Updates

Happy Late Thanksgiving to everybody!!

Gus sporting his new Thanksgiving outfit from Oma. He spit up on it within a minute. Sorry, Oma!

Here are some updates from "our neck of the woods" (I belive I may have been watching a little too much of Al Roker on the Today show!):

We had our traditional fall party again this year, complete with Pumpkin Curry Soup as usual (no sense letting the addition of the little man change that great tradition!). We had a wonderful time relaxing with some great people. In fact, we have been blessed with so many new friends that we actually had 2 fall parties to accomodate everyone!


Gus has been learning all sorts of exciting new skills these past few days. It is just absolutely amazing to me to watch him grow--how does his brain grasp all these new concepts and abilities?? God the Creator of new life becomes more awesome to me with each passing week! Lately Gus has continued to be fascinated with his hands-staring at them, sucking on them and now he has started trying to swat at stuff and hold things too. It's so funny to watch him get so excited with himself when he actually makes contact! He really enjoys his cardinal (Go Cards!) and yesterday he focused on, then reached out for and finally held his soccer ball rattle (Thanks Tina C!) for the first time. He got really quiet and had to concentrate to get his hands to go where he wanted them to, but he finally succeeded! He also has been enjoying hanging out with his own reflection in the mirror:) He gets so excited and smiles and then sometimes gets shy too!


We went back to the pediatrician yesterday to talk about Gus' food allergy issues. It had been getting worse over the past few days. On Tuesday, they told me to stop eating wheat and soy in addition to dairy and to give Gus two bottles of a special formula per day to see if we can get him to start healing up. By yesterday morning, it seemed we had made some improvements. Our doctor said that we could continue this current course for another week and then re-evaluate. If he is still having issues, we will need to switch to all formula for two weeks to allow his colon time to heal and then we would re-introduce breastfeeding and see how it goes.

Needless to say, this has been very hard on me emotionally. Even though in my head I know it isn't true, I still sometimes feel like Gus is allergic to me personally! It feels a little bit like a rejection of me and that's hard. Sometimes I fall into a sort of pit of despair: feeling like this whole baby thing has been so hard and definitely hasn't always been the beautiful, happy thing you always hope it will be. I start to feel pretty negative and whoa is me.....especially as I search for "safe" meals and snacks for me to eat. I've also tried to cut out all nuts as well, just in case. So I feel hungry and unsatisfied alot. It's amazing how comforting fatty and high carb foods are!

So I decided to put together a list of the postives to help me climb out of the pit I keep digging for myself:


1. Gus is happy and content and doesn't seem bothered AT ALL by all of this.

2. I'm going to lose A LOT of my pregnancy weight before this is all over-it's like the perfect diet because I am really motivated to stick to it!

3. I am learning a lot about healthy alternative eating that I'm sure I can continue to use in the future.

4. Gus WILL grow up someday and I'll be able to eat whatever I want again.

5. My husband has been a wonderful source of stability--reminding me that God commands us not to worry and that he loves Gus even more than we do and is watching over all of this.

So....that's our update! If anyone has any good dairy, wheat, soy and nut free recipes, be sure to send them our way!! And if you think of it, keep little Gus in your prayers....we'll keep you posted as things progress.

The first of many rides!