The Girl Loves a Challenge

After the big challenge today... I have Nothing to report. Nothing!
Thanks for all your well-wishes and prayers for the Nothing. It was just what we wanted!
We had a slightly worried moment when a hive popped up on Her back. But, there was another child in there having a dairy challenge, and the hive occurred right after Dr walked in and said, "I don't think they should be playing together". Keeping the kiddos apart + the wonderful nurse meticulously wiping down everything in the room for us = success! Take that soy!
Plus, She loved- I mean loved- the soy milk. She took shots out of the plastic medicine cup with an enthusiasm and expertise that would make any frat boy proud. Then She'd say, "MMmmm. MMMMMmmm!! Yummy, Mommy. Smeshal milk treat. More please!"
We spent 5 hours in the clinic today, but it was well worth it.
The amount of options open to Her now are mind boggling. Seriously, I'm boggled! Because:

1) Crackers, bread, canned soup, lunch meat...the list is endless, that She could almost have before, and then the last ingredient was a soy derivative, or it was processed in a facility blah blah blah. Now ok!

2) She can soon stop drinking the specialized formula (which is a pain to get and costs the Navy about $80 a week) and switch to Smeshal Milk.

3) Baking will be a breeze. A breeze!

4)She can have the same dinner as we do most of the time now! Especially because:

5)Soy is the ultimate James Bond Spy of food items. It can be disguised as anything. So now, even though She still has other allergies, She can have "cheese". "Yogurt", "ice cream", "peanut butter"...tons of stuff, made from soy. Not that it's the same, exactly. But close enough that She won't have to feel quite so left out.

She can take vitamins now. She can use more kinds of soap and shampoo. It's a new world out there for Little One! You probably can't tell I'm excited. But I am!
We celebrated tonight by making chicken with a honey-soy sauce glaze for dinner. I had minor moments of panic as She helped me cook,when She'd touch the soy sauce bottle or the dish we mixed it in. This will take a little getting used to! For me. Not for Little One. More food to eat? More new things to try? What's to get used to, this is great!

This gives me hope that other allergies will drop off as we go, maybe soon. In fact, we have a blood test for eggs pending that will tell us whether She can take those suckers on in another challenge this year. Sort of amazing after everything that She's been through. You know. Hope tastes just as good as Smeshal Soy Milk. Mmmmm. I'm liking it.

Praying for Nothing

Today we went to the allergist. Who is the best allergist of all time.
Not just because I credit him with saving Little One's life and well-being, but because he is just an awesome, awesome doctor. The man knows everything. And he will be happy to take the time to print up all the medical research, statistics, graphs and charts and illustrated micro-biology text that has informed him. Plus he happens to be a super nice guy, and Little One likes him. BEST OF ALL TIME. Well. Today I have even more reason to like him, because we (for once!) got some good news.
For one, he says he is "cautiously optimistic" about Her future allergic-ness. Which is a big jump in the hopeful direction from where we were last spring! For two, he is optimistic enough about Her soy allergy, that he thinks there is a chance She has outgrown it. ! !!!! !!!!!!!!!!
IN FACT, Peanuts- excuse me while I dance a little jig as I type- tomorrow is a very big day for Little One. She is going to spend the morning with the Best Allergist of All Time, having a Soy challenge!
No, no. Not an obstacle course with a wading pit of edamame at the end, or a wrestling match in a baby pool full of tofu. Though that might be more fun.
She will be given some soy milk, a tiny drop at first, then increasing amounts over time. And we wait. And we watch. And if She goes into anaphalactic shock, there is a doctor and nurse ready with a crash cart and epipens. And if She has a small reaction, some hives maybe, we get a little dejected, pat each other on the back and say, "better luck next time".
BUT! BUT!! But, if nothing happens, and She can get through just 3 ounces of the stuff safe and sound, She will be considered "cured" of the soy allergy. ! !!!!!
Of all Her allergies, soy is the one that is hardest to avoid. Go grab a package of food. Anything. I bet you there is soy something in there. It seems that just about anything that comes in a package or wrapper has soy. Soy additives, soybean oil, soy-based emulsifiers, something. Plus, we eat a lot of fake meat and tofu around here- all soy. It would be great not to worry about letting Her touch it, great not to have to fix Her meal separately as often. And, most of all, great because it is the one allergy I worry most about other people accidentally giving Her. Most people don't realize how pervasive it is.
The Challenge (AKA "Hey, let's give Her some and see what happens!" ) doesn't seem like the most impressive medical technology. But it's the only surefire way to know what tests can only give hints about. So even though I know there is a real risk to this test, with Her ige levels She has about a 73% chance of passing it. Not too bad, right? And the potential benefits are, I think, worth the potential risk, considering we will be under the watchful eye of the Best Allergist of All Time and his wonderful staff.
I did not mean for this post to get so long. If you're still reading it, I will continue with my hyperbole and dub you the Best Blog Reader of All Time!
So, Best Reader of All Time, if you're awake at 7am eastern time tomorrow, please send some positive thoughts out our way. Keep your fingers crossed for Little One that we have made a good decision, and that it will pay off. Please say some prayers for us, that tomorrow when She faces Her challenge, we will wait, and watch. And that there will be Nothing.

