Today my sweet little boy had his tonsils and adenoids removed. This surgery was a long time coming. As I mentioned in my last FPIES update we were basically referred for this by all of D’s doctors. He’s had gigantic tonsils from birth, but it wasn’t until his endoscopy just before his 2nd birthday that we were told that when he laid down his tonsils touched each other.

I wanted to document this process because I couldn’t find much out there in the way of a toddler’s experience with Tonsillectomy and Adenoidectomy. I am a researcher. I like hearing about other people’s experiences with things before we dive headlong into them. Obviously I knew no matter what I read that we were going to do the surgery, but it’s nice to know what helped or didn’t help with other people going through the same stuff.

Ginormous Tonsils:

Our major deciding factor into this surgery was not chronic illness or sleep issues like some, but rather that we were concerned that his tonsils we so just too big and hindering his ability to swallow food.

As he has made strides in his eating beyond his allergy issues, D still couldn’t swallow solid foods. So we finally got in to see the ENT and sure enough he too was shocked by the size of his tonsils. He told me he had read our chart and was actually going to try and talk us out of removing them, until he saw them. And once he saw them he knew they would have to come out.

He said he couldn’t believe that we had gotten along this long without removing them, and he was certain that this would be a great step towards helping him swallow food. The space that his tonsils left in his mouth simply was not enough to allow him to swallow without gagging. He told us they were among the biggest he’s ever seen at that age.

He also told us we could expect to hear a completely different voice from our toddler because he was talking behind golf balls. He also said to expect a great improvement in the hours and quality of sleep he was getting. (This would have been nice to know when he was a baby – no wonder he preferred to sleep on his belly from nearly day one. When he was an infant he so frequently woke up choking, and wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. It was pretty miserable.)  And of course we could be really hopeful that he would be finally able to swallow solid foods.

Day 1 and Already Seeing Big Changes:

 Top Right: Playing Before Surgery. Top Left: Waking Up.
Bottom Right: Eating a Pouch Post-surgery. Bottom Left: Sound asleep with his Dream Blanket.

Today is day one, so I am sure we have about 2 weeks of recovery in front of us, but after he woke from surgery and shook off some of the anesthesia, he saw his Doctor and said, “HI DOCTOR (his name)”. It was almost like music to my ears. It was a completely different voice that the voice I’d been listening to talk non stop since he could. It was clear, and loud, and not stuck in his throat. It was beautiful.

We are spending the night at the children’s hospital. Mostly because he’s under 3 years old and just over 30lbs (33.4lbs to be exact). So far I couldn’t be happier with how he is doing. Other than the medicine he was given during surgery and right after, he has only had Tylenol. No additional pain meds. He’s been very mellow, but also very happy. I’m certain we will have some rough nights ahead of us, but I can honestly say I am very hopeful.

Currently, and the only reason I am able to blog this as quickly as I am – he is sleeping very very soundly.

We are currently stocked up on his favorite flavors of Nuun (electrolyte tabs – because he won’t drink Gatorade or pedialyte), sorbet, and all his favorite TV and movies. Fingers crossed for as uneventful recovery. I promise to post a recovery update so if your toddler will be having this procedure you are able to read about our experience and what worked best for recovery.

Toddler Tonsillectomy & Adenoidectomy. Why we had it, & what we hope will change.
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Did you your little one ever have a similar surgery? How was their recovery? Any tips? – Let me know in the comments

Related articles across the web

• Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) Surgery and Procedures
• ME AND MY OPERATION: The technique to trim your child’s tonsils to help them sleep
• Rare food allergy affects babies, toddlers
• Sleep apnea in kids: More than a sleep problem

You guys, I know I have not updated our FPIES journey on my blog in a really really long time. In fact I never even shared how our Food Trials at Denver’s National Jewish Health Hospital went. I will try to be better about it in the future. I know I have turned to other people in social media for help and answers. It can be a really encouraging and helpful source of information when you are limited in resources (since FPIES is still pretty rare).

I should say I am usually much better about giving quick updates on Facebook and Instagram – so if you aren’t following me there and you want more frequent updates – please do.

• Catch Up Here: FPIES – Diagnosis and More
• Learn About What FPIES is: FPIES Foundation

Here is the “as short as I could make it” update on what’s been going on with us.

