Hopefully it'll be all set to wrap and take to his party that evening. Hopefully.



Got pretty annoyed at Walmart earlier this afternoon. It's so hard to shop dairy and wheat free. So. Freaking. Hard. Obviously my mood was not the best to begin with and then the cashier gave me a hard time about my coupons. For some reason she thought that one coupon per purchase meant one per transaction, which is not the case. It is perfectly fine to buy 2 pks of Pampers and use a coupon for each pk, but she wouldn't let me. I knew I was right, but really didn't have the energy to argue.

Say a prayer for this cute little bug tomorrow morning. Pray that maybe someday that could be ice cream or graham cracker smeared all over her face. More than anything in the world, I want normalcy for her. Living wheat and dairy free really isn't.

Not just a gain...a HUGE gain!

Katie packed on 10oz this week! Guess a few days on the farm does a baby good! She ate meat nearly everyday, which might have had something to do with it. Looks like I should be more diligent about getting protein in her.

Last week she was 17lbs 5.5oz (which I rounded up to 6oz for personal sanity's sake) and today we were 17lbs 15.5oz!!



Obviously we're not skinny. That's because while she's at about 3% on the growth charts for weight, she's less than 2% for height. So we're pretty well proportioned and thank goodness because if she looked really skinny, I seriously would have even more trouble dealing.

We seem to have a little ladybug addiction at our house. Since we did the nursery in ladybugs and decided to call her Katie Bug, we basically buy every ladybug item we see (and so does everyone else). Which leads me to the next picture..


Yep, there's 3 giant stuffed ladybugs there.
Courtesy of Mimi, Nana and Lisa.

Since I refuse to take cold showers all the color faded out of my hair. My sister dyed me up again the other night. A few more this time and there's some darker purple in there too, but like the blue, it didn't show up well either. I think I want to try some tangerine colored streaks next time.

Remember Baby Cora? I bought this little sign off etsy during the fundraiser to build a playground in memorial for Cora. It's currently on our fridge, but I bought it to hang in Katie's room. I think it will be good to have this continual little reminder, especially at 3am. It's been a blessing to meet the shop owner, Marcy.


Her etsy shop, Signs of My Life is definitely something to check out. I know I'll be ordering again!

Spring Break!!

We spent the weekend and the first half of the week at Eric's parent's. His brother's family was also there. They have 4 kids and combined with our 2, we had 6 kids that were 6 and under!

On the way there, we stopped at Sonic. Miss Katie had some bites of french fry, which she loved. That afternoon, she started spitting up and it was pretty significant in volume compared to what we've been seeing lately. Eric called Sonic and while their fries are dairy free, they are fried in the same oil as all their other fried foods, most of which contain diary. Duh. Why didn't we think of that? We're usually so on top of these things. I ate fries too, so she had a double whammy. Poor baby.

Finally got to meet our newest little niece. I wore her around in the sling a bit and Eric got to be reminded that not all babies cry nonstop. Perhaps there's a #3 in our future after all.

Plus, Katie really liked her.


On St Paddy's Day we all had matching shirts. I can't believe we managed this picture. Everyone was looking at the camera even! Bet that will never happen again. Eric's creative sister in law put this collage together. I have the same photoshop software, just no idea how to use it.



Turtle Mountain, the company that makes some really yummy dairy free products, including the coconut milk yogurt that Katie and I enjoy, recently introduced a Coconut Milk Beverage. It comes chilled in a 1/2 gallon carton. We've only tried the original and it's really good! I'm so excited because it actually has fat in it, which Katie needs. Rice milk has hardly any and we've decided not to give her soy or almond milk. It is the most like real milk out of all the alternatives. I could even see myself dunking Oreos in it. (They're dairy free - SCORE!)

Saw the gastro today for a weight check. Before the appt, I went through her baby calendar and wrote down her weight for every month. I had orginally started weighing her monthly just for fun. It's easy because our ped's office is just up the road and my mom works there. I'm super glad I have all this info written down, like when she started what meds, when we introduced what foods, when she's slept well, etc. I noticed that her growth came to a pretty dramatic slow down/stop when we started solids about 6mo. She has only grown 1 inch and less than 2lbs in the last 7mo. I really hope the egd and flex sig give us some info as to what's going on. But anyway...We have a gain! I won't know for sure exactly until I weigh her tomorrow at my mom's, but it's looks like at least 3oz!

We have a big night planned for Saturday. It's our anniversay/we survived Katie's first year celebration. Mimi is staying with the kiddos. Now if we can manage to get over these colds in time! Plus poor Eric has an ear infection! :-(

Happy Anniversary and Happy St Patrick's Day!

For Eric and I, it's both!

Two years ago, we had the most absolute perfect day.

This last year has been awesome and challeging at the same time.

We don't have the perfect marriage, but we have it pretty good and I can't imagine traveling the journey of life with anyone else by my side.

Loss

Took Katie in this morning for a weight check. Even took my camera because I wanted a picture of what I was sure would be a gain.

Nope.

Down 4oz. That puts us at 17lbs 6oz. Recall at 11mo, she weighed 18lbs even.

Gonna give the gastro a call, maybe she can put my mind at ease.

