First off I want to say THANK YOU to Storm for my awesome award. Storm visited my blog during the Blog Party and she and I have become blog buddies. She is a single mother with two amazing kids and she really has a warm and wonderful blog. I enjoy reading her blog because she has such strength in her story. Check it out PLEASE.

I also wanted to apologize for being MIA but I have been having so much nausea and actually I have been throwing up too. I do not remember being this sick with Max. And that can only mean one thing-probably having a girl but who knows. It would be fun to have a girl. I did want a boy first and I just adore Max but I think after being mom to a boy-well it would be fun to be a mom to a girl. So with all that said-I feel like crap and the last few weeks I have been the worst blogger but at the end of the night, and especially after throwing up these last 2 nights, I just have no energy. I cannot wait for the second trimester. Bring it on. I would rather be big with a belly than have nausea. 

As for Max, we started him on Diflucan. It was recommended by his doctor since his food allergies were getting worse. he was having allergic reactions to foods that he would eat usually with no reactions. So it has been about a week of clearing out the yeast with diflucan and already he is improving. The new theory on allergies is that it is a leaky gut-I think I wrote about this before and so with leaky gut- you must clear out the yeast, take away foods that promote yeast and then let it heal. So Max eats brown rice, veggies, fruits, and protein. Sounds like the Atkins diet. LOL. But he is getting better. He was breaking out with rashes on his face and had little pimples around his anus. POOR BABY.

Well it is good to have not thrown up today and have some energy. YEAH!

I am sorry for being a bad blogger but Max got tubes in his ears. I did not get much sleep Tuesday night because Max got up ay 4:45 am (oh please ) and then Wednesday night was rough as well. So blogging got put on the back burner. Max was not allowed solids or formula past 11 pm, so I woke him at 10:45 pm for a bottle. He drank it half asleep. Then at 4:30 am I woke him for some apple juice and he drank that and then went back to sleep until 5:40 when I woke him so we could get in the car and drive to Children’s Hospital in Voorhees, New Jersey, one of the satellite offices. Let me first say that CHOP is amazing and we did have great nurses except for the final nurse, who had the personality of somebody doing cocaine for 3 days with no sleep. Yeah GO FIGURE! She was nutty but I was not really worried about her. I just wanted her to get out of our face. She was making me feel like I had anxiety. Regardless, after tears on Wednesday night, and tears in the bathroom praying to GOD and everything else in the world holy or unholy, I was strong for my kid. Max was great and he was full of giggles after they dosed him with some drugs. I asked if they give that drug for take home use as well. The nurse laughed and said she wanted it too for her kids. LOL. Seriously, of course I would not but it is always fun to dream about a kid that giggles and sits still. The procedure was only 6 minutes start to finish and so we will just see how his ears are moving forward. No matter what-Max has allergies and he will have them forever. He will still be the kid who cannot eat dairy or soy and has an  intolerance to wheat It is ok because my hubby and I are the same way. Why would my kid be any different? Of course I get upset sometimes that he cannot just eat anything but he gets outer ear infections, just like swimmers ear and the outer gets aggravated by allergies and water. So for now, the kid of a competitive swimmer from ages 5 to 16, will just have to stay head above the water and no showers for a while. Crazy thing is that he was fine yesterday and this morning he feel and busted his lip and blood fell down his face. GO FIGURE!! Thank goodness for popsicles that helped the swelling and now you cannot even see the cut in his mouth. Good to be back. Have you ever had to go through your kid being put under for a procedure?

