Tidbits

I figured I would stop by and give the latest scoop on Nicholas' eating habits. He's been devouring rice cereal like there's no tomorrow. He loves the stuff...and frequently is quite displeased when the bowl has nothing left to offer him. We may be eaten out of house and home before the little tyke is a teenager.

Last night, though, he discovered something much better (though my taste buds disagree) than rice cereal - sweet potatoes. He liked them so much that he devoured an entire jar. (!) The only problem with that is that he'd had formula beforehand and the latent bubbles it caused led to several sweet potato spit ups. Yuck.

This would be why we usually try not to do formula and baby food in the same feeding, but he was famished last night and we broke the rules...and then paid the price! Part of the reason he was so hungry is that Mommy and Daddy's curiosity finally got the best of them last night.

We've been practicing the allergy elimination technique Mark learned at last weekend's seminar on each other (yes, I have been treating Mark...and somewhat successfully, I might add - isn't that neat?). Since sometime toward the end of last week, Nicholas has had a rash on his chin and cheeks that at first I thought was due to the dry air down south but it hasn't gone away so I started contemplating that he's allergic to something. Joy.

Since we were supposed to be moving on from rice cereal to some other solid food, I decided I wanted to first test the rice cereal as I suspected he might be allergic to it. Believe it or not, he is...just slightly, but it explains the rash. We need to do one treatment to clear it...not too bad. We continued on to see what we could feed him last night without causing any additional problems. Tests on peas, carrots and bananas yielded unpleasant results, but he only needs a treatment or two on each of those as well.

Then, of course, we decided it was high time we test our belief that the formula stuff is just not a substance his body is into. Preliminary tests show that he's so allergic to the stuff that he's going to need sixteen (16!!) treatments to clear the allergy. This technique is a little crazy and puts you in connection with the patient's subconcious (really, I've done it on Mark...and he's done it on me!) and so you can actually ask what it is in something that is causing the problem. Surprise, surprise, soy and dairy both came back positive. At any rate, we're going to start treating Nicholas today for the basic 15 (you treat these first on everyone). I am hoping we can make some leaps and bounds toward helping the little guy finally feel better! Oh, and by the way, we also tested breastmilk I'd expressed from two different days and whether he was allergic to either of us (yeah, weird, I know). Thankfully, all of these were fine by him. I can't imagine how disturbing it would have been if any of these would have been a problem!

With respect to the two of us, we're also having some success with our treatments. I've been treating Mark for his previoulsy unknown egg mix allergy (the mix contains egg whites, yolks, chicken, tetracycline and feathers) and although I'm not as good as the lady who was helping me we've decreased the number of times he needs to be treated and the distance he needs to be from the substances being treated. Go me. Mark's been working on my allergy to animals (including our cat Pixie which has been fun) and has also made some progress. The animal allergy is a big one for me that I didn't actually notice until we cleared out a lot of the others. I was a little surprised when I finally figured out what the cause was. We're making progress, but it's going to take a while...much to Pixie's chagrin since I don't pet her as often now that she makes my nose itch and run.

In other news, Mark is now a licensed doctor! His license was waiting for us when we got home from L.A. Now we just need that loan to go through and we'll be set! That's coming along...probably another month or so before we are finished with that process.

As for the house sale, it's just not going as we'd hoped. Despite dropping our price by $50,000 (yes, $50K!!!), we haven't had any offers and really not much interest for that matter. It's probably just the time of year, but it's annoying none the less. We're probably going to rent the place out at a loss until we can find a buyer...but it's still up in the air. We have another open house this weekend and hopefully that will bring some good news.

We'll keep you updated.