You dodged a bullet. Here, have a gluten-free dairy-free nut-free soy-free egg-free cookie.

I took Josiah to the allergists office for testing last Tuesday. I had observed some hives when he eats certain foods, so I wanted to get him checked out. Since his sister has anaphylactic allergies, it's always a good idea to have him tested for the allergens she has too. Imagine my surprise when the test shows negative to egg and peanut (Arianna's allergens), but positive to soy, cashew, almond, pecan, and walnut! So, now we carry four Epi-Pen Jr's, Benadryl liquid and I need to get Josiah a medical alert bracelet. They're mild allergens, so if we avoid them he may grow out of them.


When I got home Tuesday evening, I was shocked and horrified to read a post in my allergy mom's group. With her permission, I will share it with you now...

"A 'friend' of mine just casually informed me that an acquaintance of mine doesn't really believe in allergies, thinks it's all hype! Apparently, all six of her kids are healthy without any of these 'crazy, keep those peanuts away from me, life-threatening allergies'... She just thinks it's overly exaggerated and not really real..."

Um, excuse me? My first response was to laugh. Not in a funny ha-ha way. A "did I just read that?" way.


So, Ms. Doesn't Believe, you think it's all hype because all six of your kids are healthy? Isn't that a little closed-minded? All three of my kids have never had leukemia, never broken a bone, never had the chicken pox, or polio, or smallpox. I do, however believe all of these are not "hype". Neither are they overly exaggerated. I know they are really real.

Ms. Believe, I would like for you to spend a day... or maybe just an afternoon... in the life of an allergy mom. Make gluten, dairy, nut, soy, egg free breakfast. Don't forget to double check labels! Plan an outing with a homeschool or scouting group around your child's allergies (and the allergies of five other kids in the scouts group), pick up the Benadryl and Epi Pens from the pharmacy, but make sure not to leave them in the car because if you do, they go bad! Then take the kids to a park, but be sure not to let the kids out of your sight, because their particular allergen could be anywhere!


Now let me tell you why you have to do all of those things. If my daughter gets around peanuts, first her skin itches. She scratches it, she starts to swell, then she starts to cough. That's as far as her allergic reactions have gone because we've taken action fast before she got to an anaphylactic reaction.


I've never had an anaphylactic reaction, but I have witnessed my sister's reactions before. It starts with an itchy tongue usually, followed by your tongue, lips, face swelling up. Then it gets hard to breathe. Really hard to breathe. If you don't use an EpiPen in time, you could DIE. I'm not being overly dramatic. I'm telling the truth.


I had an allergic reaction to something I ate last night. My tongue, lips, and face were going numb and itchy at the same time. I took Benadryl and prayed. I was hoping it didn't get worse than that, because I knew what happened next. I'd get an EpiPen injection, transferred to the hospital via ambulance, and sit for 4 hours in an ER being watched by the doctors for a secondary reaction. Yeah, it's so "not really real" that doctors take it *that* seriously.


So, I'd like to say to Ms. Doesn't Believe, thank God your children don't have food allergies. I thank God every day that my kids have survived so far and that my middle child is allergy free! And try to be a little easier on us allergy moms, mmkay? Because as for me, I'd give anything not to be all "keep those peanuts away from me"!

The Transition of a Basket

When I was a young, excited, expectant mother, I had a baby shower. I received a basket, and in that basket there was a hand-made crocheted blanket for my daughter. Bright pink, with hearts crocheted so carefully. A trim of different colors. Hand-made with love by a woman who is dear to our family's hearts. It continues to be a cherished blanket of Arianna's.

The basket went on after Arianna was born to be used as a home for diapers, burpies, receiving blankets, and the like. We kept it in the living room for quick access to those items. We did the same with the basket for when Jonas and Josiah were newborns.

As our newborns grew into infants and toddlers, we used this same basket for baby toys. The rattles, "chew toys", things that were special for the babies to play with, that the older kids knew not to run off with. The babies knew where they could find their toys. It locked so we could keep them from stringing the toys all over the place.

Now that we're heading into a new era of parenthood, with Arianna heading into Kindergarten, the basket has found a new job. It now holds homeschool curriculum. It has held up to the test of time, and has found a new career. We open it, pull out what we need to teach her, and when we need to we lock it so they don't mess up everything before we use it.

A basket has transitioned through life, but so have I. I've been a mom for five years. I've gone from being nervous, excited, to frustrated and sleeplessly hoping for the next stage in my child's life, to comfortable and enjoying every minute God blesses me with these kids! I fondly look forward to what lies ahead for us... and that basket...

Thank God for eczema

2Co 12:7-10 (ESV)  So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

Arianna loves to say her nighttime prayers. As an almost-five-year-old, she often misspeaks. We're trying to teach her the difference between thanking God for something and asking him for something. We thank God for our blessings, we ask God to heal the sick.