Damn me. I am so tired. Max has been having a rough few weeks with his sleep habits. I have always talked about co-sleeping and why we do it-we do it to survive. Of course, it is wonderful to snuggle my little one and feel his warm breath and feel his hands wave in the air until he finds my face and then he knows he is with me, his momma. But lately, the co-sleeping is not even helping. Max falls asleep in his own bed and wake around 11 pm to 12 am and I bring him into our bed. BUT he has been waking up and coming into our bed and then waking up again and then staying up. I am so damn tired and pissed off. I can have patience one night but when it happens two nights, which means I get about 4 to 5 hours of sleep, well then we have a problem. Imagine this: A bitchy and tired pregnant woman!! Yes, beware. I also have the next day guilt because I was so pissed at Max last night for being up and I was trying to put him to sleep over and over frustrated. I could not even keep my own eyes open. I am also scared that I will not be able to handle the tears while trying sleep methods. Last time, Max threw up on himself 3 times and cried for 4 hours. I am sired, frustrated and fearful that things will not change. On the upside, Max’s ear surgery for tubes got moved up a week, so I am hoping things will get a little better after the surgery. So now the surgery is April 24th. Keep your prayers coming for my little guy who needs to go under and his nervous mom that needs to let go and trust that he will be ok. Any sleep tips would be appreciated.

Today we went to see a homeopath in Narberth PA named Todd Hoover MD. It was nice to have a doctor who was also trained in homeopathy. Anyway, he asked a lot of questions about his personality, ear infection, history in general and then he observed him. He said the following: 1. That Max is a strong willed kid- YEAH I KNOW JUST LIKE HIS MOM2. He also said that Max is cautious as well as fearless-YEAH JUST LIKE HIS MOM3. He gets frustrated easily-YEAH JUST LIKE HIS MOM4. He is physically very strong-YEAH JUST LIKE HIS MOM.Anyway, the list goes on but he did say that he feels that Max does not have food allergies but that his head produces a lot of mucous and that the mucous gets trapped and then turns to wax etc. He made some suggestions for supplements and I was impressed and it takes a lot to impress me since I read so many damn health books. So after talking he suggested a homeopathic remedy-one that will address his ears, teething and sleeping issues. I am hoping that it works so we do not have to keep trying. BUT I am still taking his to his Ear, Nose and Throat apt to hear about TUBES because this kid just cannot get past the ear infections and his MOMMA is getting pretty tired too. On another note, I am trying yogurt again because he loved it so much. I am going to see if he has any allergies-such as a rash or something like that and if not-well then he will eat some dairy. As for wheat, I am introducing it slowly. As long as he is getting calcium and drinking his Neocate, a substitute for dairy, which has all of the same building blocks as milk, then I don’t care BUT I have to admit that it is hard having his ears hurt and hard watching him in pain and hard knowing that no matter what I do that I cannot entirely fix it. I guess this is the biggest lesson that I have learned being a momma to Max. I can only do my best and be there for him. UGH  

Let me first say that I am so grateful. I had a wake up call. It is so easy to feel like Max is sick when I see him in pain from his ears but when we stepped into the elevator at Children’s Hospital..well let me just say that I realized that I have no right to complain. Of curse, I am his mom and when he is pain-it breaks my heart but seeing little babies and kids sick and sick in a way that Max is not-it made me step back and feel the gratitude.See Max has choices and I have choices and lots of those kids at that hospital do not. I am sending love to all those kids.As for Max, it was not a fun apt. He had to be skin tested for a few different foods and environmental allergies. The doctor was nice and very informative. We talked for a while and he told me to try Max on soy, which I am not a fan of since he is a boy and does not need a lot of estrogen. But the doctor looked at me like I crazy when I told him that despite not testing positive on a skin test..I know he has allergies. I never tested positive either but when I had a blood test I did. He also looked at me like I was crazy when we were talking about Max having blood in his stool when he was very little. It was kind of nutty because he was telling me that I had nothing to worry about but then he was saying that Max may have allergies since he shows all of the sign-he gets rashes and zits and his stomach will hurt with certain foods etc. Thank goodness I called Daphne Goldberg, our family doctor, and told her all of this. She assured me that she agrees that Max is sensative to some foods like me. It is just so nutty when you are trying to get answers. But at least Max is not really sick because then it would be REALLY frustrating.