Saturday night church service!

Today was a much better day for Grace. We still had a few small meltdowns, but they were pretty easily handled. Her rash is still visible, but slowly it is beginning to fade. Our church recently switched to Saturday night services instead of Sunday morning. My girls LOVE it! They love getting to stay up a little later at night and love to go play with their friends. Right now I am a teacher in Emma's class and this fall I will be switching to Gracie's class. I love being able to be a part of their learning at church and home about God. I LOVE to hear Emma's answers in class and to see her talk about the things she learns. We have started reading a Bible story every night recently. She does great at listening and answering questions and remembering what she hears. She even talks about it over the next few days and applies it to her life which is even better! Now that the girls are sharing a room I think we will add Grace to our story time every night. Tonight we learned about the lame man who was healed and able to walk. It was great to share the story about Emma as an infant. I was working 3rd shift and while Emma slept wonderfully at night she also screamed the whole day! For a (at the time) single Mama trying to work all night and then NOT get any sleep during the day you can imagine it wasnt going well! I started laying my hands on her and praying for her whenever she would cry and she stopped crying all the time! I was excited to share that story with her and her class tonight. I am very excited for her to start Awana this fall. Emma has an amazing memory I believe it is nearly photographic! I cant wait to see all the verses she soaks up! I am excited to see if Grace is the same way as she gets older. Grace is wonderful at praying at the table, and I love to hear the things she prays for!

Food/behavior journal

After talking with the allergist this morning I have decided to continue my food journal with Grace and watch how her behavior changes based on what she eats. Has anyone else done this or had expirience with this? We had a play date with a friend this morning. She is one of the few people Grace just LOVES so she always has fun playing with her and her kids. At the end as we were getting ready to leave, Grace threw a HUGE fit that lasted until we were home and I had her in bed! Poor Emma was covering her ears the whole way home! I am considering having them share a room again so we can pull all the toys out of one room for when Grace is having a fit she can just be alone in that room instead of trashing the house. I am hoping by using the food journal I will find some more correlations between what she eats and how she behaves! She has come a long way and I am hoping this setback is short lived! What are your expiriences with food/behavior??

Here again, gone tomorrow.... here again!

Ahhhh, who needs drama when you are a parent? Your life is full of more than enough of it! The past week has been one of the most draining weeks I have had in quite a while! Grace has been making AMAZING leaps and bounds with her speech! Way fewer meltdowns, and has been doing great at "waiting" for things. Then about a week ago, everything took a turn that so far has NOT been for the better!

A couple of weeks ago Grace got strep again. We took her in the fastcare to get it diagnosed. She was put on an antibiotic. There are 3 ones that they rotate with her. She has been on this antibiotic numerous times with no problems. The one they put her on, they put her on because it has no red dye in it (this is the first time she has been on antibiotics since we found the red dye had an affect on her!), and this is the only one so far (according to the powers that be!) that doesnt have dye in it. She finished the course and about 2 days later broke out in a rash all over her body! She went from just a small rash around her neck to full body rash in 1 1/2 hours! I ended up in the Urgent Care, and we were watching it get worse even as we were sitting in the office! The PA brought in the Dr over her to take a look at it as well. There was some discussion as to whether it was viral or a late allergic reaction to the meds. The conclusion was viral. The next day the rash was travelling around her body and coming and going!

So another call in to the Dr and they suddenly seemed to think it was an allergic reaction! Confused? I was! I talked through both options with them and continued to watch it. 3 days into it and in the evening she was bawling that her head hurt! Holding her head and everything! I gave her some Tylenol and went back in about 10 min later to check on her since she was still crying. Next thing I know, my child who has not thrown up since she was about 6 months old, was vomiting on EVERYTHING In her room! (I do mean EVERYTHING!) I will spare you the gross details. Daddy got her cleaned up and gave her a bath while Mom went into the battle zone! and hour later, the room was airing out while she and I snuggled on the floor (sorry your sick kid but your NOT coming NEAR my couch!!!) She threw up quite a few more times. She never complained about her tummy hurting, only her head.

I didnt feed her anything the next day, and the mysterious rash did not make an appearence. The next day, once she started eating again, the rash started appearing again! I spoke with her allergists office this morning, her allergist was out of town, but they were trying to track him down. I missed the call back from them but should be talking to them in the morning.

The most frustrating part of this is her behavior has suddenly gone WAY downhill! She is trashing rooms, screaming and crying, hitting, bitting, throwing things, and needs her needs met 5 minutes ago or its a 45 minute session to try to calm her down.

Its easy for parents to blow me off and say its just typical 2 year old behavior, but it is NOT! We have worked SO hard to get her beyond this behavior its SO hard to see it back this fast! I am certain she is getting something she shouldnt. This is how she acts when she gets chocolate or red dye. However, I know she isnt getting either! I am VERY ready for my little girl back!

I will say though that even with all this going on, there is some AWESOME stuff going on right now too! She is almost always responding when we tell her we love her, by saying, "I love you too!" She is also beginning to understand lots of issues involving emotion. Her sentences are improving and she is talking about a LOT more stuff! She is telling us things like she wants to run to Daddy, or answering questions about things going on during the day! I am hoping the allergist tomorrow can have some answers for me! I am completely exhausted right now, and my house definitely looks like a tornado hit it! Its hard to keep things picked up when she is in a fit, it seems like her goal is to make as BIG a mess as possible, and by the time she is calmed down, I am to drained to do much about it!

Weisman Center visit

We are heading back into the Weisman Center tomorrow for a follow up apt. This is one of the places we went to have her diagnosed with PDD-NOS. I am excited and nervous. Our last apt there was THE HARDEST apt. I have ever gone to. It was very difficult to have to just sit and watch her struggle through every test. I am excited for the Dr to see all the changes Grace has made, and at the same time nervous she wont see the changes. Grace doesnt do well in new situations sometimes and its possible, since she has been sick, that she wont cooperate. I will be excited to post how the apt go when we get back!

Its been a while since I posted! I just wanted to add a quick update on how my freezer cooking has gone! So far we are on to week 3 of it. Not sure if we will make a full 4 weeks, but I did have 2 extra kids for several days so that may impact it a little! I made all the recipes I had listed and a couple extra even! Every one has turned out very yummy! My all time favorite so far are the cheesy chicken bundles! They are homemade chicken strips with no egg! They are pretty healthy and VERY yummy! IF you are interested in any of the recipes, let me know!