Celiac kid

As has been documented, Ryan has not gained weight well since he was 4 months old. After he dropped so drastically between 4 and 6 months I was convinced he had Celiac Disease, but when I took him to a pediatric GI she convinced me it probably wasn't the case and to try supplementing with formula and extra calories to help him gain weight. It never really solved the problem--he fell below the growth chart for weight, always weighing in at "less than 3rd percentile" or "negative 1st percentile." At his 9, 12, and 15 month appointments he was either just getting over or battling a bout of diarrhea, usually having had at least one other diarrhea episode between appointments as well. And these weren't just a few days of diarrhea, the were usually 3-4 weeks long and the last few times the only way we got them to stop was putting him on a strict gluten-free, dairy-free diet.

After this last episode I decided it was time to get him tested for Celiac disease. The traditional blood testing is unreliable for children until they're about 5 years old, and I didn't want to put him through a blood draw just to get back a negative result that might come back negative either because he didn't have Celiac Disease, or because it's not sensitive enough for babies. So I went to Enterolab.com and ordered one of their tests. They take a stool sample via overnight mail and the test is supposed to be good for anyone over 1 year old who has not been breastfeeding for more than 6 months. They said we'd get the results within 3 weeks, but we actually got it in just one week and it came back showing he was have an immune reaction to both gluten and casein (the protein in milk). So Ryan has Celiac Disease. Really, the only "sure" way to know would be to do an endoscopy and take tissue samples of his intestines, but why put him through the pain when it's obvious that 1. he's producing lots of antibodies, so if it's not techically Celiac Disease, he's at least got gluten sensitivity which would likely develop into CD at some point, and 2. he has not been gaining weight well for a year, presumably because of the immune reaction triggered by gluten, which, in people who have Celiac Disease, causes the intestines to not absorp the necessary nutrients. Significant weight loss was one of Jacob's symptoms before he was diagnosed. So we'll skip the pediatric GI (who didn't really seem to know anything anyway), and just go with the diagnosis of Celiac Disease. And when it's time to go to a GI I have a recommendation for a different doc that's supposed to be good dealing with CD issues.

Anyway, so Ryan drew the short straw. He can't have gluten or dairy. And I'm okay with that. I feel like I can handle it. When he was 6 months old and I was sure he had CD I was not quite okay with it. I knew I could handle the food part of it, but I was pretty distressed by the whole thought of trying to keep a toddler from eating all the gluten that is all around-the cheerio on the floor at church, the cracker another toddler tries to share, etc. And figuring out how to deal with nursery and preschool snacks and when he goes to school and has all that gluten around, and me not around. But having kept him GF 2 or 3 times already for several weeks at a time, and for the last 5 weeks since his last bout of diarrhea, I realize I can handle it. My biggest worry is how he will deal with it as he grows up, if he'll just roll with it, or if he'll feel left out a lot when he can't join in on the pizza party or cake or whatever. I have plans to have backup homemade safe treats for him, but kids like to be like other kids. But we'll just deal with it. Because what else is there to do?

The good news is that having had him GF for 5 weeks now, according to our bathroom scale he has gained a pound. Whereas from 12 months to 15 months he gained just 13 ounces. 13 oz. in 3 months, vs. 1 pound in 1 month--I'd say that's pretty good. And it may just be my imagination, but his cheeks are starting to look a little fuller--not chunky exactly, but Ryan-chunky. Yay for finally getting some nourishment into his little body!

Oh, what do you do in the summertime...

… when all the world is HOT?

Do you sit on Mommy's lap, 'cause you're super clingy?

 

Or jump on your dad for a ride?

Is that what you do? So do I. (says Ryan)

Notice Ryan yanking Jacob's hair as hard as he can with such delight on his face (and pain on Jacob's face).

We tried rag curls for Rachel last Sunday. They turned out really well, though I forgot to get pictures. Annie absolutely refused to do rag curls. After the 5th or so time she finally agreed to put ONE in her little ponytail.

