Green Weekend

We had a really good time with the Miraclebaby family last night.



Baby Dorothy was in an orange mood, which her mommy Becci says happens pretty frequently. It was encouraging to have a reminder that other children besides Baby E are fussy a lot--I just hope Dorothy isn't still this fussy by the time she's 15 months old.

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Dorothy did like our dining room light, though . . . she looked at it a lot and even cooed at it a few times.

I got to hold her a lot, even though she was very fussy. Whoever was holding her had to keep her moving constantly and make shushing noises to soothe her, or she'd cry.

There was something rather wonderful in getting to hold someone else's fussy baby for her. It was special to me to do for someone else what I would be blessed to receive. It felt so right to be able to give Becci a break. She actually relaxed and let me handle Dorothy for an extended period of time, which was nice.

I know it's hard for me to trust anyone else to handle my fussy baby, and I always want to jump up and take her back if she starts fussing too much in someone else's arms. I tend to think that nobody wants to hold a fussy baby, but I need to remember that sometimes people really are glad to do it.

I really enjoyed holding Dorothy, and I felt honored that her Mommy let me do it. Of course, it made it even more enjoyable that I was actually able to soothe Dorothy most of the time. As I told Becci, it's gratifying to actually have my soothing techniques work on a baby, since Baby E has so many times when nothing I do seems to comfort her.

Baby E was in a green mood all day yesterday. All three girls went outside with DH in the afternoon to rake leaves. AJ and M&M helped with their little rakes and Baby E walked around with a little bucket, putting leaves into it and squealing with delight.



In the evening she insisted that her dress was bothering her, so I finally took it off and let her be in just a diaper and pants. "Choose your battles" is my motto. :)



She happily colored, made silly faces at the camera, and played with the other girls while we played a game.

AJ and M&M played a short game with the grownups and then went to bed after dinner.

Baby E was enthralled with the baby. She wanted to hold her, and didn't even mind her crying.



Baby E cried pitifully when Dorothy's parents took her away and went home. She thought that was HER baby, and she wanted to keep it, thank you very much.

We had seared lamb chops pan-fried with a rosemary-thyme lemon sauce, roasted organic golden potatoes, leeks and carrots with garlic & dill (the herbs were from my yard), roasted cauliflower with jicama and lotus root, and blanched broccoli. It all turned out very well, even though dinner ended up being late.

For dessert we had caramel-chocolate cookies made with no eggs or dairy. We drank rice milk with a little coconut milk mixed in, which made for a rich and decadent treat.

I'll post some of the recipes soon on Restricted Gourmet.

I'm really liking the roasting technique of cooking vegetables--I just coat them in a little olive oil and bake in a 475 degree oven, stirring frequently. The roasting really brings out a delicious flavor in the vegetables.

Last night was our first time trying a nightshade vegetable with Baby E recently. She refused to touch the potatoes (she doesn't seem to like any starchy vegetable), but I ate a lot of them and it didn't bother her at all.

She slept better last night than she's slept in quite some time, and she's having a green day again today.

At church today, I was able to put Baby E in the nursery. The Lady In Charge (LIC) of the children's programs is very understanding and is really working with me to make sure the toddler class can be a safe place for E. I took in homemade whole-grain animal-cracker type cookies for the kids to have as a snack so there wouldn't be food containing Baby E's allergens scattered around the room.

Both LIC and I explained the situation, and I demonstrated the use of Baby E's epi-pen to the volunteers working in the nursery. Even after that, I had to be rather insistent that they move a sippy cup and some food off a low shelf in the room. One of the people staffing the nursery wanted her daughter's sippy cup and snack easily accessible to her child. I understand that, but that made it easy for Baby E to access it as well. It's too bad that Baby E's allergies inconvenience people, but unfortunatly that's just the way it is right now.

The other mom did move the food somewhat reluctantly when I asked her to, and then LIC talked to her about it a bit more and checked in every now and then to make sure the unsafe food remained out of Baby E's reach.

I'm so glad to have someone who is willing to be a strong advocate for Baby E in charge of the children's programs at our church. There are other kids with food allergies in the church, too, so this is something they've dealt with before.

It's going to be really nice to be able to put her in the class instead of ending up walking the halls of the church with her when she's not in a mood to be quiet. Plus, she really enjoys being in the class. She's such a social little bee and loves playing with the other kids and the new toys.

I'm going to try to finish as much data-compiling as possible today before Baby E's appointment with Dr. B tomorrow. The help from some of my readers is such a blessing--thank you so much, Amy and chichimama.

I think I'll be happy if we can just figure out how to get the red and purple spells down to where they're happening only occasionally instead of several times a week or more. I'm not too worried about avoiding orange spells, although I would certainly like to see them drop down to less than 50% of the time if possible.

It would be so wonderful if we could get to the point where orange was a moderate or bad day, instead of orange being a good day.

If orange was the highest level Baby E reached on a regular basis, with a very occasional red spell, that would be really nice. It would be even better if we could get her in a green or yellow level more often.

The fact that she was in green for almost a week straight when we were on the elimination diet tells me that it is possible, and that there's hope for seeing more of that.

I found more data I had written down in another place, which made me realize that the two days after starting the elimination diet should have been coded green instead of yellow. She was a bit fussy because of wanting to nurse and yet being afraid to on those days, but that was her only unusual fussiness. Since it had a specific identifiable cause and wasn't the result of her feeling ill, and since she was glowingly happy otherwise, I don't think that justifies upgrading the level.

She was feeling fabulous for 6 days in a row. Those 6 days were the only days that were completely or almost completely green in the entire month. It's hard to imagine that could be a complete coincidence, or that it's not something that can be reproduced if we can figure out and avoid whatever is triggering the bad spells.

Let's hope we're making progress toward more green in our future.