Update...It's been a while

We got the results from Austin's blood test. He is allergic to milk and nuts for sure. We are going next week to have a skin test because the blood test was not conclusive enough to rule out an allergy to eggs, wheat and soy. He was definitely not allergic to shell fish! I'm praying that he isn't allergic to wheat or eggs. It is very hard to find foods like cheerios that are milk, nut, and wheat free.
We were in TX for two weeks. In the time we were there Austin got a tooth, learned to sit up on his own, started rolling over more, was doing "giddy up horsey", found his feet, started babbling and is grabbing for toys. When I brought Austin back to Chicago it was like he was a different boy! On Sunday he said "mama" while babbling three times and hasn't stopped since. Still no "dada".

I've started teaching Austin baby sign language. He has yet to do the movements back to me but I think he is getting it.

John is sick this week with strep and an ear infection. So I have Lysol the entire house and we are staying away from anything he touches.

I'm getting a little frustrated with making my own baby food. I don't know what Gerber puts in their food, but the label will say green beans and water, so I make green beans and water in my beaba cooker. Guess what he HATES the homemade green beans and loves the Gerber green beans. It used to be green beans but now almost anything I put in front of him that I've made he won't eat, but he will eat it out of a jar. Today I tried sweet potato and apple. He won't eat mine, I'm thinking I didn't have the right amounts. When I tasted it was like eating only apple and the Gerber one isn't like that. Anyway, so I'm still doing some trial and error. Also Austin is EXACTLY like Austin. He doesn't really care for fruits but he LOVES his vegetables. I don't get it. The only thing I can determine is that our taste buds must pick up on different things! He seems to think every fruit is sour. I keep giving it to him because I read somewhere that they need to be introduced to something over 50 times before they will like it. I hope I get the hommeade baby food down soon. I would much rather pay $.99 for a pound of the actual vegetable than $.89 for each 4 oz jar of baby food.

Allergist

Austin and I went to the allergist today. He is going to be tested for wheat, soy, milk, shellfish, nuts, and egg allergy. Usually they do the test as a skin test on his back, but because he is still on so many drugs from his ER visit they had to draw blood and we will wait a week to get the results. The allergist recommended a formula we can use and he gave us a sample. It is REALLY expensive, but I can't keep breastfeeding (because I don't want to not because there is something wrong) so we are going to try it this weekend. I hope it goes well. I'm a little scared to give him something because of what happened last time, but we are prepared this time. Also the allergist said that the formula tastes bad. Here's to hoping he doesn't notice a difference!

6 month check up

Austin had his 6 months check up yesterday. He weighed 19 lbs 10 oz, was 25.5" long, and they also measured his head. He is in the 90th percentile for weight, 25th percentile for height, and 10th percentile for head circumference...basically this means he's short, fat with a small head :). (I'm having a hard time understanding how Austin is short with the families he came from! Haha!)
I have to say he's the cutest short, fat baby with a small head I've ever seen.
Today we are going to the allergist. Hopefully they can tell us what he is allergic too.
Also, I've been having vertigo for 2 weeks. It was getting better but the stress of this week has made it get worse again. Thankfully I can still do most normal things. I can't take the medicine the doctor prescribed and drive (which I'm not so sure I should be doing anyway with vertigo but have to because John is working) so I haven't been taking it. The doctor said I should go to PT for vertigo but I just haven't had the chance (this will be day 3 of doctors visits for Austin). So if I'm still feeling bad I will have PT in Dallas when we are there next week.
Since leaving the hospital Austin had developed a cold. Just a runny nose, sneezing... I woke up today with a runny nose and a sore throat. We are running on fumes here!
Thankfully Brandy will be here Saturday and we will be going to Dallas next week where I can have lots of help!