Above Rachel and Annie and Jake are playing "Don't Eat Pete!" The girls absolutely LOVE that game. Mostly because they get to eat Trix for it (usually reserved for a Saturday breakfast treat), but also because they love getting scared when everyone yells "Don't eat Pete!"

This is one of Ryan's favorite cupboards--under the sink with the dishwasher detergent. The tot lock broke and we haven't gotten around to fixing it yet, so he happily climbs in and closes it on himself on occasion as a great hiding place (one of his favorite words is "hiding!" He loves playing peek-a-boo, or hide and seek. And if you say something about Rachel or Annie or Daddy hiding he immediately says "hiding!" and runs starts looking around for them). 

 

So lately with our back yard getting slowly fixed up (with lots of messy sand in the meantime), and the crazy humidity that comes with monsoon season, which is only beneficial if it actually causes rain on OUR house (which it hasn't for the last week--lots of sticky heat, but the rain has been skipping our house, sadly), we have been spending most of our time indoors. And Grandma and Grandpa Knight's A/C went out just a few days after we got our new A/C unit for the upstairs. The part took a couple days to come in, so after a miserably hot night, Grandma came to sleep at our house for the second night. The girls were happy to have her. And she was happy to join us for our Sunday evening tradition: scoops. We all get 3 scoops of ice cream, unless of course someone was not reverent in sacrament meeting, then they may only get 2 or 1 (or even occasionally none) scoops. Everyone enjoyed scoops with Grandma, though, because she shares her ice cream.

 

 

 

This is probably Ryan's last picture of eating real ice cream for a good long time. Poor guy has to say good-bye to dairy. But that's a whole other post...

July happenings

With vacation, monsoons, and going back to school, we've had an exciting July. Add to that getting a new A/C unit and some landscaping work that we're having done in the back yard, and we've also had an expensive July. But we're getting excited about having our back yard taking shape just how we want it. We had our shed taken down, a couple new raised garden beds built, the gravel removed from much of the back yard, and part of our patio taken up. 

 

This week the trenching and irrigation work to put in a sprinkler system begins, then we'll put some GRASS in. We'll have a green back yard! (In the color sense, not the environmentally friendly sense, since we'll be using way more water keeping that grass green.) Finished pictures to come... in a few weeks/months.

The kids favorite part of this is that with some of the patio gone, the sand that was put down to level the pavers is available to play with. They LOVE digging in the sand. I HATE it. They bring it into the house and it is a big mess and big pain in the neck. We'll be putting pea gravel in that area when the grass is done so eventually we can have a playset there. I'll be happy to have that sand gone (or at least covered by 4 inches of pea gravel). 

The other day while the kids were playing in the sand Ryan found Annie's shoes. Shoe was one of Ryan's first words. He loves shoes and when he finds them, he wants whoever they belong to to put them on. But this time he decided he would wear them himself. He was so proud of himself when he managed to get them both on.

And here are a few yogurt pictures. Ryan decided a spoon wasn't exciting enough, and made his truck into a spoon.

 

 

And of course Annie, making herself a yogurt goatee. Her favorite thing to do with yogurt, pudding, ice cream, or anything sticky.

Monsoon season

We returned from our vacation to find that we had just missed a huge monsoon storm by one day. Streets flooded, a swift water rescue, trees down, the works. Lucky for us monsoon season has been pretty good this year and we didn't miss out on all the fun. 

Early last week we had a microburst hit Rita Ranch, the part of Tucson where we live. For those who have never experienced a microburst, it's basically a really intense, super concentrated storm. This is what it looked like from a few miles away.

We were upstairs when it hit and couldn't see anything out the window except rain pounding on the window. Visibility was like 5 feet. The wind was blowing the water straight into the front of our house, and the window in the girls' room started leaking/flooding through the tiny little vent at the bottom. I got a towel set up there, then went to check the other windows. Sure enough, the other two windows on the front of the house were pooling with water. The rest of the windows were fine. After checking the windows I went to the girls' room window and the towel was soaked almost all the way through. 

