More March

Last week Asher slipped while leaning against the closed pantry door, and he fell with all of his weight, onto the base of his skull directly onto the pin in the door hinge.  It was AWFUL.  Screaming, lots of blood (never gushing, so it could have been a lot worse, but still, blood is blood), and a bleed that wouldn't seem to stop.  This all happened right after dinner and just before bath/bedtime.  Needless to say I had no intention of putting him to bed with a bleeding head wound, so as advised by my EMT/fire-fighter brother-in-law, I applied constant pressure as well as ice with pressure.  It bled for over an hour and a half and finally slowed enough that I thought it was done (it wasn't) and that we could put him to bed finally.  How do you get an 18 month-old to sit perfectly still to apply constant pressure you ask??  LOTS of help from our old pal Elmo.  Asher was a champ, but it broke my heart to find a dried blood spot on his little sheet in the morning ;(  ugh.  NOT a fun time.  Apparently head wounds bleed profusely even when they are relatively minor, and apparently toddlers heal at an insanely fast pace (I did NOT find this to be true with two other instances, he STILL has a scar on his calf from last summer when his toenail scraped a tiny bit of skin off while sleeping, and he STILL has a scar from a horrific incident with his chicken pox vaccine that was 6 months ago).  Good times, with little boys, I tell you. 

One day recently he woke up and was either hunching over or falling to the ground in pain out of nowhere, and SCREAMING and crying while grabbing at his diaper.  I was sure he had a UTI, so we went to the pediatrician.  She said it wasn't a UTI nor was it a yeast infection in the diaper area (he's had this previously from antibiotics)... she diagnosed it as a Strep infection... you know, like strep throat, but in the diaper area.  Apparently strep can infect any mucous membrane, and she thought that's what it was and why he was grabbing at his diaper and screaming in pain.  Today was day 5 (last day) of his antibiotic for it, and the screaming in pain stopped on day 3 of the meds, so whether it was strep or a UTI, the antibiotics seem to have cleared it.  Poor pumpkin.  :(