Food Trials

D trying eggs (and passing), with his awesome nurses, and Doctors at National Jewish Health in Denver CO.

One year ago exactly we were in Denver for Food Trial. We spent 3 weeks living in a hotel (just me and both boys since the hubby was overseas), and we didn’t get nearly the amount of answers we had hoped for. Our first week D was SO sick so we couldn’t trial anything. It became apparent on our 2nd week as we started trials that D has severe oral aversions. This was something I had suspected because apples are a safe food for him, but he can’t tolerate the texture of applesauce. He’d gag at the first touch of it on his tongue.

We tested:

• Eggs – PASS!
• Rice – Possible Pass (He didn’t take as much as they’d have liked him too, but since that one is usually a high reactor and he didn’t at all they called it a pass. I would love to re-trial this one.
• Soy – Fail. Doctors at NJH did not want to call this an FPIES fail because his throw up happened hours after it was supposed to. We re-trialed while we were there and had the same hours after vomiting. I know my child enough to say this was a non-typical FPIES fail, but the doctors weren’t willing to say FPIES with it at all because it didn’t happen within their prescribed time frame. We did however both agree we should avoid this food.
• Chicken – Texture Fail. *NOT FPIES fail. He wouldn’t tolerate it.
• Peas – Texture Fail.

After the Pea fail due to textures I decided, and the staff agreed that we were done. Further testing only stressed his the severity of his oral aversions. I will say I was very happy with the staff at National Jewish Health and their FPIES/food allergy program. They were really awesome to us and both of my boys.

Speech/Food Therapy:

We came home and met with our Allergist who refereed us to a speech and food therapy place. To this DAY they couldn’t fit us in.  I will be super honest here. I tried really hard for 5 months to get him in for appointments. Then we had some big breakthroughs and life got in the way. I am back on the proactive band wagon and I’m exploring state assistance now.

Endoscopy:

We changed GI doctors after our visit to National Jewish Health because I couldn’t stand the staff at the office we were at. Two months after our hospital stay they called to ask where they should send D’s medical chart to!! I had them promise me it would be sent before we went to our Food Trials – but they didn’t “Get To It…”. Our new GI wanted to do an endoscopy to rule out one additional issue. During that test we were told two things:

• When D lays down his tonsils touch – Our GI doctor was a bit concerned about that.
• The Endoscopy showed no issues in his esophagus like the new GI was concerned about. It did show some irritation in his stomach (mild gastritis and duodenum inflammation. The GI said he’d really only expect to see that if the child had been retching recently. He had not. So it’s a bit concerning, and he wants to put him on acid reflux meds.

FYI – I opted out of them because he hasn’t be experiencing pain, and in the past the only frustrated him and usually ended up with him throwing up due to his oral issues. However, I am now hoping to ask for a prescription so that he can have some comfort with newer foods he’s been eating.

The Elecare Issue:

One of the reasons I couldn’t put all my attention into speech therapy was because for about 4 months I fought tooth and nail to get his Elecare covered. Our insurance refused to cover it. We had an awesome Doctor who helped us with samples, but eventually those ran out too. If you are fighting with your insurance – all I can tell you is KEEP DOING IT. It took me so long to finally get someone to listen, and once I did we started to move in the right direction. No one will tell me why it’s covered now. But it is. And that’s a great thing because out of pocket it would cost nearly $1200 a month! If you are reading this and need help – feel free to email me. I can’t promise I will have any information you don’t already have, but I’m happy to help.

Breakthroughs:

I don’t know what happened or why, but right before his 2nd birthday D started to eat some pureed foods. (He likes the pouches.) At first we were pretty nervous, and we did have our fair share of gagging pukey messes, but each day seemed a little bit better. Now he will eat 1-2 pouches a day. Nothing with extra texture.

So we have lots of new veggies and fruits that are passes!! He loves strawberries and blueberries. He loves mango and spinach. He likes really smooth hummus, and he ADORES hot sauce and mustard. (Obviously the last two are not very full of nutritional value, but a step in the right direction.)

After he began to eat pouches he also began to want to suck on big kid foods. He can no swallow solid food without puking, but he loves to hold it in his mouth and then spit it out when he’s done. This often triggers his gag reflex, but he loves it.