Adventure Tale

Trying to explain to Little One what was in store for the day, I took the long shot of asking if She remembered going on a ride at carnival. She just kinda stared at me. No worries, it's a lot to ask a 2 year old to recall something that happened months ago. But then She nodded slowly and said, "ya daddy. Daddy ride, mommy no. No mommy ride, daddy. Man. Man help, big rope. Nice man. Ride, ride, around around around! Fast ride, daddy. Yay!"
A pretty perfect synopsis of climbing into the tilt-a-whirl with J and having the carnival-guy strap them in. And She's right- mommy did not ride. Mommy could barely watch the "around around". She was thrilled to learn that we were going to take Her to a fun place with more rides today, and I knew She would be. Because this girl is a dare-devil.
She proceeded to remember all the other rides She went on at the carnival, too.
"Car go, drive around some more. Drive car ride, another car! Nother car!"

"'Copter one. Up, up, up! Copter ride fly, other kids fly copter. Kids nice, copter nice. Rope copter, too."

"kid ride, up up walk, stuck knees. Kids come, up up, climb, slide. Yaaaaay!"

This one was the craziest. It was supposed to be for people over 3 feet tall. But this was in J's hometown, in very rural Maryland, where really, safety was not a featured attraction. She said She wanted to go. So, because I am a crazy person and the ticket lady didn't care, I sent Her in. Alone. To navigate swinging punching bags,a ball pit, a big ladder, a catwalk 15 feet in the air, and a twisty slide that sent Her shooting back out at me, squealing with delight "again again!"

When She got a bit stuck on the ladder, a sweet older girl helped Her out a bit. But She managed the whole thing without the least bit temerity, while 5 year old boys wallowed in the ball pit screaming for their mammas. She did this 'ride' 4 times.
She did some others as well.

What She really wanted, and never gave up begging for, was the giant green "screamer" that lifts you in a cage 50 feet in the air and spins in every direction. But my crazy only goes so far.
So as a consolation, She got to choose between the ferris wheel and the tilt-a-whirl. Not even an option. She immediately picked the fast one. Again, there is no way She should have been allowed on that thing, but J held Her tight, and Her giggles could be heard on the other side of the carnival. They rode it twice.

Today is Military Appreciation (otherwise known as super-cheap tickets) Day, and J gets off early, so we are going to Her first amusement park, 6 Flags. I'll let you know how it goes!
Or better yet, She can tell you Herself.

