Well, by the time you read this post, I should be well on my way home.  It is a little crazy thinking that you can fly across the country and back again within the same week.  I am so grateful for the day and age in which we live.  As much as I enjoyed graduation and Virginia, I am a West Coast girlie.  I cannot wait to get home to the redwood trees and the beaches that I love.

Do you feel that way too?  Not so much about the land, but about people, your people.  I am glad to go home to my people.  There is nothing like being away to help you recognize how much you love and enjoy what and who you have.  My husband is amazing!  He is an amazing man!  I could not do what I do without him!!  Right before I left, he told the children, “No one is going anywhere while mother is away.  No friends, no outings, no staying late after school.  While your mother is away, we are all in survival mode, because without her we cannot survive!”

It was sweet, to be sure, and it made my heart sing to think that he feels that way.  But the truth is, he could survive without me.  It would be difficult and require a lot of growth and thinking and planning differently but they could do it.  I have faith in them!!  But I am also glad that I do not have to.  I really do love my people.  They are MY people, as much as I struggle with all of their attitudes and tantrums.  (Because we all have them right?!)

I am so very excited for Mother’s Day!!!  I get two missionary phone calls!  I love seeing how much their experiences are helping them to grow (missionary, college, marriage–on the horizon—–all of it!).  Motherhood is the hardest, and best thing I have ever done with my life.  On days like Mother’s Day, or this trip, where I have time to sit back and really take inventory of the gifts and the people the Lord has blessed me with, I just stand in awe that I have been allowed to be a part of it in some small way (in the case of my children and my spouse, in a large way).  I get to see them in just a few hours!

I imagine that is how our Father in Heaven feels about us, except more.  He is so excited for each of us to ‘write our letter home’ through that phone conversation we call prayer.  And when it is our time to cross the veil and return to see Him, I’ll bet He is excited to see us, even if we aren’t so excited to see Him.  He has a little the advantage, I would think, with a constant video cam into our lives and thoughts, but I’ll bet the physical separation is still very real to Him and He is glad to have each and everyone of us Home!

Home is not imaginary, it is real.  Those who proclaim that all homes are the same, two mothers or two fathers doesn’t matter to the child, they just have not experienced the true power that comes from one man and one woman committed to each other, their children and God.  There is safety there.  There is peace.  There is joy.  That is what each of us is trying to create, to the very best of our ability.  With the Lord’s help, we can do that.  It will not be perfect, but it will be as close as we can get until we reach the other side of the veil.

If you haven’t read this book—Daughter of a King,, then you should!  It is one of my very, very favorites and reminds each and every one of us of our purposes here in mortality and the feelings we will have when we return Home!

This CD is awesome too (by Jenny Phillips)!

I will try to post this week all about my trip and visits with my two oldest children (now grown men….sheesh ……..they do that fast!).

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The other day I realized that May is my busiest month, ever!  It is crazy the things we have done over the past years in the month of May:

• 2009  Slim graduated high school and jr. college
• 2010  Spanky graduated high school and jr. college, Slim left on his mission
• 2011  (Spanky left for his mission in August—so I think we were finding out where he was going in     May?)  Also, I was in my 6 month of pregnancy with our eighth son.  I was trying to remember why this May would have been busy??  Then I remembered that this is when I had to start doing weekly non-stress tests with the pregnancy because I was of ‘advanced maternal age’—–lovely!  It was busy!
• 2012  Slim comes home from his mission, Scuff receives his Eagle Scout, graduates from high school, and jr. college; we had to finish off Speedy’s home schooling stuff.
• 2013  Scuff leaves for his mission; finish off Speedy’s home schooling stuff for 8th grade; Spanky came home in August.
• 2014  Finish off Sun’s home schooling stuff (7th grade); attend Slim’s graduation (SVU–bachelor’s degree!!); Sport graduates high school and jr. college and it leaving for BYU Provo in June; and now the engagement (though that doesn’t require much on my part today, except anticipated stress for the future 🙂
• 2015  Scuff should be coming home from his mission and at some point between now and then, I will have a new daughter-in-law!  And Sport will probably be leaving for his mission.

