Yesterday was rough!

It's like 5:30 in the morning, Noah woke up at 4:45 wanting a bottle so I fed him while I was trying not to scratch the many hives I have this morning.  I had been feeling them in my sleep and probably tossed and turned for the last couple hours.  I remember doing this, why I didn't get up and take some medicine, not sure, mostly likely because I'm tired.  Well anyways after I fed Noah I just decided to stay up, take a shower, and try to get these things over with as soon as possible.  Hot showers make them worse but then they usually go away faster.  So I took medicine and am sitting here trying to keep my hands busy so that I can't scratch.  There could be many reasons or causes of the hives this morning.

Yesterday I kind of had to go backwards and put my health above this hive elimation diet.  Wednesday night I was really tired, my body was just wore out and I started to get lightheaded every time I moved too fast.  Not a good sign. I made eggs last night because I felt like I needed some protein or something besides fruit.  Well I started to get a few hives on my face, nothing major but  I took medicine anyway and went to bed a little early.  The cause of those hard telling.  It was still only 3 days in so it still could have been something in my system. 

Well I got a nice surprise yesterday, I woke up when Noah did for a bottle at about 4:30.  As I was feeding him I thought what is wrong with me.  I was sweating, shaking, my heart was hurting. I just knew I didn't feel right.  I laid back down in bed and told Matthew I don't feel right.  We both just tried to fall back asleep.  Just a few minutes after, I made a dash for the bathroom.  I threw up, mostly liquids.  I yelled for Matthew who got me a drink and told me I needed to eat something. I have never thrown up and then have my mouth and throat burn.  (I'm guessing from stomach acid or something)  He then went in the kitchen and peeled an apple for me to eat and got me some water. Now if you know anything about Matthew, you know he's not a morning person so for him to do that for me, means a lot.  I tried to drink as much water as I could and eat the peeled apple from our tree.  He had picked them and cleaned them real good for me the day before.  He thought they would be better for me to eat than  the stores since we know these weren't sprayed and I still haven't ruled out pesticides.  Not long after I ate the apple it came right back up.  Matthew then was like okay I know you don't want crackers but you have got to eat something.  So I forgot about my hive diet, and ate some crackers well not long after, those came back as well.  I was kind of worried then because crackers usually aren't a hard thing to keep down.  I felt a little better though after I drank some more water and made it back to bed.  I stayed there until about 7:20 when Noah woke up.  I had asked Jill if I could take him a few minutes early so I could get ready for work faster.  I usually have him there by 7:45 so it wasn't much earlier.  I brought him and then came home to get ready for work.  I called Nathan on the way to see what he had to say about what was going on.  He told me I was probably just really dehydrated and needed to get some fluids down.  He told me if I didn't keep them down by 12 to go the ER.  Well on the way to work I picked up a water bottle and some Gatorade (another thing with lots of ingredients).  All day I little by little drank more water and Gatorade.  After lunch I left work to go home and get some rest my legs had really been hurting all morning no matter if I sat or stood I guess another characteristic of dehydration.  I pretty much slept all afternoon.  Jill had came by sometime during that time and brought some Pedialyte (more ingredients) I tried to drink some of that, definetly not my favorite beverage, eww.. But I knew I needed it.  Once I woke up I felt better and throughout the evening I drank more Gatorade and lots of crackers. 

Now as I sit here with lots of hives, who knows what these are from, the stress of yesterday?  something in the Gatorade or Pedialyte or something in the crackers? It's day 5 today and sadly enough I'm not any closer.  However I didn't want to end up in the hospital so I guess we will not start over but just try to stick to natural things again until these are gone for the next few days.  I wish I knew it for sure was from something I ate yesterday than it would make it easier going forward, but I can't even be sure of that.  This is going to be a long journey.  I'm praying I can stick with it and finally get these figured out.

Hooded Towels

I have been wanting to make some of these for so long.  Finally today I did it.  I was up super early this morning and started doing some sewing prep work so that they would be ready to sew during Noah's morning nap.  Everything didn't work out quite they way I wanted but I still got them done in the afternoon.  They were actually really easy.  I'm sure I will be making more, I enjoyed doing them!  I would like to try doing some different stuff with them but I will have to wait until I know someone that needs one because Noah really doesn't need anymore now!  I didn't really know how to fold them so you could see so sorry they are weird pictures.  If anyone else wants to try them I used the tutorial from this blog,

http://www.prudentbaby.com/2009/10/diy-hooded-baby-towel.html

Very easy instructions with pictures for each step

1 Day Down

Yesterday I started it, the stupid hive diet thing again.  I haven't done this in years but I'm desperate.  Years ago one of the doctors I went to had me do this and it worked for awhile.  My hives left but then after I had been doing it for awhile I added foods back to fast, they were back and I was left still not knowing anything more than when I started.  Well I have thought about going to the doctor again since they have been gradually getting worse since March. 

For those of you who don't know I had chronic hives for 6 1/2 years.  No doctor could figure out what was causing them (after Xray's, and all the allergy tests they could think of) and I went through all sorts of different medicines and basically lived off Benadryl for years.  They had told me this is chronic uticaria and it should go away anywhere from now to 7 years from now.  Well I was one of the lucky ones, 6.5 years (1/2 shorter than the max, ugh!) and they left.  Then shortly after  I got pregnant.  Now many people say well maybe it's the hormones that kept them away while you were pregnant but they were gone before I even got pregnant.  Then in March after I had Noah they  have gradually started coming back. 