I did have a great blog planned out for this morning, a couple cute pictures, etc, but between the weight loss and the disaster that is my house, it's not happening.

Pass it on

Kelton 11mo Dec 2004


Katie 12mo March 2009


Daddy's forehead looks the same when he gets mad. :-)

We have very few pictures of Katie mad like this because she has done so much crying in her short little life that it's often quite stressful for us and the last thing on our mind is taking pictures. We have been teased about how we must be making up all the crying because in all the pictures of her, she is so happy and smiley. She is, in fact, much happier than she used to be. However, this Katie is the Katie we still deal with A LOT. While some of it we think is personality (and we disagree on who she got that from), her tummy isn't right and I know I'm certainly pretty cranky when I don't feel well.

I ran into town yesterday to get a couple bday gifts. We'll be seeing our nieces and nephew in about a week. The newest is almost 3mo old and this will be our first time to meet her. Normally this might give me baby fever, but I'm still having flashbacks from Katie at 3mo, so I'm not quite there yet.


Found this adorable ribbon at Michaels. I'll be shipping it off soon to have hairbows made with it. I'm especially excited for the fat pink one with ladybugs!







In previous blogs talking about Katie's new carseats, I've forgotten to mention that she is still rear facing and will be for quite sometime. Kansas law states that a child must ride rear facing until they are at least 1yr AND 20lbs. At 17lbs 10oz, Katie still has aways to go and will remain rear facing even after reaching 20lbs. Kelton was rear facing until he was about 21mo old. This video shows how differently a child is impacted during a crash when sitting rear facing vs forward facing.

Another huge thing to me is having Kelton in a 5 point harness. I do like that Kansas law is pretty specific about child restraints stating that a child must be 4yrs old to ride in a booster seat. However, there are a lot of tiny little 4yr olds out there who would be much safer in a 5 point harness. At 4yrs old, Kelton was only 33lbs and 36in. He was having a bit of a problem with his junk getting squished, so around his 4th bday, we moved him from a regular convertable seat into a Graco Nautilus. This will harness him to 65lbs and when we're ready converts to a highback belt positioning booster, although that is at least a year away.

Holding Steady

Katie had her one year check with her regular pediatrician yesterday. We totally love him. Some people are just born to work with children and he is obviously one of them. No loss, no gain on her weight. Dr. P said sometimes when you see a child with an chronic illness, they just kind of stop growing, which would explain Katie only growing 1 inch in the last 6mo.

We had some shots too. It upset Kelton more than it did Katie. He doesn't like anyone hurting his sister. Stayed home with the kids today, not sure if it's the upper respiratory crap or the shots, but little lady spiked a fever.

Been working on my TCP order, but can't quite narrow it down yet.





I found a dress at BabyGap that I'm absolutely in love with, but it's $58. Even I have my limits.
Look at it though...
It's almost worth it...





I ordered some hair bows awhile back and they arrived today. Of course we need bows for every outfit. This is the 3rd time we've ordered from her. I bet we have well over 2 dz of these bows. Her prices are reasonable and I've yet to find better bows! And shipping is only $3.50 no matter how many you order!


I took care of this ridiculous mess last weekend. That is Katie's bassinet absolutely overflowing with clothes and this picture was taken early in Dec so you can imagine how much worse it had gotten. I want to say it's a year's worth of clothing, but since miss thing isn't growing this only goes up to about 6mo. I saved one big crate. The rest will be donated or go to OUAC. I'm smart enough to know that kid's clothes is a huge weakness of mine and if we have another, I won't be able to stop myself from buying, which is the reason why I don't save everything.


I've been browsing ring tones again. I feel like it's time for something new for my phone or at least time to secretly add a new one to Eric's phone. About a month ago, I set his phone to play Secret Lovers every time his friend Jason calls. Hahahaha.

I had a bunch of little red dots leftover from making Katie's bday invites, so I used them to make some thank you notes. My goal is to finish them all up this weekend.

breathe in and out...

That's what I've been trying to do since discovering Katie's weight loss last week. Regardless of what some people might try to tell me, I'm sorry, but yes losing 6oz is kinda something to be concerned about. Babies aren't supposed to lose weight.

We're weighing her again tomorrow. Her gastro said to just keep monitoring it. Since we already have the scope scheduled we just need to wait and see what that shows. March 25 seems like an eternity away now.

I'm also a bit concerned about how short she is. We're not tall people, but still I would think she'd grow more than 1 inch in a 6mo time span. The gastro checked her thyroid which came back normal, so who knows that the deal is.

I think Momma might need a little retail therapy. I've been stopping myself from putting in a TCP order, but now might be the time.

Got another new carseat. Easy E decided he really didn't like Kelton's old seat(the brown and black leather one). I was sick of hearing him swear at the seat and honestly was not enjoying buckling her into it myself either. After yet more deliberation, instead of another Evenflo Triumph, I went with a Britax Marathon. More expensive, yes, but I did save over $80 by stacking coupons. She will also be able to sit in this seat until she is probably 6 years old. It works much better in the Avalanche than the Triumph did. We're both happy with it and I think Katie is too.



Oh yea and Katie is BANANAS for bananas! :-)