Crazy, huh??  I think I had better just not plan anything extra in May

May the flowers be with you!

I am on my way to Virginia today!!  Hip, hip hooray!!!  Slim is receiving his Bachelor’s Degree on Thursday!  I cannot believe I have a child old enough to be graduated from college!  I’m trying to get together my Family First Friday post so you will have it to read even though I will be flying home from Virginia!

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So many crazy stories!  Wish my sweet husband luck as he tries to manage all the children, dinner, scouts, music classes, laundry, extra obnoxious things, like blowing a fuse in the house (that happened to me on Friday morning—only it wasn’t a house fuse, it was the electricity coming into the house! I had to have PG&E come and fix it, after I paid the electrician!), unexpected guest (oh—he probably won’t do that because they all stop by while he is at work).

Anyway, I am sure the children will have story after story to tell me when I return.  Good luck family!  I love you!

This week we have had gorgeous weather!!  We rarely have gorgeous weather!  It was not hot but by our standards, it was a scorcher (sorry to all of you who actually experience HOT weather!).  The temperature actually reached 82 degrees!  Some people said it was 86—it was not 86, 82?  Probably.  I didn’t bother to look at a thermometer.  I just took people’s word for it.

Because the weather rarely, if ever reaches 80 degrees here (remember we have coastal breezes because, well, we are on the coast), when it does, I pull the kids from whatever they are doing and we go to the beach.  (Seriously, maybe one day of the entire year it gets that warm!)  We take advantage of the moment and live!  My kids love it!  Currently, our car will only seat five, so only four of them get to go.  The bigger kids have been quite put out that we go to the beach without them.  If I had more seat belts, we would all go.

A few years ago (gosh, it’s been more than five now), I pulled the bigger kids out and took them to lunch and then we didn’t go back to school that day.  It was a really difficult thing for Sport at that point.  He was reluctant, but he finally came along.

We had so much fun at the beach!  I debated whether or not we really could manage it, as I had a ton to do that day and Wednesdays are my busiest day!  But how can you let a day like that go to waste??  We didn’t get to stay as long as we would have like to, only about an hour at the beach.  But it was glorious!  We simply missed our dear friends who used to go with us!!  (Diana, Linzy, Nena, Heidi, Jackie…..you know who you are!)  It was so much more fun when a group of us would do it and meet up there to just play and enjoy the most beautiful place where we live!

One mother in my primary presidency told me that she would pull her out once in a while to go and see a movie.  I just think that is great!  It doesn’t happen every day or once a week or once a month—-maybe once a school year, where I just pull them out to do something fun that we like to do as a family, play.  I wish we could pull Drew out of work, too.  Oh well, I guess someone has to be responsible.

And some day I am going to get a new digital camera to actually take photos of our adventures instead of relying on the few I can get with my phone.  But news to you!  My little toddler has figured out how to take photos on my phone.  He walks around every day taking fabulous photos of the carpet, the table, an elbow, it is awesome!  And he knows how to use the timer for the photo (I didn’t know I had a timer for photos……..).  He can also change the photos from color to black and white or negative (I didn’t know it could do that either).  But whatever!  I’ll attach some to this blog post so you can enjoy his photo art!

Here is my point today:  Do something fun and unexpected with your kids!!  Mix it up!  Something that speaks to their souls and says, “Hey!  I love you!  I am thinking about you!  I like spending time with you!  Let’s PLAY!”  You will make their day!  I promise!

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

 As you know, this week has been really full for me.  My friend (25) lost her husband on Easter Sunday.  We have been planning the funeral and taking care of the details.  She has had so many decisions to make.  I am sure I am not aware of even half of them.  Her family and his have rallied around her and those little boys to support them during their time of need.  Brothers and sisters have taken 2 weeks off of work and out of their lives to be here for their mourning.  One week down, one week to go.  Today is the funeral.

