Well, 9 months has gone by since Goo was born. Every day that passes by,every milestone, makes me that much more certain that Oz cannot be my last baby. My family definitely has more love to give!
Oz's 9 month stats:
Weight: 25-26 lbs depending on the scale and
Height: 28 inches in height.
Eli's 2.5 yrs stats:
Weight: 30 lbs
Height: 3 feet (plus a 1/4 inch)
So my back is increasingly causing pain day by day. My chiropractor uttered two words to me that have slightly haunted me for about 6.5 years now: Ankylosing Spondylitis. He wanted me to get checked for it.
Here's the back story, they thought I had this 6.5 years ago but after xrays and ct scans were never able to actually pin point this was for sure what I had. That did not stop the Rheumetologist from medicating me for it. They started me out with sup-ed up ibuprofen for three months - no change. They kept me on it and added sup-ed up Tylenol - no change. They kept me on both those and put me on a sulphur based drug that made me nauseous all day, not able to eat and I had to go for bi-weekly blood tests to make sure my liver wasn't shutting down.
That's when I had enough.
I decided I was going to solve the problem a different way. It did not happen right away but I did try swimming, yoga, becoming a vegetarian. I cannot remember what brought me to decide to do a cleanse but it must have landed in my lap somehow because in 2008 I decided to do a wheat and dairy cleanse for two weeks to see if either of these was my allergen trigger. I made it a week off both and felt really good so I decided to add wheat back in and still felt great for a week. Then I added back in dairy and after a few hours felt awful. It was dairy. Bye bye cheese :( So I went vegan for about 8 months and felt great!
I'm convinced cleansing that long allowed me to introduce it back in at least in small amounts but ever since having Eli I have been creeping back to feeling terrible. I just cannot exist in this much pain anymore, I have way too much good stuff to do! I'm grumpy all the time because I'm not sleeping usually because of my back, though sometimes from teething, hehe. Getting up in the morning is such an effort and so much pain. Then I go to lift Ozzy up and it literally takes my breath away I'm in so much pain. Pain, pain, pain! I'm so sick of pain, it's a pain! So sometimes you have to reach that point where you can't stand it anymore to make a change. Isn't it ridiculous that for awhile a simple thing like cheese, yogurt and butter was enough to keep me in this place of pain? Food has such power.
So I had xrays again and blood tests, which showed I was low iron, which was weird for me. And now I see the Rhemuetologist on Tuesday because I've been labelled "semi-urgent". What does that even mean?! I saw her before a week before I moved so she never treated me, just referred me to one down on the coast. I'm feeling anxious about it. I'm not a western medicine chick. I almost feel like it's pointless to go, I won't take any drugs so what are they going to say? My chiropractor and GP keep saying if nothing else I'll feel better once they target what it actually is. I'm not sure. What is it going to mean to me to have a label? I'm not really a label chick either. *sigh I guess I just go and see what happens. I take comfort at least in that both my Chiro and GP think going off dairy is best and will help so at least I am doing one thing that I have power over. Plus I will likely lose weight!
I'm going to try and do a 6 week wheat and dairy cleanse this time but I'm prepared for a much longer time off dairy. I don't think wheat will be the problem, I've been tested for celiac disease before and faired fine but it's probably a good idea to do it anyway. Maybe I'll lose the last 5-10 baby pounds. But you know if that happens 2 seconds later I'll be pregnant again. Mother nature and her sense of humor ;)
Well the only other news is that we just survived our first trip to Vancouver for the PNE and general shopping with two kids. Thank god we had Baba and Grandpa too! What a stressful trip! Anytime we were in a restaurant or even generally in a confined space all hell would break loose. Either Justin or I would not really get to eat with everyone else and the person that did eat would take one bite and then discipline Eli; one bite; discipline; repeat. The way down Eli threw up three times and Ozzy slept an hour and a half and then cried the rest of the 2.5 hours, broken up by one stop. He got better at travelling as time went on though.
The PNE was good eats and the market place was fun to look at. I gotta say, we didn't do much else though! Briefly looked at some animals and again briefly saw the Super Dogs (Eli said it was too loud so we left). Then I got to hit all my favorite stores Old Navy, MEC, Ikea :) We got a bunch of super cool stuff from Ikea for Eli and Ozzy's room, I will post pictures when we are done the whole thing which won't be until we can paint in a month or so. But trust me it will be very cool. Then we took Eli on the little train at Stanley Park which he loved and ended up riding twice.
I gotta say I love my parents but there came a point when it was best for everyone if we split up. The boys needed downtime to play at stanley park and then we needed a dinnerto go somewhere we didn't have to compromise on and actually it was the chillest meal of the trip. We all shared a bowl of soup and fresh made in house bread and then then Eli, hubby and I shared a pizza while Goo charmed everyone around us. Then we had pie, the best pie ever. Yum. Then we went to our favorite book store and all hell broke loose again. I so wanted time to look but alas a parent doesn't always get everything they want. I still got an amazing book and flashcards for kids yoga!
Another good thing to come out of the trip is that Eli fell asleep by himself a couple nights and we just continued at home. Also on the trip we broke him of the hair touching habit so now I can finally do my hair again. Ok he still tries but he doesn't freak out when I am firm about the no hair rule. So yeah for a week now Eli has fallen asleep all by himself. Next step: finishing his room so he wants to sleep in there. We're getting there people, baby steps! It's certainly made bedtime much less stressful for our family.
So all in all I was very excited and relieved to come home to some routine. I never thought I would miss home and a routine so much. It was a bit disappointing to look so forward to a trip and then want to come home so badly but it definitely had very fun moments. It's just very hard to trap two active boys (especially one who doesn't know what he should or should not put in his mouth yet) in small spaces like non-child proof hotel rooms, and confined spaces like car seats and high chairs where people don't like scream conversations like Ozzy and Eli enjoy having with each other... oh the looks we got....
Wow I'm tired, how did I write so much? Good night!