Well now I'm up to 3 Benadryl every time I take it, have them on a daily basis and last week almost every day dealt with some sort of facial swelling (which I don't handle very well).  So needless to say I'm frustrated, very frustrated!!  If I go back to the doctor I don't even know where to start.  Last time I went to the dermatologist in town, who sent me to a specialist in Charleston, who sent me to an allergist in Champaign, who I then gave up on and went to another one in Decatur.  And after over a year of doctor visits and testing, still nothing.  The doctor in Decatur was the one who had me do this diet and keep track of everything I ate.  To sum it up you don't eat for 3 days, then each day you add a food.  When you add foods it has to be something that is just that food.  Like a banana, apple, or carrots something that has nothing else in it and not processed.  We pretty much know it's not something obvious it has to be something little that is in a ton of things.  So yesterday I started, I kind of cheated though I did eat a banana.  My thinking was I know it's not something that obvious so I will start with that.  So for the next 2 days I'm eating bananas.  Fun Fun!  And the whole process is hard anyway because things can stay in your system for days.  So imagine my frustration when I woke up this morning to hives.  Lots of hives on my ankles, as a matter of fact it hurts to walk because my ankle has swelled so much.  So I didn't eat anything but a banana yesterday and I still have the stupid things.  However, I'm going to try my hardest with this, this time and hopefully can maybe figure something out.   Even though it could take quite a long time.  So just wanted a warning to be out there.  I will most likely be very tired and grumpy this week!  And keep me in prayers, I need to try and keep a good attitude and the strength and will to be able to do this! 

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me!

So Handsome!

Yesterday Matthew wanted me to spike the front of Noah's hair up.  I told him I wasn't good at it and didn't have time to mess with it ( I was having problems finding something to wear, I absolutely hate getting dressed these days, I just can't find anything I like in my closet or in stores). So dad did his hair and was quite proud.  We went to church and he got all sorts of comments on his hair-do.  I should have taken pictures before we left but didn't think about it so  I got some when we got home after it had mostly fallen down.  But anyways these days he just looks so much like a little boy and not a baby, I just can't handle how cute he is sometimes! Noah gets tons of kisses and squeezes each day, way more  than he would like.

My little cheeseball

Showing off his tooth, you can barely see the 2nd one in this picture.  If I would have  taken it today, you would really be able to see it.  Poor guy, that thing really came up more last night.

Oh, how  I love him so much, how could you not love this face

Playing and Trip to the Park again

On Wednesday Matthew and I were both off.  Matthew was doing work on the windows most of the afternoon but he took a break and went to the park with us.  I wanted him to see Noah swing because he loves it so much.  I couldn't get any good pictures that day for some reason of him swinging but I got a few others.  We also rode the bouncy horses that were there.  Noah prefers swinging a lot more but still seemed to enjoy them. 

He was telling us stories while swinging

Okay so I posted earlier about getting Noah some balls, well the problem with them is, is that in no time they are all out of his reach.  He can get them all moved rather quickly so  I was thinking I needed a way to baracade them in so that they would stay around him longer. I kept trying to use toys but that doesn't work because he picks them up too.  Then I came up with the idea to use the boppy.  I put a bunch of balls in the middle.  I thought I had came up with  great idea, but as you can see that didn't last long either.

They all just rolled right on out once he started picking up a few. 

His favorite thing to do with them, hit them together!  So neat to see him using his hands to work together now!

8 Months

Today my little man is 8 months old already.  We don't go back to the doctor still until 9 months so we did our own weight check this morning.  And our chubby little boy is up to.......

Last month he was 21.2 so he gained a little over a pound.  He is definetly slowing down in the weight gaining department  but I know it's normal to slow down a lot after their first 6 months.  Since we didn't have a doctor visit I thought  I would look online for a percentile calculator just to see where he is there and I got anywhere from 75-90 percentile.  So even though he has slowed down a lot he is still up there.  He still just keeps getting happier and happier each month and more and more fun to play with minus last night (he was up from 3-6 am, just for the record his ma-ma and da-das aren't as cute at that hour)  I think his teeth were just bothering him.  His 2nd one that he has coming in looked like it was a little farther up so hopefully that's it and we aren't going to go back to that pattern again at night.  We just love him so much regardless of what he does.  It's amazing at how frustrating it is not sleeping sometimes but when he woke up this morning I couldn't wait to go pick him up and give him a big hug and kiss. 

Another Tooth

Noah has another new tooth coming in this week.  The one that has been right there for so long, has pretty much broken through and is creeping up each day!  He is going to look so different with 2 little teeth down there.  He already looks so much different with the one.  He has been doing pretty good considering he is "teething".  I haven't noticed really anything too different.  A little more whiny at times, but he has always been a pretty high maintenance baby so we can handle this easily!  I have been trying to get pictures but the teeth are so tiny and he won't let anything get to them hardly.  I will keep trying and if I get one I will get it on here, so so cute!