But then what?  Yes, she and the boys will have support during a very difficult time, which is wonderful and not to be negated.  But when everyone returns to work and their homes and their lives, what then as my friend tries to return to normal life, that suddenly isn’t normal anymore and isn’t what she planned?  Then what?

Those are tough times, places where the grief strikes without warning, where frustrations mount, and loneliness and despair can set in.  Those are the times where the ‘usual’ people in her life will need to be more sensitive and more aware and more capable of helping.  Unfortunately, the ‘usual’ people don’t usually do that.

copyright: Karen Larsen photography

These will be the times when my friend enters her own personal Garden of Gethsemane, where she has to reach deep into the recesses of her soul and connect with her Father in Heaven.  If she is willing to pay the price and do the work, these times will be precious and hallowed ground for her.  If she does not, they will be remembered as times of bitter sorrow and anguish, when she felt no one was listening or even cared.

It is so very interesting to me that when we have trials in our lives, we tend to turn one of two directions—-either to God or away from him.  Our reactions speak volumes about where we are spiritually and how we feel about God.  Those who are humble and seeking understanding turn their hearts to God and become sanctified through their grief and sorrows.  Like the Savior, they submit their will and their attitude to what they feel ‘God has allowed to happen’ in their lives and they reach for understanding and open their hearts to learning about His love.  The flip side of that, is turning from God, or worse yet, cursing Him because life has not dealt with us the way we think it should have happened.

copyright: Karen Larsen photography

I kind of liken it to my two-year-old.  Most of the time, he is pretty upset that life is not going his way.  He yells, he stomps, he throws things, including throwing himself, thrown on the floor screaming and crying.  Luckily, he is still only two, and when he comes to his senses, he apologizes, changes his heart and his attitude and will submit to the things ‘I,’ as his parent, choose to inflict upon him (Mosiah 3:19).  Little children will do that—change on a dime, relinquish their desired heart agenda and submit, eventually, which I suppose, is why we are commanded to become as little children.  Adults?  Not so much.

The more attuned I become to my emotions in a current situation and circumstance, the more I recognize that I still behave a lot like my two-year-old.  I don’t throw things, or kick people, but there is A LOT of internal yelling going on and some serious attitude about why my life is looking a certain way.  Luckily for me, I also behave like my two-year-old, in that I eventually submit my will.  My head knows that submitting is the right answer and the proper course of behavior.  It usually takes my heart quite a while longer to agree with my head, and that is when I am having an attitude problem, but at least I know that is the issue.

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

I have to pray for strength and desire to change my attitude.  It is not an easy fix.  Sometimes I have to pray to love someone I think has wronged me.  Sometimes I don’t pray for love, I just pray for tolerance, and sometimes I just pray for understanding and to treat them properly when I bump into them.  (I certainly don’t want to add more sin to my plate by behaving badly.  Fixing my attitude is enough!!)

It is interesting to me that you can see these very attitudes in children and adults at any point in their lives.  When you really ask them how they are feeling, you can measure their attitude and usually tell how they are responding to the situations in their lives and if those difficulties and tragedies will be for their growth and development, or whether they will succumb to the natural man or woman within. 

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

I am grateful that the gospel teaches us that God is not some obnoxious creature out there messing with us mortals to gain pleasure.  Wouldn’t that be miserable?  But that is not who He is.  When we understand that He is our Father; that He loves us, more than we can even possibly love our own children (3rd Nephi 10: 4-6); that He knows us, strengths, weaknesses, desires, all of it; that His purpose is to ‘bring to pass the immortality and eternal life’ of us, His children (Moses 1:39); that He does not give stones and serpents, but only bread and fish (Luke 11: 9-13); that He is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly loving, perfectly honest; that He has ‘sent forth the winds and the waves’ that will drive us to our promised lands (Ether 2:24-25); and that He ‘has prepared a way’ for us to accomplish the things which He has commanded us’ (1st Nephi 3:7); when we know those things about our Father in Heaven, we can know that in our times of trial, our Gardens of Gethsemane, we can turn to Him!  We can submit our will to His and ‘all these things will be for [our] growth and development’.

