Fun morning

I've decided all posts posted by a girl on here will be red. Then you readers will know it couldn't possibly be Zilonis (or whatever he calls himself...) posting this. :) By the way, should the dot ending the sentence come before the smiley face or after? Are there rules about this?
Well, we had the funnest morning today. Last night we decided we could go to the zoo if it didn't rain in the morning. When we woke up, it, sure enough, was windy and wet. Not too rainy though, just a bit. So we went anyway. Cause- that's right- we're the boss, not the weather! :) We had the greatest time! We saw the tiger inches away from glass, warming up under the heat lamp, blinking at us lazily; one of the two polar bears put on a show trying to squish a plastic barrel full of water, standing on it with all four feet and making water squirt out of it; the sharks swam right up to us and almost stood on their tailfins, sticking their heads out of the water at us; the walrus pooped as he swam by the underwater glass wall (gross, but very entertaining!); beluga whales waved and moved their mouth at us; it was just generally very interactive today. The kids loved the lunch they packed and didn't whine even ONCE. And I had taken two Slimquick pills so maybe I was a little high from that. I just had the best time ever. We got wetter and wetter as the rain got stronger and stronger until finally we were walking UPSTREAM instead of uphill... :) We were wearing our rainboots, of course. :) And on the way home the kids shared a blanket as they rode in the carseats with no pants, boots or socks on. It was great. Wish y'all were there. :)

Hi!
This is Anda posting (for a change). Here's my version of Ben's allergy story. See, Kevin is just observing the changes... I am the one actually MAKING changes in Ben's diet... I am losing my mind. It's just overwhelming an frustrating to, first, cook ALL the meals from scratch, and, second, use stuff I've never cooked with. Some substitutions were easy - switch from all vegetable oil (it's most of the time soy oil) to olive and corn oil. That works the same, so no big deal. But what about baking without eggs, dairy, wheat, oats, sunflower, soy, almond??? The kid won't have a sandwich for 6 months and very possibly for much longer??? How do you pack a school lunch without some type of bread??? Aaaargh!
On the other hand, I feel like I was not crazy to begin with. I decided to take Ben to a naturopath about 6 months ago. Everyone wondered why. But I had my reasons. To me, it seemed Ben wasn't getting all the nutrition he needed, because his poor baby teeth are in really bad shape although we brush every day and he never sucked on sugary drinks for hours at a time; also, he's had some spots of psoriasis on his knees for what seems like years; and he in general seemed to not have much energy. And he's a very picky eater. Our pediatrician didn't see anything worth fussing over, so I had to ask someone else, right? At first the doctor gave us supplements to improve the teeth and skin. Suggested protein at every meal to fatten him up, cut down on sugar, chew sugarless gum with xylitol, eat yogurt to help his gut... But after 6 months of that there was no big changes, so she suggested a blood thest to check for food allergies. This test tests 99 foods and costs $185. So Ben bravely and tearfully gave up a couple drops of his blood from a finger and Kevin already told you the results. I counted 97 foods in the results of which 33 Ben had a reaction to. He even had a low reaction to zuccini, radishes and cauliflower!! How whacky is that? Anyway, doctor said, it might get better. His gut must be in a bad shape to react to so much stuff, and if it heals it might stop doing that or something. That's the story. Oh, and I also want to get Kevin tested. I think he might be allergic to some things, too. And we know now my intuition is worth something, don't we? :) Well, talk to y'all later! If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen, losing my mind! :)

Allergies!

On Nov 1, Ben went to the doctor and received the results of his allergy test. We were mildly surprised. Here's the list of what he's highly reactive to (mostly off the chart): almond, barley, cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, cow's milk, egg white, egg yolk, filbert, goat's milk, mozzarella cheese, peanut, rye, sesame seed, soybeans, spelt, sunflower seeds, wheat, whey, yogurt, casein (a milk protein), gliadin, and gluten. He's only moderately reactive to brewer's yeast, coconut, oats, and sugar cane (they don't test for sugar beets). So we've been having an interesting few days trying to find out what he can eat. There are very helpful books (sarcasm alert!) telling such things as "If your kid is allergic to cow's milk, try goat's milk! If that doesn't work, you've always got soy milk." OK, so we check the list: "let's see ... cow's milk, check ... goat's milk, yup ... soy mi-- darnit!" Ben's drinking rice milk, which I must say is pretty nasty.