Because of this we have re-affirmed that dairy – while not an FPIES reaction gives him HORRIBLE eczema. I also believe that wheat causes the same reaction, but we have time to figure that out.

Someone said that when their molars come through it triggers a change in their saliva and they are better able to process food. Someone else mentioned that using a vibrating toothbrush helps to desensitize their mouth and allows them to eat more. We had both things happen at once – but whatever it was – I am excited to see him eating more. He typically has 1-2 pouches a day.

We have had NO additional fails at this point. So that is really really awesome. Our Doctors at NJH hospital said reactions to fruits and veggies at this point would be pretty unlikely.

What’s Next?

Tomorrow I will be sharing more about it – but D is going to have his tonsils removed. The GI, Allergist, and Pediatrician all recommend we check with an ENT about the size of his tonsils. They will be removing them this week and we hope that will begin to allow him to swallow food better.

If I can say one thing to any parent who suspects or has a child diagnosed with FPIES. It’s not easy, but it does get better. You will learn and adapt as your child does. There are a lot of amazing resources available.

But most of all – DO NOT be afraid to continue to push until all your questions are answered, and do not be afraid to ask a million questions. FPIES has no “test” so it can be really frustrating to watch your child have to rule out lots of other issues. It will be okay, and you are doing awesome.

Well, that was as short as I could make this post. If you made it reading all the way through here… Bravo and thank you. Please consider sharing our post so that others who are also struggling might find it and maybe take something away from it that they wouldn’t or didn’t previously already know.

A long overdue FPIES Update: What’s New at 2+ Years?
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Alright everyone! I’m trying something new. What’s New Wednesday is all the fun and sometimes not fun new things that is happening in Our Knight Life! Check out what’s new this week!

What’s New Wednesday:

New School!

The biggest and newest thing in our home is that I officially have a kindergartener! K started full-day kinder and after a slightly bumpy first day he seems to love it! I am so sad that he’s not home with me, and I had some pretty intense emotions over his first day. But I know he’s ready to go to school, and I’m looking forward to having some one on one time with Baby D. When he grows up he wants to be an “Airplane Police Officer”. This is the 3rd year in a row he’s wanted to be some type of police officer. There is nothing more I want for him than that his dreams and ambitions come true. That and to stay a little boy a little bit longer, but I don’t think I have to worry about that one!

(Doing his best Optimus Prime impression!)

New Hairdo!

Before my husband deployed this past week I was able to get into the salon and get a much needed highlight/low-light. I really needed this done. It had been MONTHS since I last got it done, so I had a pretty natural “ombre” look going on. I had my stylist add a lot of low-lights so as to help blend it all together and give me a look that is a lot less maintenance.

New Career?

Okay, not really, but never ever did I ever think that my blog could lead to me getting to do a TV news segment. I was lucky to be asked to showcase some fun back to school items! You can watch the video here, and enter the giveaway here! I think I got the bug! I’d love to do this again and again!

New Sport:

I love watching my boys do new things. My son has previously played t-ball, but his league was very unorganized so he didn’t really like it. I was surprised when he asked to play again. Turns out he’s too old now for t-ball and is in an actual little league now with coach pitch! Before practice I told him to try his best, and have fun. I explained there wouldn’t be a T and not to be upset if he didn’t hit the ball at first. Turns out I didn’t have to worry so much about that! He hit his first 3 pitches! He’s loving this league, and I’m obsessed with watching him have fun!

New Obsession!

You guys! I can’t stop eating this amazing Greek salad. It’s simple. It’s easy to make a lot of it. It’s easy to build a meal around it, and it tastes SO DANG GOOD! Such a simple combination of food and seasoning.

New Trails!

My half marathon training is going pretty good. A few bumps, a lot of “Am I doing this right?” and “Can I really do this?”. What I’m most excited for though is now that it’s starting to cool off a little bit, and K is in school full days, I’m able to run outside! It’s easier in some ways, and harder in others. My miles were certainly slower today than I was expecting, but with a view like this, does that really matter?

New Food!