He is our Father.  He loves us, warts, baldness, bad attitude and all.  We do not have to pretend for Him, He knows us already.  There are no secrets, no closets, no skeletons.  No hiding!  Hide and seek with God is useless, so don’t try.  Give that up right now!

I hope my dear friend continues in her submission.  For now, her heart is pliable and God’s plan is working.  She is changing and growing, even though this time is very painful. 

My greatest hope, however, is that my heart remains pliable.  I have not been too keen on the ‘growing experiences’ the Lord has planned for me.  They hurt!  (And you already know about my attitude…………..’nuff said about that.)

Well, this weekend has been quite the experience.  On Thursday we had a sweet young couple and their two children over for dinner.  They have been learning about the church and the gospel.  Things have been slow, but he works for a member, with other members so he has been talking about the gospel in his daily activities a lot.  For her, the information is all new and foreign.  It is confusing.  We had them over to give them a place to ask questions without pressure.

On Saturday, we attended the wedding of our friends’ children.  The wedding was so very sweet!  Both parties were older and had lived rough, unhappy lives.  They had grown up in member homes with the gospel, but chosen different paths as adults.  They were unhappy.  Things changed.  They renewed their acquaintance and romance blossomed and bloomed.  They were obviously very in love and very happy!  The wedding was themed around the movie “The Princess Bride.”  How can you go wrong with that theme?!  It wasn’t in the temple, but hopefully some day they will chose to be there. 

I didn’t know either the bride or the groom, but we are friends with both sets of parents.  The groom is in his 50’s.  I don’t know how old the bride is.  But they are both so very happy and I am sure their relationship is closer to being eternal than the paths they were previously on.

Sunday morning I attended the other ward which meets in our building because a friend was speaking.  She did a great job.

After I arrived home, my sweet, bishop husband received a phone call.  We received the news that the husband of the sweet couple we had over for dinner on Thursday had been in a motorcycle accident early that morning and had been declared dead at the scene.  Our hearts broke.  We went over to visit his sweet wife and their two little sons (2 and 7) before our meetings.  Now we are helping her to plan the funeral and take care of the things she will need to manage over the next week and beyond.

All I have been able to think about for the last 24 hours is my dear friend and her grief and pain and the things she has to be thinking about.  When tragedies strike, the rest of the world stops and we see the things that seemed so very important yesterday, really do not matter at all.  Her little guy’s birthday is next week and they were trying to get the backyard ready for the party they were having.  Now she doesn’t even care, which is fine.  I just feel so badly for her.  My heart aches.

I am so very grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ, for our knowledge and understanding of the Plan of Salvation, for our understanding of life after death, for the blessings and peace that come from knowing we have made temple covenants that bind us to God and each other for eternity.  These are all things my dear friend is learning and searching for during this tragedy in her life—things I will share with her, when the times are right.

And if that wasn’t enough for the roller-coaster ride, we also found out this morning that our missionary is finally going to be on his way to Brazil!!!  His visa has only taken a year (plus) to get!  But he is leaving at the end of this month!  He is so excited!!! I think Slim is more excited (returned missionary from Brazil.)  Now for my Mother’s Day phone call/Skype, he will have already arrived in the country and have a couple of weeks under his belt to tell us about!  Life is good and hard, all in the same weekend——and so the ride continues!

As earth begins to shed the winter here in the Northern hemisphere and spring is blooming all around and we are celebrating the resurrection of our Savior this weekend, I just thought these two videos shared two amazing aspects of Jesus Christ’s atonement.  It is through His healing power that we can both be forgiven of the things we have done wrong and receive comfort and healing from the wrongs of others that have affected us deeply.   As I go about my walk in mortality, I pray to be able to continually access both of these parts of the atonement and the blessings such access brings to my life, joy from sorrow and peace.