Regular Boring Update

As promised- and I know you have all been wasting away by your computers, pulling your hair out in anticipation- here is a general update on things in the By The Way household. I know, I know. You're so welcome, you adoring masses. Or...mom. Love ya too mom! Here goes:

J:
J? What J? Have you seen him? Anyone? Not me. J gets out the door around 4:30am. I know for a fact that he kisses me goodbye every day, because it's tradition and we stick to it like a fiddler on a roof. But I have no actual memory of it, because, like a normal person, I am SLEEPING. He works long hours, no weekends, and has had some very, very crazy patients lately to entertain me with tales of. But he's loving being a real doctor, getting to see patients instead of sit in a classroom, and from what I hear they love him too. Of course!
While we don't get to see him a lot around the house, between the two of us Little One and I have spent a lot of time at the hospital for various appointments, and he usually slips away long enough to send Little One into a fit of excited screaming and hugging and begging to play with the pen light. He's tired, but he's hanging in there. And when he IS home it's hard to tell who is more thrilled about it, him or Little One. Despite being gone a lot, J is amazing (I think) in that he has created a really close relationship with his daughter. Seeing them together adoring the heck out of each other is my happiest time. Because it's so sweet...ok and partly because whoever is playing with Her is on empty-the-potty duty. Unwritten rule.

C and Fetus (currently a packaged deal): Doing ok! Exclamation point! Because that is a great big step up! ! While I still am feeling tired and really queasy in the evenings (and have yet to hit 48 hours without puking at least once) it's a world better than it was. I feel much better about being able to take care of things around here and get out when I need (or want) to. At almost 17 weeks, I have still not gained any weight. But somehow still feel like a walrus that needs to waddle around. And I do rock a little belly now, which is kind of fun for me, because I like seeing people doing the intent look/double-take that says "is she? or maybe just a little too much cheesecake? Or is she...?" The really fun part though is that I can feel the little bugger kicking around in there now, which is and always has been the only part of pregnancy I can say I "like" without lying.
Said fetus is also doing great, growing and squirming and looking stylish in the sonograms. We do not know yet if it's a boy or girl, but YES we are finding out as soon as scientifically possible. Because, have I mentioned this? I am a planner. I NEED to know what to put in the nursery, and what societally-mandated gender-stereotyped outfits to hang in the closet. Also, we could maybe pick out a name a little earlier than as-we-are-literally-walking-out-the-hospital-door this time. Probably won't, but we could. At least try.

Little One: Constantly knocking our socks off with another New Thing. Her 2 year check up was on Her birthday, in which the doctor actually asked to see my purse for proof that I don't carry a diaper or extra set of undies when we go out. Believe it, missy. And in which Little One wowed her by demonstrating Her extensive knowledge of the names of anatomical parts, some of which I would not mind if She had left out, or at least not used mine as a demo. And at which She weighed in at a hefty 22lb, earning Her a spot in the 4th percentile. Because She is obviously growing and thriving, Dr and I are not concerned about this. And in fact, I am rather amused that I was able to bring out most of Her 12month sized winter clothes from last year for a re-run.
Despite being a bit petite, Little One has no shortage of personality. She gets more fun and hilarious by the second, it seems. She has Her share of stubborn moments, which I would love to call Terrible Twos, except that Double-genetic Curse would probably be more accurate. Overall, though, She's a breeze to parent and turning into a pretty fun buddy to have around all the time. She can have real conversations now, which is SO COOL. And Her imagination is wild.
She's very excited that we have a new baby-in-the-tummy, though She has informed me that She will NOT be sharing Her pretty hair-ties. "These, these one? My. Little One hair tie. No baby. Baby, other ones. Mommy, you find other one baby. These one mine, k? Okay!" Oh yes. The word "mine" somehow weaseled its way into Her vocab exactly a week before last Tuesday, and while it hasn't been repeated often since, like a horse can sense an impending earthquake, I feel the "mine" tsunami coming. We have arrived at TWO.