I took K to get some frozen yogurt today, and I picked out some watermelon sorbet that I knew I could let D try. It was gluten free, soy free, dairy free, and didn’t seem to have any other glaring ingredients that I’d worry he’d react to, and while I never know what he will react to ever since food trials in April D hasn’t ingested any food. He puts stuff in his mouth and he smooshes it around and spits it out. Or he will accidentally get it to the back of his throat and he gags instead of swallowing. It wasn’t until 2 weeks ago that he even started to swallow water. So I didn’t think he’d want anything to do with it after a taste. I was wrong. He LOVED it. He tried it, scrunched his face up from the cold, opened his eyes wide from the flavor, and then swallowed and laughed. He asked and signed “please” and “more”. Even K was laughing at his reaction. So far no reactions, and this gives me real hope I may be able to try some other foods perhaps even purees again and get him to actually eat them. Everything else aside, isn’t it amazing to watch your child discover food for the first time?

What’s New With You?

It’s no secret if you read my blog, follow my instagram or facebook page that I LOVE my cloth diapers. I’m actually a bit addicted to them.

You know the line from Despicable Me?

It’s So FLUFFY!!

Yeah, I pretty much want to say that every single day when I put cloth diapers on my son!

But what if I told you I had a secret?

For nearly 4 months I’d practically given up on using cloth diapers for Baby D, but thanks to Andy Pandy Bamboo Diapers that didn’t happen!

We battled and nearly lost to an epic acid rash that I couldn’t figure out for the life of me…

When this rash started to show up, I thought it was our cloth. We stopped using microfiber, we switched to natural materials against his bottom – That didn’t work. We treated for yeast. We stripped our diapers 3 times. That didn’t work. I was in tears when I realized the only thing that “worked” was switching to a disposables.

I wasn’t ready to be done with cloth, but seeing my child bleeding and screaming in pain the instant he pooped I knew I had no other choice. Switching to disposables was almost as hard as figuring out his rash was from his FPIES and not the cloth itself.

I couldn’t believe how much perfume some diapers had. I hated how many chemicals were in the mainstream disposables. One of the main reasons I was using cloth was do avoid chemicals against their bottoms. So we tried Eco-freindly options. We had leaks, we had the dreaded blow-outs, and we had gel stuff on his bottom. It was gross. I was fed up. I didn’t know what to do.

Finally someone suggested we check out Andy Pandy Bamboo Disposable Diapers. It was because of Andy Pandy diapers that we were able to finally get his rash under control and also to make our way back to using our beloved cloth diapers.

Andy Pandy bamboo diapers not only cleared up his rash quickly, they worked in every single fashion that the other disposable diapers I tried failed.

My Review:

There are so many reasons why I love Andy Pandy bamboo disposable diapers. Let’s start with the bamboo!

• Bamboo is 100% biodegradable! It’s strong, soft, and naturally absorbs odors!
• Plus bamboo is a very renewable resource! So it’s very eco-friendly!
• The bamboo makes the diaper super absorbable – we’ve gone 12 hours sleeping on his belly without leaks.
• The bamboo actually wicks the moisture away from baby, and it’s thermal regulating (When it’s hot it keeps baby cool, when it’s cool it keeps baby warm!).
• Finally, bamboo is naturally hyper-allergenic and antibacterial.

Those reasons alone were enough, but there is more!

• The diaper has gusseted leg ruffles on the inside to help prevent accidents. The only time we ever had an issue is when this was tucked in, but even then we have even had a blow out.
• The diaper has an aloe liner that is very soothing to baby’s bottom.
• They come with a wetness indicator.

Finally, but equally as important the Andy Pandy diapers contain NO chlorine, perfume, lotion, Latex, TBT, PVC, or Phthalates.

The only negative I’ve found to these diapers is that sometimes after wearing them all night, he will have bamboo fibers or strings on his private area. That is easily wiped away, and certainly isn’t a deal breaker in my opinion.

Additionally, they aren’t the most affordable diaper on the market. You are paying around $.52 per diaper (at least for the size Large – less for the small and medium, more for the XL), but to me finding a diaper that was able to heal my son’s rash, not leak, not smell of chemicals or perfume, and was friendly to the environment I’m happy to pay the additional cost.

Final Thoughts?