Enjoy both of these videos.  Have an amazing weekend as you contemplate the blessings of our Savior’s atonement in your life!

Yes, I know!  I missed Family First Friday last week!  Wait until I tell you the story of what happened!  But not today.  I have other thoughts:

So the crazy food allergies and not sleeping continues at our house.  It has been pretty crazy and some nights we have had as little as 3 hours of sleep, which may be expected if you have a newborn, but when the child is 2 and 1/2???!!

check out this awesome photo from Karen Larsen!  See how she did it on her website:

Most nights look like this:  Spike goes to bed sometime between 8 and 8:30.  He sleeps until 11:30-12:00 a.m.  Then he wakes up crying, sometimes screaming because he cannot breath, or his feet itch, or he just cannot sleep.  Because his medication for breathing makes him grouchy, and he is having allergic reactions, and he is tired, he is completely unreasonable and simply screams because we cannot understand what it is that he wants or needs.  It is a guessing game to help him and the more times we guess the wrong thing, the more upset and angry he becomes.  Finally, by some miracle and divine help, we figure out something that will work and he then settles down back to sleep.  This process usually takes about an hour.  Sometimes he sleeps the rest of the night, but usually, he is up again in about 2 hours and we repeat the same cycle.

Crazy!

Usually, as I am holding him and trying to converse with him about what I can do to help him, he is yelling and screaming, “No Mommy!  No!”  My dear husband who is in the room the entire time, (Oh side note, Spike has been sleeping in our room for the past 2 weeks with Sun because we have a house guest.) will finally tell Spike, “Quit yelling at your mother or you are going to have pepper on your tongue.”  Sometimes that threat works, other times it doesn’t and then my sweetheart gives Spike pepper and the screaming increases.

You see, Spike is ultra-sensitive to other people’s emotions.  He can tell if you are angry at him by just a look or the tone in your voice.  If you are frustrated with him for any reason, just or unjust, it hurts his little feelings and he is mortally wounded, until reparations are made to the relationship.  It really is unusual for such a little person to be so aware of relationships.  But it is who my little man is.  Thus you can see how dramatic and exhausting it would be to try and reason with an emotionally aware, sleep deprived, two-year-old having an allergic reaction, night after night, after night (going on 10 nights now but who is counting?).

We have had a little bit of a break through in that my prayers have been “Help me to know what to do to help him (first breath and then) not scratch his feet so bad that they are bleeding.”  The first was to increase his breathing medication and to move the air purifier to my bedroom, and quit giving him almond milk, which we did and it has helped.  The second was to use aloe-vera for his little feet and put socks on him in the middle of the night.  His feet are improving, slowly.  But he is still itching and scratching and he is not cooperative when I put that stuff on his feet.

Two nights ago, while I was rubbing the inside of the plant on his feet and he was screaming, my husband instead of threatening to give Spike pepper for screaming, told Spike that if he would quit crying, Drew would let Spike play one round of  ‘Angry Birds’ on the I-pad.  Spike loves ‘Angry Birds’!  He asks to play that game every day when Drew gets home.  It is a treat!  Spike immediately perked up and said, ‘yes, Dad, I play angry birds.’  And he did, one game, and then he settled down to sleep!

This is so much more in line with the way I think Heavenly Father operates!!!  Yes, there are consequences for bad behavior.  There are consequences for disobedience, but they are not arbitrary consequences.  They are usually very logical—have more than one sexual partner, risk getting sexual diseases.  Smoke?  Have black lungs, risk cancer, and lose your ability to breath.  Simple.  But be obedient and have blessings.  Do something really difficult and make sacrifices?  Serious blessings to follow.  The problem is most of us want to define what those blessings for obedience look like.  I am paying my tithing, so I want to have enough money to do all of the things I want to do.  That is just not how it works.

We do not seem to always understand the scripture, ‘My ways are not thy ways, nor my thoughts thy thoughts.’  Heavenly Father gives us amazing blessings but they are things like wisdom, faith, testimony, peace, happiness.  Sometimes they are temporal, especially when we need them.  They are not usually money, new cars, fame, fancy houses, or winning the lottery.

