All Caleb and Eli All the Time: October 2009

What in the world have we been up to? It is fall in Tennessee, which is by far, in my opinion the south's best season! Cool weather and leaves turning are just heaven- it's what I wait all year for (well, that and Thanksgiving and Christmas!)! Both of my boys are just growing like crazy. Caleb will be turning 3 next month and Eli weighed just over 17 pounds at the MD today! We took him because I was concerned he might have an ear infection due to his biting (me, while nursing- can we say ouch?), pulling on his left ear like crazy and sporadic fussiness. No ear infection, but the MD said he has some major teeth eruptions going on. He was 4 months to the day when I saw his first 2 bottom teeth peeking through and now it seems as if he has a few more on the way- poor guy! He is soooo very interested in eating too, but we are waiting until he is closer to 6 months per advice from his MD to hopefully help prevent the development of any food allergies. And speaking of food allergies, we had some great news at the allergist office last week.... Caleb has apparently outgrown his oat and wheat allergy- YAY! I was waiting a few days to share because I wanted to try him at home with them first before fully believing it to be true. Now that he has been eating oat and wheat the past few days without any apparent worsening of his eczema I can allow myself the joy of believing it. It has made for much happiness around here the past few days. Caleb had his first sandwich (ham with vegannaise) and proceeded to request it for his next 3 meals. He also had his first real pizza (well crust anyway; I made it with just veggies- no cheese as rice cheese just doesn't quite cut it for pizza. But I guess Caleb was just so excited with the taste of the crust that he scraped all the veggies off and ate just the crust!). He also had his first hot dog ON A BUN! He loved it. I know, hot dogs aren't the best thing to feed your kid, but to make sure they are allergy friendly I buy the organic ones (can you believe they have organic hot dogs???) and serve them Carolina style with chili and slaw. And our chili was vegetarian too, so I mean this was practically health food (um, no, but I like to point out the positives!). The boy devoured his hot dog- it was so great to watch! And he has been talking about bread like it is a new friend. Really and truly not having to be wheat free has opened so many doors!!! It was kind of weird at the allergist office as the poor boy had about 30 scratches they did on his back. Which, to report on the bad part of the visit, Caleb tested positive for a number of environmental allergens (cat, dust mites, mold, etc.) and also tested positive to soybean, which had previously been negative. Soymilk has been a staple in our house so when we talked to the allergist about it he said, "Definitely go with experience. If he's eating soy without problems then that's fine." But, the allergist did really stress to us the seriousness of the nut and peanut allergy telling us of a patient of his who was college age who was very intelligent and aware about her peanut allergy but died from eating chili that she was unaware of contained peanut butter (the hidden ingredient). He said she felt her mouth burning from the chili but thought it was just "hot" and so she kept eating it and she died! Scary, scary. Makes me not feel too bad about my carefulness with Caleb and people who take care of him. I pray we don't ever face anything like that. Here are a few pictures to share.