No Milk. No Soy. Oh, boy!

Today marks our second week of a milk-free diet.  Milk resides in tons of foods, and soy likes to sneak in, too.  Really, it's not nearly as bad as I at first anticipated it to be, but I want to see instant results.  Instead, today marks the first day that we should even expect to see improvement.  Two Thursdays ago was the only time that we saw blood in his stool, but his diapers are, without going into too much detail, rather messy.  He certainly has a marked increase in fussiness while eating, too, which we are also addressing and hopefully resolving soon.

I spent some time on the phone with Dr. Song yesterday, and she assured me that staying the course is the right thing to do.  It's too soon to cut out anything else like eggs or nuts since we may already see slight improvement, and, as she said, I have to eat something.  

It's really hard to know that my sweet baby hurts, and I hope that, in several more days, he will be completely rid of the proteins that irritate his system and that he will be completely healed from any intestinal damge.  Oh, how I wish I knew from the beginning that cow's milk would harm my baby.  I would never have touched the stuff!  

Our sweet Elgin is still a sweet, happy baby, though.  I am thankful for his disposition and for his health.  I don't think that a day will go by that I don't feel a whoosh of gratitude for his life. 

Our 3.9 year old

I met with Henry's head teacher, Ms. Susan, this morning for the parent/ teacher conference.  Here's what I learned:

• Henry remains an enthusiastic learner and wants to participate in the activities and hates to miss out
• He sees himself as a reader, picking up books and discussing the illustrations and even using some memorized words and sight words
• Henry's art appreciation just might be growing.  Ms. Susan says he never picks an art activity at first, but it's easy to get him to sit down to draw, and he absolutely loves to discuss his drawings
• He and his BFF C pick the computer center together whenever possible and actually are rather fun to watch as they tell each other what to do
• His number sense is well advanced, and he does great with addition and subtraction both with and without visuals
• Henry plays well with all of the kids in the class but definitely has a close bond with C.  Ms. Susan says she loves how excited they are to see each other.
• The five year old girls try to play "getting married," and Henry denies their proposals and brings them to tears
• He verbalizes displeasure to his friends and isn't a tattletale.  She even says she saw him walk away from a few situations that he didn't like.
• He tells great jokes

She also explained that she had to use the three year old assessment but that she could easily use the four year old assessment tool, which is used through age five.  Now, of course I love hearing all these wonderful things about my son, but the best thing to hear is that he is happy and active.  And, since I get to hang out in the classroom while I'm on leave, I'm fairly positive that Ms. Susan isn't just blowing smoke up my enlarged you-know-what.

I am so glad he's not a tattle-tale.  Is it the teacher's daughter in me?

Sweet Face

Hanging out in his favorite hanging out spot

Tacky enough for you?

Last week was Spirit Week at H's school.   Here he is on Tacky Tuesday.

Daddy is such an overachiever.

Sweet baby...

asleep in my arms.

I am in just a little bit of denial that maternity leave ends this month.

Art and Loop holes

This morning, Daddy said that, on the way to church, Henry would play a song on the harmonica then Daddy would guess them.  He played so well that Daddy guessed almost every one correctly.

We did recently discuss the possibility of forming a family band.  Watch out, local access cable!

Henry is really into art today, which is very unusual.  He's drawing with his markers and having Daddy and me interpret his abstract art.  After finishing his last masterpiece, he informed me that, "You can't draw in reading books."

"You're right, Henry."

"Unleesssss... you don't know who the book belongs to.  Or, if you have two of the same book."

Geography Lesson

I spend a large portion of the morning in H's classroom, which means I sit through all of group time, or at least the part we make it in time to attend.  Today, when H, EW, and I settled in to listen, Mrs. Denise was using the felt board to display various country's flags and ask how they greet and in what languages.

She pulled out the Israel flag.  Henry turned to me, and with a wide-eyed whisper said,  "That's where the North Pole is!"