From his surgical consult to this last ped appointment (a matter of a week and a half), Asher has gained weight, several ounces... actually just under a pound I think.  This can't be true, right?!  I mean, anything is possible, but it seems like a fluke with my scrawny little man.  Could he be growing, finally, and at such a fast rate??  We have NOT done the gluten free diet yet... I decided after the corn and egg trials to give his body some time, and I also decided to eliminate orange vegetables from his diet.  I know it sounds weird, but ever since he first had them at 6 months old, orange veggies seem to have REALLY bothered him.  The first time he had carrots, the following days, he screamed alllllllllll day long (as opposed to his intermittent screams from the reflux).  I was sure it was the orange veggies constipating him, and that was causing the discomfort, but then it turned out he wasn't constipated.  I stopped giving them for a while, and tried again later with sweet potatoes then carrots.  More screaming.  I stopped for months and tried again.  The same thing.  I had sworn off orange veggies for him for a long time... but then as he needed more and more table food, and since he can't have dairy, it was extremely challenging to find enough variety for him.  The poor kid ate the same thing every single day for many many weeks (he still doesn't have much of a variety due to dietary challenges).  I finally tried cooked carrots again, this time in the whole form (cooked and chopped instead of blended, as if that matters).  He loved them, and he seemed a little fussier at times, but I hoped it wasn't the carrots and just didn't give them two days in a row.  I don't know where it came from, but I wondered recently, "What if the carrots (which he had every other day) are still bothering him?!?"  I removed orange veggies from his food rotation.  Within two days, his BMs were VERY VERY different.  He went from having 4-6 poopy diapers/day (far too many for a child of his age eating only solid foods and having no bottles), to having 2-3 poopy diapers a day.  This will be too much info for many of you, but stay with me, because this is important.  The consistency and color of his stools changed dramatically... going from pale and mucousy and watery with TONS of undigested food to much darker and more "solid", with much less undigested food.  Now, if you are a mom of a little one, you know and talk about poop a LOT.  If you aren't, this is grossing you out, but I guess if you want updates on Asher regarding his digestive health, you'll have to endure this.  I've researched more than you can possibly fathom, just on digestive issues with babies/toddler.  The color and consistency of stools seem to be very important.  He is still bloated at times, and is especially bloated after meals, but the bloat seems to be a tiny bit smaller than it used to.  Before, he used to literally look pregnant... as if his belly would burst if you touched it or pricked it with a needle.  Grossly disproportionate to his tiny, frail little limbs.  The bloat isn't quite that severe now, though it's still there... but I'm not sure if it's just bloating from overeating at a meal now??  This kid can EAT.  I mean, insatiable hunger is part of being anemic (and also can be a sign of malnutrition due to food intolerance).  Last night for dinner, he at three dino nuggets, an entire soy-butter and jelly sandwich, and half of an avocado, along with about 7 oz of milk.  This quantity is typical for him at meals, and he also gets three snacks a day.  I don't know if the bloat I'm still seeing now is from being so full or still from a food issue.  What I DO know, is that something, probably the beta carotene, (carrots and sweet potatoes have the highest beta carotene content) in the carrots was bothering him, and his digestion has significantly improved since then.  Oh, and I started this in the last couple of weeks, the same time frame where he was weighed a week and a half apart and gained almost a pound!  I'm not saying this is the cure for him by any means, but it's encouraging and is a big help regardless.  Going gluten free for a toddler is a HUGE deal, and I want to be SURE that he has to do that before we jump off that cliff... it's HARD and EXPENSIVE, even for an adult.  For myself, I could alter my diet to where it would work out fine (though it would be a difficult shift since my diet now is mostly all gluten!), but for meal options for a toddler, no gluten rules out a ton of things he's currently eating daily (protein rich pasta, soy-butter sandwiches that are packed with protein and iron he desperately needs, pancakes that I've loaded with flax to get more iron and protein in him, etc).  I'm not saying that we aren't going to try a GF diet with him, I'm just saying we were shocked and thrilled with the huge difference that simply excluding orange veggies has had for him.  Since he can't have dairy, he is already at a huge disadvantage because he desperately needs fat content, protein, and iron in very high quantities.  Without dairy, meeting his nutritional needs is a daily challenge.  I'm going to go entirely dairy-free myself (my dairy has been limited post gallbladder removal, but I'm going to exclude it entirely first, before trying to exclude gluten, so I can be sure what is doing what).  I'm also planning to phase out the few items we have with artificial sweeteners or colors (for Ross and myself, Asher doesn't ingest anything with either of these).  There aren't many with artificial colors that we have (besides the secret stash of brightly, and artificially colored candies that we *sometimes* keep on hand), but the alternative sugars are an entirely different story.  We both hate diet pop and I hate anything with aspartame or anything along those lines as it gives me a wicked migraine... but I'm referring to the nasty beast that is corn syrup (or high fructose corn syrup).  It's in SO much, and I'm just now realizing it because although Asher seems to tolerate corn products ok (in small amounts), I don't want him having anything with corn syrup, so I read labels like crazy.  It's in SO MUCH STUFF.  Ketchup.  BBQ sauce.  Salad dressing.  Pretty much all condiments.  It's in Ritz crackers.  Canned soup.  EVERYTHING.  Even when you don't eat highly processed foods (frozen meals, premade stuff, packaged dinners, etc), and we do not, there is still so much hidden garbage in moderately to minimally processed things (juice, crackers, pasta, pasta sauce, canned or jarred anything, etc).  I've been shopping exclusively at health food stores for Asher since birth... and I'm trying to find more options for Ross and myself there too, if we can afford them.  We will keep you posted!  Thanks for caring!

The below picture quality isn't great, but he's in his "fort" looking at stars illuminated on the "ceiling" from a Packers cow my brother got his for Christmas... a favorite past-time for him :)

 This was taken today in our sunroom.  There is a wicked wind tunnel to the side of the sunroom off the back of our house that creates these monster drifts.  This one was taller than Asher!