Every night we typically pray for the same things. Thank God for our home, Daddy's job, our family, our church family, please help the sick people. Tonight, when Arianna got to praying for the sick people, she didn't get out of the thanking "mode". The first thing she said was, "Thank God for my eczema."

I know what she meant, but I couldn't help but think about how awesome her eczema is. Yes, eczema is a nightmare. Especially hers. She itches everywhere. She has large red rough patches all over her body, from her scalp to her toes. She tries not to scratch. She rubs, she tells us and we apply products from steroid anti-itch creams to natural, organic, homeopathics. We had to stop the steroid creams because they are thinning her skin too much. When she can't stand it anymore, she scratches. She scratches hard. She scratches until she bleeds, and then some more. Her feet are a mess. We're pretty sure she'll have scarring in certain areas she's scratched too hard.

However, eczema is teaching her (and us) a lesson. Several lessons. It's teaching her how to overcome hardships. Teaching her how to be patient. How to overcome physical limitations. It's teaching her that her beauty is not in her red, rough, scratched up and bleeding skin. It's in her smile, in her patience with her brother(s), in her little voice singing "God's not dead, he's surely alive" in the back seat of our minivan at the top of her lungs, in the way she comes to me when I'm in pain in bed and tells me that she prayed that I'll feel better. It's teaching us that some things just happen, there's no rhyme or reason, and there's no point blaming vaccines or formula use or overuse of baby bath and baby lotions with chemicals, but to focus on moving forward rather than looking at the past.

So, thank God for eczema! It is teaching our family lessons we would never have learned without it, and all of us will come out on the other side with stronger faith and stronger relationships with each other.

My heart, my mind

My body, my soul

I give to You, take control

I give my body, a living sacrifice

Lord, take control, take control

Things are about to get serious up in here...

July.








Wait, WHAT?! July? When did THAT happen?








Where did May and June go?








For that matter, where did the past FIVE YEARS go?


Yes, five. I have been a mother for almost five years. We're staring down the barrel at our oldest child's fifth birthday. I vividly remember the summer of 2007. Well, the first half. The second half flew by so fast I hardly remember any of it, mainly because I was in an cesarean and oxycodone-induced postpartum depression fog, but that's a story for another day and time. June and July was hot. I mean, hot. I'm pretty sure it hit 200 degrees. In the shade.


Fast forward to five years later. I have a happy, bouncy almost-five-year-old telling me, "Mommy, it's July. My birthday is in July!" The next half of this summer going into fall is going to fly by, much like that c-section/oxycodone fog.


First, we'll be signing up Arianna for soccer. She wants to play so bad. When we had to take a ball away... again... due to her kicking the ball in the house, we decided it was time to sign her up for soccer. Lord willing, we'll be getting her in with an Upward league near our house. This makes me excited and nervous at the same time. Having a child with anaphylactic allergies makes anything like this scary. Kids or parents bring snacks that have her allergen, if they touch her or she touches the food, we could be dealing with a life-threatening situation. However, we can't live our lives cowering in the corner, with her in a bubble, for fear of the unknown. We do our best to maintain a nut free environment by having me sign up as team parent and bringing snacks for the kids, we make sure the coaches, parents, and other kids know the seriousness of her condition and take it that seriously, and we carry her rescue medications and most importantly pray that she is kept safe.


After soccer is handled, we'll be purchasing her homeschool curriculum. We've decided on using My Father's World curriculum, based on several positive comments from friends who use it and that it has everything I want in a homeschool curriculum. To prepare to homeschool, we will be spending the next month and a half cleaning and organizing bedrooms, my sewing desk (which will double as a "Keep the school stuff away from the boys" area), and a closet that has a lot of our office supplies that has been neglected. I am wanting to have everything ready by August, but we won't be starting school until the 20th.


In between soccer, preparing the house and curriculum for school, and all of the other things we do (OT, ST, doctor's visits, etc.) I'll be working to get our year planned for American Heritage Girls. I'm the co-leader for Arianna's age group in our troop. They don't get patches at this age, they get beads. They get small beads for coming to meetings, and then they get big beads for accomplishments like knowing the Pledge of Allegiance, the AHG creed, motto, etc. There's stuff we're doing with the littles, then there are things we are doing with the troop as a whole like camping, participating in Wreathes Across America, collecting change to buy chickens and a goat to send to Haiti (this provides a constant food supply/income for poor families), having a float in the Gator Bowl Parade, and other fun stuff.


My hands are full! I couldn't be happier though! I love my kids, and I am so happy to be blessed with the opportunities to do all of these things with her. I can't wait until the boys are old enough to do things like this too!


This post has been mostly about my little girl, but our boys are getting so big! Jonas is losing his baby fat, saying more and speaking clearer, he still has his days where neither of us understand each other and we both end up crying, but we work it out. Josiah is running everywhere. LJ says he is at "maximum cuteness" level, which means that he could get away with murder if we let him! He's TOO cute! Portraits forthcoming, this week!