We went to the bookstore looking for cookbooks. There are gluten-free cookbooks, dairy-free, nut-free, etc, but VERY FEW that are for multiple simultaneous allergens. Basically, we need a food-free cookbook. The good news: he's not allergic to meat, fish, fruit, and vegetable, just everything you might use to cook any of that.

Some of the stuff Ben is fine without. He never liked milk and eggs anyway. But sugar! He lives off the stuff. And we had to tell him no more candy after he'd brought home a bucketful of trick or treats. And he doesn't get any more yogurt or PBJs. It's half-cute, half-sad to hear him ask, "Daddy, am I allergic to cookies?" But he's doing a great job. He seems happy, and may be filling out some, and the weird callous-type spot on his shin is going away.

Dinnertime has changed a little. We can't just make a box of mac and cheese anymore; all of Ben's meals seem to require hours of preparation. Neal and I had some leftover pizza the other day, and we ate in the bedroom with the door closed so Ben wouldn't get jealous.

One final note on the subject, and then I'll quit. Anda has great intuition/inspiration, because she for a while has felt like there must be something wrong with Ben that makes him so skinny. If I understand this right, his body does not get much if any nutrition from the food he's allergic to. So no wonder he's skinny. Supposedly we restrict the allergens for six months or so and then test again to see if things have calmed down at all.

So anyway, if you happen to know how to bake with rice flour (or one of the other weird and expensive alternatives to wheat), drop us an email!

Halloween Pics

Here are pics of the kids on Halloween. I know it's a few days past already, but we got distracted by the results of Ben's allergy test.

In case you can't tell, the kids are bats. Anda made the costumes. In the 2nd pic (with feet up in the air), they're sleeping upside-down. As for the quality of the photos--it was dark! And their white faces really reflected the flash, whereas black costume did not.

Ben in School

In case you didn't know, Ben is going to school 4 days a week now. He loves it. We've also started teaching him to read, and he read his first word tonight. By Christmas he'll be reading paragraphs, and the book says he'll be reading at a second grade level when we're done. (We're using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," which I think was recommended by Megan.) He seems to be doing well, which I guess could be attributed to the teaching method, but I like to think it's because he's just a smart kid.

PS: he can also do simple addition. He turns 5 in April.

No LASIK for me!

Anda has been talking aout LASIK for a long time, and she finally set up an appointment for us to go in for a free consultation. Long story short, I can't get LASIK (surprise!). The doctor said he won't do it on anyone who needs more than 8 diopters of correction, and no doctor in the country would do it on someone with -10. He says I'm -10.5 in one eye, and -11.5 in the other. He also says that they can't cure amblyopia (lazy eye) with LASIK. They can make the eye as good as it gets with glasses, but the problem is more with the connection between the brain and the eye than with the eye itself. I'm actually a little relieved, because now I won't have Anda bugging me about having someone shoot a laser in my eyes.

Anda can't get LASIK, either. It turns out that LASIK is like refinishing a floor--your cornea has to be thick enough for them to cut stuff away when reshaping the eye. Makes sense, right? Anyway, Anda was born with thin corneas, and there's not enough for LASIK. She can get PRK, though, which although it hurts more and takes longer to recover, sometimes has better results than LASIK. So now we just have the dilemma of not being able to pay for it. I bet we can get a better deal on the procedure in some alley in Costa Rica, right?

Stuff on Your Head

Neal really likes the song by Laurie Berkner about stuff on your head. It goes: "(Name) has a(n) (Object) on his head ... " So tonight Neal came to me with various items on his head and said, "Sing song!"

A while later, Ben and Neal were playing together in their bedroom, and we heard a crash followed by Neal crying. Almost immediately, we could hear Ben start to sing: "Neal has an owie on his head, Neal has an owie on his head ...."