I couldn’t be happier with these diapers! If you wanted to use cloth diapers, but they didn’t work out, or you travel and need something different – Andy Pandy is going to be the best bet for you! They are good for the environment, good for baby, and they also give a portion of sales to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital!!  They worked so well for us that we are 98% back into cloth, something that only a few months ago I thought would never happen.  We always keep a package on hand in case the baby’s rash comes back or we are traveling though! I wish I could give the person who made these diapers a huge hug. They may just be diapers, but they made my son feel better!

Andy Pandy bamboo diapers come in 4 sizes:

• Small: 6-16 lbs
• Medium:13-22lbs
• Large: 20-31lbs
• XL: 26+ lbs (What Baby D is now wearing.)

You can buy Andy Pandy Diapers exclusively on Amazon.com. (Personally I love that option! I never have to leave the house to buy diapers!)

You can also connect with this amazing brand with any questions on their Facebook page!

What is your favorite feature of this diaper?

I received diapers for my review, however I have continued to buy them and all my opinions are my own.

Did you know today was Rare Disease Day?

I didn’t at first either.  Until I signed on to my facebook page and saw updates from my fellow FPIES parents.

As you may or may not know my baby has FPIES.  He gets life threateningly ill when he ingests food.  So far his only safe food is apples.  Our known triggers are bananas, sweet potatoes, oats, avocados, and possibly coconut.  Pretty soon we will be heading to Denver Jewish Memorial’s pediatric unit to get him tested to find more safe foods.  We will be in the hospital for 10 days.  I’m hoping to find some answers.

The theme of Rare Disease Day this year is CARE. I’d like to share how important it is to care enough to share your story.  We live in a day where social media can reach people and outlets we didn’t have opportunities to do before.  Understandably some families want to keep their journeys or struggles private.  Any disease can be scary and overwhelming.  While I understand that I want to share that by sharing our struggles with Baby D and food online someone cared enough to reach out to me and suggest that I look into FPIES.  Without Courtney’s caring concern and suggestion (her daughter also has the disease) we likely would have had many many more invasive testing, and months until we would have found the right diagnosis.

Another reason to share your story is that there are SO many online communities that genuinely care to help others.  Through support, advice, and so much more.  So reach out and share your journey.  You may be surprised how sharing truly is caring.

What to learn more about our story?

Our FPIES Journey:

• Starting Food
• Something Is Wrong
• Could It Be?
• After the Diagnosis
• Failure to Thrive

Find out what exactly FPIES is.

Read more about Courtney (who shared her story with me) and her daughter’s journey through FPIES on her blog Courtney’s Sweets!

Read more about Rare Disease Day and how you can support families who have children with Rare Diseases.

To all the parents who have a child with or struggle with Rare Disease themselves: Big ((Hugs)) and may you have more better days than bad days!!

You are not alone.

Since it’s been 2 months since a proper update I have lots to share!!

Growth:

I think the thing that has grown the fastest in the past two months has been Baby D’s hair!  So soft and fluffy he sure has a full head of fine blond hair.  After a bath or in the humidity it flips up and curls a bit in the back.  I die over those sweet baby curls.

As far as weight gain goes we have slowed down considerably in this area.  He is right around 22.5 lbs and I think just over 30 inches long now.  He is much longer than K was at this age, and skinnier too!

Looks:

If one more person tells me Baby D is starting to lose the baby look and become a little boy I might cry!  Seriously! Why does this stage fly by in the blink of an eye!!

I also think he is starting to look a lot like his big brother.  It’s funny how from month to month their looks can change.  Some days (most days) he has looked just like his Daddy.  Other times I swear I see my family in him.

First & Milestones:

Baby D showing off “SO BIG”

Lots of exciting things happened in the past month alone!  Baby D is really picking up on sign language, starting to get very mobile, and interacting more and more with his brother.  He loves stacking blocks and knocking them over, and he spends his days looking for the small little things he shouldn’t have that mommy left on the floor – aka his fine motor skills are pretty on target!  I’m pretty sure he is also saying All Done “A duh”.  So much for a first “word” right!