If we are thinking that there are no real blessings for obedience to our Heavenly Father’s wishes and commandments, then we probably are just not recognizing them.  We may need to pray for help to see what they are.  Sometimes you can just look around at the people near you and see from their choices some of the blessings you enjoy.  This isn’t to compare and contrast, but we are sometimes close enough to others to see some of the obvious, negative consequences for their choices.  And if we are close to them, sometimes they will share the blessings of testimony with us they have received from their obedience.

Back to Spike, Spike.  Like most of us, he responds better to rewards for positive behavior than consequences for not stopping bad behavior.  In disciplining our children, try to offer positive blessings for positive behavior.  If it is a big change and you are asking for big behavior, compensate your child accordingly.  It doesn’t have to be with something monetary.  Our children get to stay up late on a particular night or watch a special movie, or spend the entire day driving.  It really just depends upon what your child needs and wants.  Some of them may be perfectly happy spending the day with you and just hanging out doing something fun.

Anyway these are my thoughts today as we try to catch up on sleep and house cleaning 🙂  Have a great day!!

Well.  We have been having just a lovely time here at our house!  My little Spike Spike has horrible food allergies that we have been trying to pin point.  Some of his allergies cause a skin rash, eczema, that is nasty red and puffy and it itches.  He is just two so he scratches it and scratches it until it is cracked and bleeding.  There isn’t a lot we can do to keep him from scratching it because he usually does most of the damage at night while he is suppose to be sleeping.  And yes, with all of our experience on the subject we have tried almost every cream, lotion, oil, or prescription known to man.  The tops of his little feet have been horrible and recently his rash has spread to the creases of his knees and elbows.  Poor little guy.

Other allergies cause his nose to be completely stuffy and congested with mucous, including fluid in his ears.  It is really annoying.  Still others cause him not to sleep.  Sheesh!  This week, we have all three: eczema, stuffy nose, and not sleeping!

Drew and I are both allergic to milk.  So far, each of my children have been too.  It is definitely a problem when they are little.  They can tolerate it as they get older, but even the oldest boys have decided they too are really allergic to it and they have started cutting it out of their diets too.  The only milk Spike Spike was getting was butter.  He wasn’t eating any other milk products:  No ice cream, sour cream, creamed soups, breads with milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese (Parmesan or other, even in salad dressing–no ranch, blue cheese, Caesar, etc…)  I stuck all of that out there because if you are trying to eliminate milk, it is everywhere and you really have to be careful.  Read every label!!  Anything with whey —- that’s milk!

booklovingfool.wordpress.com

Drew still drank milk and so did some of the kids once in a while and periodically, I would break down and purchase cheese.  With Spike Spike’s allergies just going crazy, about a week ago, I declared our house officially dairy free!  The kids all kind of panicked, but they got over it.  I was hoping that by eliminating all of it, once and for all, Spike’s eczema would dissipate.  It hasn’t!  Drat!

So on we move to other eliminations!!  I took honey out, thinking that might help.  Nothing so far.

Of course, my best ally is prayer!  I pray to help me see things that will lead me to the offending culprit.  Please help me figure out what this child is allergic to!!!  With Spike, here is our list so far:  all nuts (especially peanuts and walnuts) [the others of our children who are allergic to nuts are not allergic to almonds, interestingly enough—-however, I am beginning to suspect that is not the case with Spike], all milk products, any processed meat (I think it is the nitrates, but don’t know for sure).  This week, when I changed from cow’s milk to almond milk, specifically, Spike’s nose has been clogged and his skin is drier and itchier, and he hasn’t been sleeping for five nights now.  Exhausting!