Doggies: Oh doggies. Poor babies, so often left out of posts. The dogs are a big deal in our house right now. For awhile now we have been having some problems with one of our furry babies. I will probably share more later. But right now we are looking seriously into ways to help her. I have an appointment an hour away on Monday, and we will see how it goes. But the decisions we are making around our little pet are a big topic around here lately.
Generally though, around the house, they are both learning to live with a toddler and starting to accept that being dressed in hats and necklaces, receiving fake manicures and fur-styles, and being taken on "walks" around (and around, and around, and around...) the living room are just unavoidable parts of life. They do seem to enjoy having stories read to them every morning in their bed, though. Who doesn't love that?

Generally Speaking: We are all enjoying the cool fall air, the change of seasons, and each other. I get out to see my and Little One's friends as often as I can, and J goes on little adventures with us as often as he can, but generally we are sticking pretty close to home these days. Sort of wrapped up in all we have to do and in each other when we have the chance. Looking forward to all the holidays and excitement coming in the months ahead. And enjoying the simple and fleeting things about today and all the days until Big Changes come. Like sleeping all night, for instance. Which I think I'll go appreciate right now.
Night!

Party Time. Excellent!

When J and I got hitched, I planned the wedding myself. With help from my mom, my sister, and J's mom, I did everything from making each invitation, program, and table card by hand (decorating each one), to fashioning hanging tea lights and hooking them up in the trees, to making shirts and jewelry for the wedding party and sewing flower petals into my little sister's dress. I made it even more work than a wedding usually is. And I LOVED it.
I listen as sympathetically as possible to friends complain about the annoyances of wedding planning. Who has time to spend a whole day comparing napkin colors?! So true. But I love this stuff. Napkin colors! Place cards! Party favors! Yes please! I ended up doing party and event planning as a side job in college, more for the fun than the cash.
Parties indulge all my type A tendencies to the extreme. Planning, organizing, making lists, arranging and re-arranging things... cleaning the heck out of everything before and after....it's like zen. There can be themes people! Which also indulges what little creativity I have. I love to come up with ideas and see them through with my own hands. I don't get a ton of opportunities to employ this obsession. BUT! Little One does have birthdays. And kid's events are by far the most fun. I tried to keep it simple, even though there was a theme. Oooh. I didn't have to think hard to choose one; Little One pretty much chose for me.
Her big obsession now (besides Beyonce- another post altogether) is tea parties. Not the war paint/picket sign type, Peanuts, even if we do live in DC. I mean the big hat, china saucer, one-lump-or-two type. Awhile back I got Her a thrift store tea set, and it has been all tea parties, all the time, ever since.
So for Her birthday, I made little appetizers and tiny sandwiches, and an awful lot of sweet stuff.

Including these ice cream cones, cut down and iced to cookies to look like tea cups. They were kind of boring so I added some color and sprinkles. (Yes I did. Me, who has serious qualms about giving sugar to children. But....they were kind of cute, right? What's a few cavities here and there? Ahem).










J's awesome aunt did this amazing cake, which was as yummy as it was pretty.




I made a tea-pot pinata, inspired by Ellie, the Duchess of crafting.

It was the pinata that would not die.

Little One and I wanted the kids to indulge their crafty selves too. So we picked out plain cups and fancy saucers for them to decorate with paint pens.












And what's a tea party without dressing up? So there were hats for them to decorate; straw hats for the girls and top hats for the boys.








To get extra fancy, the little ladies had plastic necklaces and I made sparkly clip-on bow-ties for the gents.



It was really fun seeing how much the kids liked these projects. Especially the older neighborhood boys, who are generally too street to be seen doing anything that does not impersonate a teenager. I loved seeing one 9 year-old, in a plastic top-hat and sparkly bow-tie, painting his name on a tea cup and muttering, "ya'll better not try and tell anyone I'm doing this..." and then adding glitter. Glitter! He could just not help himself. Really, Peanuts, with glitter and stickers, who could?










I set up the deck with some little tables and tea sets for the kids to play at, and I was also surprised to see how much they got into that part. I knew that Little One would love it, but it was nice to see the other kiddos pouring pretend tea and bringing a cup of air to their mammas.












We had fun. Not least, Little One.