The kids loved watching the storm. I remember as a kid doing exactly what they did: sitting at the window staring out at the storm, loving every minute of it.

After the rain let up a little the kids wanted to go play in the river street. By that time the water had receded significantly. At one point the whole street was full of water and full bags of garbage were floating down the street, after the garbage cans that had been put out for the garbage pick up the following day were blown over.

The kids had a blast splashing in the water and came back home completely drenched.

 

 

We soon found out that the microburst had wreaked havoc all over Rita Ranch. Trees were down all over, some fell on cars or walls. Here are a couple pictures a friend of mine took in our neighborhood:

 Shingles were blown off tons of houses, some had huge portions of wood showing on their roof. Thankfully we escaped any real damage to our home. 

Yesterday another storm hit. This time it was just a regular old awesome monsoon, none of that destructive microburst stuff. The kids again had a blast playing in the river that our street became, and jumping in puddles. We love monsoon season!

 

 

 

 

 

Kindergarten

Well, we officially have a kindergartner. Rachel started school today. Our school district does a modified year-round schedule, so they go back now when it's scorching hot outside, then they get 3 weeks off in the fall when it's actually nice to be outside, and another 2 or 3 weeks off in the spring. 

Rachel has been vacillating between being excited for kindergarten and being nervous about not knowing people in her class. I've been reminding her of how good she is at making friends, how every time she's at the playground she has a new friend within 2 minutes of arriving. That and the meet the teacher night on Friday helped her not feel so nervous. She really liked Ms. Kirby and made a new friend on the playground in the 5 minutes I let her play before we went back home. 

This morning she was up at 5:45, whereas she usually sleeps until 7:00 or 7:30. The typical first day early riser, just like I always used to be. Of course she had no consideration for her mother and wouldn't even let me take her to school for her first day. She just had to ride the bus.

Of course, that was one of the biggest perks of moving in her mind. Our old house was right next to the elementary school, so she'd be walking. Here at our new house we are just barely far enough away that she gets to ride the bus. So she has been talking about riding the bus for months. 

I'm sure she'll have a blast in kindergarten. She's already gotten almost everything down that the teacher talked about as year-end goals. She's reading like a pro, reading little chapter books. She can recognize numbers and count up to 100 and add. She recognizes which coin is which, but mixes up their values still. So she'll have something to work on this year. Her teacher seemed really good, so I'm hoping she'll do some good enrichment for Rachel, but either way I'm sure Rachel will have a blast, just because she likes being around people and loves school. 

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Vacation-4th of July evening

After dinner was over we headed over to the school to play on the playground for a while.

 Some of the slides were pretty dusty, so the kids got a bit dirty. Especially Lena and Annie.

 Notice the dirt all over their legs and arms and hands. The bathwater was brown when they were done with it.

 Annie went right to sleep, but the fireworks and firecrackers kept waking up poor Ryan (who didn't sleep well our whole vacation anyway). We must have gotten him to sleep 8-10 times before we got him to sleep for good an hour and a half later.
But Rachel had a good time playing with sparklers for her first time and watching the fireworks. Then she fell promptly to sleep when it was time to come in.

 It was probably the best 4th of July my kids have ever had. One of my best, too.

The following day the kids played and enjoyed time with cousins and aunts and uncles while I packed. We ate lunch then started for home. Our goal was to get to Kingman for the night, and we made it, just an hour later than I thought, thanks to Annie making us stop 5 extra times because she wouldn't pee when we had regular potty stops. I held her on the potty screaming before we left Provo, but she didn't go, but before we hit Nephi she was calling for a potty stop. Then again at Scipio. And so it went. But we made it. And the kids slept well.
Saturday we went the rest of the way home and made it around 1:00pm, which left us plenty of time to do some laundry, unpack, clean out the car, get some groceries, and get our lessons ready to teach for Sunday. 2+ weeks away on vacation was TONS of fun, but being away for so long just makes it that much sweeter to get home. Even the kids were excited to be home.