New At 10 Months old:

• Shakes his head no
• Nods Yes
• Plays “So Big”
• Waves Hello and Goodbye
• Signs a lot!
• Cruises along furniture
• Can stand alone for a few seconds at a time
• Started climbing

Food/FPIES:

Not much change here since his 8 month baby update.  Baby D is still exclusively breastfeeding.  The only “safe” food we know that he has is apples, and recently I am even starting to question that as safe.  While he doesn’t have a full blown FPIES vomiting, lethargic reaction to it, he won’t keep down the pureed applesauce.  So I tried giving him apple slices to suck on and the few days he had them he was SCREAMING and pushing away from me a few hours later.

I’m also convinced that while he is a VERY happy baby lately my breast milk doesn’t seem like it is enough for him.  He is probably going through a growth spurt, but he’s nursing nearly every hour when we are at home, and crying when he’s done eating.  We did finally get him to take a bottle so sometimes I will offer him pumped milk and he will down 6 ozs like it’s nothing less than 30 minutes since he nursed.  I don’t have that much pumped milk saved up and I don’t pump a lot when I do pump now (not like I did in the beginning anyway).  Funny, I have been breastfeeding now for 27 cumulative months between both boys and I am so far from confident in having the answers for my own child.  I am however, extremely blessed to be able to breastfeed him because at least he has something that is providing him nutrition.  I’m wondering if I should start supplementing with a special non-dairy non-soy formula… I wouldn’t stop breastfeeding obviously since he isn’t going to be eating any food until probably close to 18 months when he goes for his food trials, but I just wonder if he’d be happier at night and less fussy during the day if he had more food in his belly…

Sleep:

This is probably the single reason why I didn’t put up an update at 9 months old.  Baby D’s sleep issues continued to get worse and worse until at 9 months he was waking up every 45 minutes, nursing to sleep, and waking up again 45 minutes from the last time he woke up.  Meaning I was practically up every 30 minutes at night.  I was at my wits end.  So sleep deprived I had nothing left for anyone else.  Not K, not my husband.  Of course I pushed through for K, but my husband seriously got none of my time. I was so tired and touched out.  I tried several no cry sleep solutions, all of which only pissed Baby D off worse and made him scream louder.  It was then someone asked me if he was crying or squawking… So I spent a few nights charting the kinds of crying he was doing and found that he wasn’t crying.  He was yelling out, and stopping, yelling out and stopping.  He had become fully reliant on me to put him to sleep.  He couldn’t self soothe at all.

Finally I decided to try something different.  I turned off the audio on my monitor.  From my bedroom I can hear him if he is crying, but I was actually responding to the little noises too.  Once I turned off the audio on the video monitor (I stayed up and watched because I am not comfortable with any form of crying it out for my son.)  he would squawk a minute, and lay back down.  When he started to cry I went to him.  Within 2 days of trying this and only responding to him when he started to cry he began to sleep 100 times better.  He still wakes up 3-4 times per night to nurse, but that was better than the 12+ times we were doing!  Some nights we still have bad nights.  Usually they are food related. (Either I ate something I’m supposed to stay away from, or he tried apples…  All in all I feel like a new person and Baby D seems very happy with his new sleeping schedule.

Language:

This is such a fun time for language.  I remember my first son just exploding with words and signs at this age, and Baby D is doing the same thing!  I swear he says All Done “A duh”.  He also says Dada with intent and lots of babbles.  We have even heard “Hi” a time or two.

We started working on playful emotions.  Baby D loves growling or “getting mad”, but of course he does it with a massive grin on his face!

Signing is going really well. I need to introduce more signs to him as he is now doing all the ones I do on a regular basis like “All Done”, “Milk”, and “More”.  We are working on brother, bath, please, and thank you.

Favorite Moments:

They are all favorite moments right now.  Just when I think this little dude can’t get any cuter, be any happier, or lovable he does!  He is now giving hugs and pats people on the back when he does it.  I think my favorite thing has been watching him with his brother.  If bro-bro walks away from him, Baby D turns to me and signs “more”!  I cried the first time he did that!

As we approach 11 months and have started to plan Baby D’s first birthday party I can honestly say I am not sure how I feel about it.  Obviously I love watching him grow, but it is so bittersweet.  You blink and they are big! I just want to encapsulate this age and let him be little forever!

Love you Baby D!