Exhausting Day

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of fun and adventure. It turned out to be this and much much more.
Austin and I went to see John at work for the first time. This was also the first time I had driven more than 5 miles by myself with Austin in the car. He did great! He was a delight at John's office as well. He really is such a good baby. We got to John's office around 12:30, this is because Austin slept for 2 hours for his morning nap. I thought this was so weird, he never sleeps that long. Luckily he did! When we got in the car to go home he slept for 20 minutes and then we ended up in bumper to bumper traffic so he couldn't sleep.
When we got home it was 3:30, I wanted to give him a bottle and then get him to go to sleep for a good nap before bed. I'm down to pumping once a day and have been meaning to give him formula since Saturday (he was officially 6 months old). I didn't have any milk out when we got home so I opened a new can of Enfamil formula. The same stuff he had used when he was a week old, but hasn't since then. I made him a 5 oz bottle and we went back to his room. He was downing it! I was so happy. All I could think was this transition to formula is going to be so easy. Before I could even finish this thought something weird happened. He had only drank 2 oz. but he started making this really weird noise...like he had flem in his throat. Then he stated to gag and was throwing up mucus. He was also crying REALLY WEIRD. I didn't know what was going on. I tried to give him more formula and he didn't want it, so I threw out the formula, got a new bottle and made him some breast milk. At this point I was thinking he just didn't like the formula.
I give him the bottle of breast milk and he won't drink. Now I'm really starting to wonder and he's still doing this weird cry and gagging. He almost sounds like hes crying under water. I tried to use the aspirator to suck out the mucus in the back of his throat but it wasn't working. By this time he had snot everywhere so I changed his clothes. He was going in and out of sleep so I tried to get him to go to sleep. I laid him in his crib and walked out of his room. About 10 minutes later I go back in his room because he still hasn't gone to sleep. I pick him up and he is covered in hives! OMG I freaked out. My neighbor, Olivia, is working on her pediatric nursing degree. Thankfully she is home on Tuesdays. By this time its been about an hour to an hour and a half since he had the formula. I take him to Olivia's and she said he was having an allergic reaction. That never even crossed my mind. I called our doctor, and its 4:45 by this point so the office is closed so I left a message with the answering service. A nurse called me back and said we needed to take Austin to the ER! WHAT! After I hung up we took his clothes off him and Austin was as red as a lobster, I am not exaggerating. He was red EVERYWHERE. Olivia was holding him and he finally puked a lot of the formula up. I called the doctor back to make sure that since he threw it up did we still need to go to the ER and they said yes.
I got Austin in the car and we went to the ER (even though everyone else I talked to said I shouldn't take him but I felt in my gut I needed to). We get to the ER, let me make a side note here. Having never been to the ER I didn't know if they would park my car for me so I parked the car my self in the parking garage. When I went to enter the ER the only way was through a long drive way where you are supposed to DRIVE. I had the stroller and we are running down the drive in the stroller. I'm sure I looked like a crazy person. Anyway back to the story... We got in line at Triage. Thankfully the line wasn't long and within 5 minutes of getting there we were being seen.
At triage they hooked Austin up to all kinds of machines, took his weight, bp, oxygen levels, ... I don't even know what all they did. There were tons of people waiting in the waiting room and I was starting to think we would be there all night. After the triage nurse finished she said we need to get him into a room hes having anaphylaxis. OMG again. So now we are in the room and hes still hooked up to all these machines and he is crying. So I picked him up but it was hard because he had all these wires everywhere. By the time we got to this point his entire body is red, even the whites of his eyes. They gave him an epipen, benadryl, and some mouth steroids. John is still not home from work yet. I have no idea how long we are going to have to stay. The nurse comes back and she said that when someone is having anaphylaxis there is an initial reaction and then there can be a more severe reaction 6-8 hours after the initial reaction. We were going to have to stay until after the 6 hour mark just to make sure he didn't have another reaction. Also now they wanted to monitor him closely because they want to make sure he doesn't have a reaction to the epipen.
He started looking better within 10 minutes of having the epipen and by the time we were released around 9:30 pm he looked almost back to normal. It was so scary, but I learned that I should definitely trust my gut instinct and that I was right to take him to the ER.
We have 2 epipens at home now that I need to take with me wherever we go. We are going to see an allergist to see what else he might be allergic to. We assume it was the milk protein in the formula but we don't know for sure. Also I want to see an allergist because we just started giving him baby food and I need to know what else he might be allergic to because I don't want to go through this again. They said we need to give him a formula that is neither milk nor soy based. So now I have to decide it we should do this or if I should continue pumping for the next 6 months. For now we are in limbo. I'm still pumping and he will get only the 5-6 fruits and veggies that I know he can eat. Unfortunately our battle with food allergies is not over but we are on our way to being educated so we know what to avoid in the future.

Just Austin

Sitting like a big boy
Can you see the drool??
He is pushing up so far
John thinks this outfit is girly, but I think its so cute!
His elephant was being mean :)

Austin rolled over

We have been hoping Austin would roll over for MONTHS. Most babies roll over by the time they are 3 months old. Austin used to hate tummy time, so he was never on his belly except when he was asleep. This made it difficult for him to get enough time to practice rolling over. We would put him on his belly and he would put his head in the floor and scream! So anyway, not much fun.
All this changed last week. He has gotten SO strong and has started to push his torso up. Then on Wednesday I went into his room after he woke up and he was on his back! The only way this could have happened is if he rolled over. Unfortunately we don't have one of those video monitors so neither John nor I saw it. Wednesday night John was watching Austin while I played volleyball and Austin did it again in his crib. Again neither of us saw it.
Today Austin did it again in his crib. AGAIN we didn't see it. So we took him into the living room and now he has rolled over at least 6 times in the living room AND we saw it and video taped it! Yay! It took him until he was one week shy of 6 months, but that is ok. He seems to wait until he has the strength to do it easily. He doesn't want to struggle on the floor to do it. He rolls over with such ease :)

Baking

I have been in a baking mood lately. Good for my taste buds, not for my hips :). Anyway we went to the store last weekend and bought a ton of lemons. So I've been making any kind of bread or dessert that has lemon juice. I NEVER knew how much better things tasted with real lemon juice instead of bottled lemon juice. The most recent thing I made came from a blog I subscribe to. The blog is: http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/
She is a Texan who lives in New York and she is constantly putting recipes up on her blog. This is the first one I've tried even though I've been reading her blog for months. I have to say I will DEFINITELY try more of her recipes.

Here is the recipe.

Sour cream pound cake with ruby red grapefruit
Ingredients:
1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ruby red grapefruit zest
1/4 cup ruby red grapefruit juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 eggs, room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Powdered sugar

Method:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a 12-cup tube pan.

Using a stand mixer, cream the butter until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar, and beat until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the grapefruit zest, grapefruit juice and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.

Add the eggs to the batter, one at time, mixing each one until it’s well incorporated. Slowly pour in the sifted flour and mix until the batter is smooth and fluffy. Stir together the sour cream, salt and baking soda, and then add to the batter, mixing until well incorporated. Pour batter into the pan and bake for an hour and 30 minutes, or until an inserted knife pulls out clean.

Cool the cake for 15 minutes and then invert onto a platter. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm.

Yield: 16-20 servings

Note: This recipe can be divided in half and baked in a loaf pan. You can also flavor this with lemon, orange or lime juice, using the same amounts. For a bit of crunch, you can add to the batter 1/2 cup chopped pecans or 1/4 cup poppy seeds.