I wish you could have seen Her face the moment She came downstairs from Her nap to find the house transformed into Tea Party central. Or heard how She whispered "Tea Party!" in this excited, awestruck voice, and touched each little tea cup so admiringly before dissolving into giggles. It was magic.

She was thrilled to see a whole table of food that She could eat ALL of. And She spent most of the party eating something. She kept going back to choose more.








She was the first one to start singing "happy birthday" when the candles came out.

She had Her first ever real sugary treat. An egg/milk/soy free cupcake and icing that turned out pretty tasty! I used this recipe, substituting coconut milk for the shortening, and also made little muffins out of this one, which were yummy enough to make again, for all of us.


My friend A is an amazing photographer and artist, and as part of Little One's present she shot some pictures for us. I am too lazy to figure out how to make the files smaller to post many of them here, but they are really lovely.



How much girlier can you get...a tiara and a party hat? Little One was in Her element.

And, throughout the whole thing- and as I scrubbed every puzzle piece, every wooden block, every inch of the house until 2:30 the next morning to make sure it was allergy-sanitized by the time She woke up- so was I.
Little One takes after Her dad in a lot of ways, and She is nothing but Her own Self in others. But in some ways, She's like Her mom. One thing we definitely agree on is that there there isn't much that's more fun than being a hostess, making things from scratch, and, most of all, having great friends to share it with.

This is My Brain On Toddler, Dogs, and Fetus

Ok, so. I'm sorry. I haven't called you back. I haven't answered my phone, and I haven't called you back. You want to know the truth? Yes. Yes I checked my messages. Yes I texted you, instead of calling you back, like you said to in the message. There. I am directing this apology to so many of you, right here. On a blog. It's easier to do it en mas. Because, see, otherwise...I would have to call you all back.
And here's the thing. I prefer to communicate by typing just now. Because, if I text you, or email, or send a message on facebook, I am able to lead a secret double life!
I can say something. To you! And I can do it in such a way that I appear to be coherent, and sane, and somewhat put-together; as like a normal person as I'll likely get. This is only really possible through a written dialogue of some sort.
Because, see, if I am "talking to you" with texts or messages, instead of on the phone, you do not have to strain to hear me over the sound of my child screaming, banging, singing, or MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!-ing in the background.
You do not have to decipher my message by extracting the words that are pertinent to you from a soup of interjections like: "yes honey just a minute, nonono don't eat that, dogs would you stop barking, kids we cant come out to play yet, please come down from there, yes i love you too, please let go of mommy's phone, yes love just a minute".
You won't run the risk of having to wait while I pause to: take something out of the oven, vomit, extract things from mouths, give a time-out, wipe up some kind of fluid, vomit, kiss an owie, and struggle to recapture my train of thought. (Or pee. By the time I will have written this I'll probably have gone and peed about 27 times.)
Typing is so much easier! I can start, stop, resume when I have 3 seconds and 5 brain cells to spare, and send it all off as one neatly packaged, purified thought! And even better, if you answer in kind, I can read your words, and then re-read them after I totally forget what we were talking about because OMG did someone just eat a booger that is disgusting who was it. I can read them in some momentary lull in which I can actually consider what you are saying and how to appropriately respond.
Whereas on the phone, I am likely to respond with something like: "uh huh, sorry what?, can you hang on just a sec, can I think about it and call you back, absolutely NOT miss no I wasn't talking to you, or, sorry what?"
I'm telling you. I love to hear your voice. I miss it. I know typed messages are not the same as an actual conversation and I know it is annoying to have to text or message and then wait who-knows-how-long to get a response. But really, you would wait that long to get the same amount of information even if we were talking on the phone. And trust me, it would not be as like a "conversation" as you might think.
So for those of you I have been rudely not calling, I will post an update soon. With things I would probably talk about with you over coffee if the smell didn't make me nauseous, you didn't live so far away, and I could speak to one person for over 15 seconds consecutively. And also, I'm sorry.
But, trust me, it's for your own good.