You may notice that this post is going up 5 days prior to Baby D turning 9 months.  While part of that is simply me not finding the time this month between a thousand doctor appointments and the Hubs returning home from deployment, it is also that every time I sat down to write this update I got overwhelmed with emotion and didn’t want to continue.  After a long few months of looking for answers to Baby D’s health problems that I wrote about in his 7 month baby update, we may be really close to an answer.  And while I knew it was coming, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer emotion I would go through with it.  Don’t get me wrong, there are clearly a million worst things in the world to be dealing with than food allergies, and I am grateful to know more about what is going on and how I can help Baby D’s health, but I can’t help but be scared for the future and what it might hold.  (More on that in the food section.)

Growth:

Baby D is slowing down with his weight gain, but is maintaining his top of the charts for height status.  As of 8 months and 2 weeks old, Baby D weighed in at 21 lbs 13 ozs (77%) and was 29.5 inches long (91%).  He has only put on 1 lb 1 oz since his 6 month appointment.

Looks:

Baby D looks just like his father.  Everyone remarks how similar they look, and I very much agree.  It is amazing how babies can inherit facial expressions too!  His eyes are still a gorgeous blue/green, and his hair is getting longer but staying very blond.  He is very expressive too!

It is also funny that while looking SO much like his Daddy you sure can tell our boys are brothers!

Baby K on left – Baby D on right!

First & Milestones:

We had LOTS of firsts this month! It’s been CRAZY how much Baby D is learning and growing.  Many of these things his brother didn’t do until several months later!

• Learning to clap!
• Giving “five”.
• Dancing or bouncing!
• Getting 4 upper teeth.
• Crawling!
• Pulling to Standing!

Sleep:

Still waking several times at night.  As few as 5 and as often as 10-12.  We are starting to fall into a very nice routine of when Baby D gets to nap during the day and when he goes to bed at night.  Just like his older brother instead of acting sleepy when he is tired he gets silly and crazy.  Gotta love those boys!

Food/FPIES:

You may notice that glaring abbreviation above.  FPIES.  Part of me almost hesitates to use it without an official diagnosis from the specialist, but until I am told otherwise I have to go with what we know.  At our last appointment with the GI specialist he basically confirmed all my fears about Baby D and his health. He diagnosed Baby D with Milk Protein Allergy and probable severe Food Protein Allergy.  Since I had been made previously aware of FPIES  first through a blogging friend of mine Courtney (via Courtney’s Sweets whose sweet baby girl was also recently diagnosed with FPIES) and later though my husband’s constant Google efforts as he tried so hard to help from afar.  The more research we did the more Baby D’s symptoms lined up.  So when the Dr diagnosed him with Food Protein allergies I asked him about FPIES.  He had not heard of that, but listened to what I knew of it and agreed it sounded very likely.  We will most likely have to go to a specialist for an official diagnosis.  The only problem is there are no specialists in Nevada.  Phoenix and San Diego are the closest.

What is FPIES?

Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES) is a type of food allergy affecting the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Classic symptoms of FPIES include profound vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration. These symptoms can lead to severe lethargy, change in body temperature and blood pressure. Unlike typical food allergies, symptoms may not be immediate and do not show up on standard allergy tests. Furthermore, the negative allergy evaluation may delay the diagnosis and take the focus off the causative food. Nonetheless, FPIES can present with severe symptoms following ingestion of a food trigger.  Read more at: http://fpiesfoundation.org/about-fpies-3/ | The FPIES Foundation

Language:

LOTS of babbling.  Sudden outbursts, and screams for attention.  Mamas, Dadas, (without intention), and more.  He is a joy to listen to and seems to almost respond to us as we talk to him.  He sure knows he can talk for attention!

This past month he has also started to take a read interest in books.  Listening, chewing, throwing – he does it all with them!  Thankfully he’s got lots of books to choose from, most of which already have bite marks from his brother!   I do love our nightly story time!

Favorite Moments:

Clapping for the first time!

Dancing and Bouncing along with this brother!  I love watching them interact and now that D is more mobile it is even more fun!

I love that Baby D now reaches for me.  It is virtually the baby way of saying I love you in my opinion.  Since he is a mama’s boy he sure does a lot of reaching… at least that is when he isn’t crawling and getting into or making a mess!

Now if you will excuse me I have to go chase after the super mobile baby!

See you soon for another baby update! I can’t believe 9 is right around the corner!