Last night, we finally had a break through in that I decided to give him a different nasal decongestant and it worked!  Benadryl was not working.  I think he hasn’t been sleeping because even when he is asleep, he insists on trying to breath through his nose.  Then he wakes up because he isn’t getting enough oxygen.  Falls back asleep, tries to breath through his nose, tosses and turns because he isn’t getting enough oxygen and then wakes up again, repeat 100 times.  (That was last night in between the doses of medication that worked.)  My personal philosophy, however, is to administer as few medications as possible.  But in order to do that, we have to find the offending item, which is a lot more work than just medicating my child.  But then when we do the work, we never have to worry again because we can just eliminate the culprit!

Yesterday, as I realized that most of these issues began when I made the switch to almond milk and then when my brilliant brain put the two together, I decided to eliminate the almond milk and see how things go.  The trick with eliminating things is remembering that once you have been exposed to the allergen, it usually takes a full four days to get it completely out of your system.  So it is best to eliminate it for about a week before you try to add it back.  Yesterday was day one.  Three more to go before I will know if eliminating it makes a difference.  Six more days before Spike goes there again.

Another issue that might get in the way of figuring things out is if you have multiple people feeding your little one or heaven forbid, they are already old enough to make and get their own food.  It is best to figure it out when they are little and you have total control over what they are eating.  If you send them to daycare, even if you give instructions, there is no guarantee they are going to follow your wishes.  They will probably say, ya, sure, and then do what they want and what works best for them.  Because the truth be told, they are not watching your child because they are concerned with what is best for the child.  I have had to let all of my older children know, “These are the no-no foods for Spike this week!” and then remember to tell each of them because they are not usually in the same place at the same time!

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Scuff told me a few years ago that every morning of seventh and eighth grade he went into the breakfast room after I dropped him at school and got a pop-tart!  That boy is allergic to corn and pop-tarts are laced with them!  It is no wonder that his middle-school years were so difficult to manage.  (His allergy manifests itself as behavior issues.  He is the most wonderful and happy person unless he has had corn.  Then he is defiant, belligerent, uncooperative, feisty, he hits, throws things, yells, screams—-it is really, really ugly!)

Of course, with all of this, it is possible that my little guy just has a cold!  So we have to wait that out too and weigh it into the equation.  Good thing I was an adept student and really understood that whole ‘scientific method’ thingy.  I never thought I would use it as a mother!  But in my attempt to uncover food allergies, that principle has been one of my best friends!  I could not have had as many children as I do without being able to eliminate so many offending issues!

The first two boys had tons and tons of skin issues as I was learning and figuring things out.  Poor Spanky was a miserable little baby because I think I kept feeding him things he was allergic to.  The colic and screaming and not sleeping—-it was just awful!  But by the time Scuff showed up, I had the idea that maybe what I was eating was bothering the baby and we began to try to figure it out.  It was a good thing too because Scuff (at first) just didn’t sleep when he was exposed to corn.  It took me six weeks and many, many doctor visits, and a lot of prayer to finally figure it out.  That night where I loaded the entire dinner with corn and the baby didn’t sleep all night was pretty helpful too!  It at least gave me a reference point to begin with and I started eliminating corn from my diet.  Whenever the baby wouldn’t sleep well, I would go back through the last 24 hours worth of food and read all of the labels and almost always find corn.  It was scary how many things had corn in them, but it was validating when I would find it on the list.  Around three years-old, the allergy changed from not sleeping to behavior.

Well, now that you have read this and it is huge and you may or may not have allergy issues in your house, you know what has been happening here.  Wish me luck and pray for me as we figure the next little bit out.  I just really need to figure it out before May because I’m heading off to Slim’s college graduation!!!  Four days!!!  But other people will be feeding my little Spike, so I need to know what to tell them for sure, and make the separation as easy for him as possible!

en.wikipedia.org

Thanks for listening!  If you have any allergy questions, feel free to email me.  By no means am I an expert or a trained professional, but I do have plenty, plenty of personal experience.  We know what anaphylaxis is and how to use an epi-pen!  We also have some asthma related issues.  Periodically, that is a problem too.

Allergies are just nasty (my personal opinion!)!