Daddy-Daughter Date Night

With Ben at a sleepover, Joel decided it was a good night for a daddy-daughter night with Becca. Here's the new grad enjoying some Chinese food and undivided attention, before heading to a movie. Meanwhile Caroline enjoyed some undivided Mommy-time :)

Sleep Issues

Caroline has been having issues sleeping through the night lately. Last week Joel decided we needed to crack down on the nighttime bottles (yes, we did that, on occasion, out of desperation to get her back to sleep) and he bought and installed heavy curtains over her windows so that her room is very dark. She was waking up at 5:30 a.m sometimes and not going back to sleep. Well, Joel was not going to accept this disruption to his sleep. For a few days it seemed to work well, she started sleeping better and yesterday even slept until 7 (our goal for her). On the weekend her naps were also much better because we can keep her room darker.

But last night she woke up at 12:30 am and had a 2 and a half hour scream fest. I went in to check on her after the first hour, to make sure she didn't have a poopy /leaky diaper, fever, or any obvious sign of distress. She seemed fine. She was ironically not at all happy to see me, and yelled "NO!" and tried to scoot away from me in her crib when I came in and reached for her to change her diaper. I changed her and put her back down and closed all the bedroom doors upstairs and she screamed for another hour and a half before she fell asleep. She does this every once in a while and I wonder if she accidentally ate something with gluten in it and is having tummy cramps, or what the deal is. I did give her sweet potato fries last night which I had not bought before, but although the package didn't specifically say gluten free, I did carefully look at the ingredients and I didn't see anything that might contain gluten, but who knows. Of course after she finally fell asleep, Becca came downstairs to tell me she had to go to the bathroom. More coffee, please...

Graduation Videos

A selection of videos from this morning's Pre-K/Fours graduation ceremony, courtesy of CJP's Facebook page ;) Becca is on the second riser from the top, in the middle, in a pink dress. Find the "k" in the Shalom Park letters on the wall behind the stage and follow it straight down.

CJP Song

Fifty Nifty

Dreamer

Graduation

Today was Rebecca's preschool graduation ceremony (She actually has one more week of preschool because she's a full-time student, but who's counting). Unlike Ben's graduation, which was at 6:30 in the evening, graduation has since been moved to 10am. Even so I got there a little after 8:30 to secure seats. There were already people there, and since the first couple of rows were reserved for board members, I didn't get as good seats as I wanted, but I did get seats on the aisle so I could high-five Becca as she processed in and out with her class ;) I heard that some people came in last night and put hand-made reserved signs on some seats, which had to be taken down this morning. People also came in this morning early, reserved whole rows, and then left until just before the ceremony. That was pretty annoying. I only saved a seat for Joel, and at least I stayed after I got there to hold it.

Unlike Ben's graduation we did not have any wardrobe incidents. I did not have a good videography angle, was obstructed by a view of some guy's bald head a couple rows up, but, I will go through my video later and see if I have anything blog-worthy. 

The only incident of the morning was entirely my fault, I bought Rebecca a Tinkerbell snow globe as a graduation present, and fully knowing it was very fragile (glass, water, all that pixie dust....) I showed it to her and then told her I would take it home for her and put it in her room. Well on the way out of the classroom somehow it slipped out of the bag and smashed in the doorway. Water, glass, pixie dust everywhere. Rebecca was thoroughly oblivious to the incident and to the five minute cleanup that ensued, since she was on the other side of the room engrossed in an ice cream sundae. Thank goodness for ice cream sundaes. I stopped at the Hallmark store on the way home and got another one (the last one, so I better not drop it), and put it in her room so she will be none the wiser ;) I do think that from now on I will limit graduation gifts to non-breakables. Perhaps Caroline's graduation will be entirely incident free - who knows - third time is the charm right?

I do not seem to have a picture of Becca on her first day of preschool. But here she is on Ben's graduation day four years ago, wearing his cap, and today:

A CJP Tradition...

Learning to sing the 50 states for graduation... Ben did it here. As far as I can tell she only left out New Mexico, New York and Texas. But really, who needs Texas?
What she may have lacked in substance she certainly made up for with style :)

And... He's Wandered off Again...

After his two month absence and miraculous return, Ulysses has wandered off again after 2 months at home... Only this time I am convinced he is out there somewhere (re-catnapped maybe? Or just sightseeing?) He hasn't been seen in about 5 days. Getting kind of irritated with that cat! Of course I did get him a collar and name tag after his last disappearance, which he kept on for a couple of weeks and then lost. I did fnd it in the yard by some miracle, and put it back on him, only to have him escape from it again. And keeping him indoors just has proven too cruel for my outdoor-loving kitty. So here's hoping he wanders back home again!

Pool Opening

Caroline tentatively approved of the splash park; Ben spent the whole time running around with friends so I couldn't get his picture. Joel had to work Monday AND had a nasty stomach virus / fever on top of it, so he did not join us at the pool. Looking forward to many more afternoons at the pool this summer!

Uses for Fresh Strawberries

First we picked them...

Then we made pie (gluten free of course)...

And then homemade ice cream!

Caroline's first Popsicle

It's Caroline the red-nosed reindeer! Enjoyng a gluten- and dairy-free popsicle. Yes she needed a bath after this!

Weekend Activities

We had a pretty full weekend. Ben had his flag football playoff tournament on Saturday. His team handily won the first game, during which Ben threw 2 touch down passes, and made an interception that he ran back for a touchdown. It was his best game of the season. The second (out of a possible 3 games) they lost by a touchdown, with time expiring before they could get off a final play to try to tie the game. Even though they didn't make it to the championship round, Ben was happy with how he played and how his team played.

Rebecca also had her last soccer game of the season, which was a bit chaotic because it started thunderstorming just as we arrived at the field for the game, so we had to move indoors to the gym which is smaller, louder, and more chaotic when you have 14 4 and 5 year olds chasing a ball around ;) Becca did not score any goals in this game but she was very happy to get her trophy :)

Ben also had his final religious school activity of the year yesterday, Mitzvah Day, where they do community service projects. Ben and Joel went to Bright Blessings which is an organization that puts together birthday baskets for homeless children. During this outing Ben started fading fast, and came home with a fever and crawled into bed. He rallied briefly with the help of Motrin in the afternoon to go to a planned movie date to see the new Iron Man movie, but came home as soon as it was over and crawled into my bed and fell asleep. He is home sick today, which is unfortunate because today and tomorrow are the much anticipated/feared End of Grade tests ("EOGs") which are used by the state to measure academic performance/ rank schools. Third grade is the first year they are given, so Ben has never taken them before. So, he'll have to take a make-up test when he feels better. I definitely did not want to send him and have him take the test while he is not feeling well. 

Besides the above activities, Rebecca accompanied me to the mall in search of a bathing suit for myself, but of course all we came home with was a bathing suit for her ;) (Could have predicted this outcome at the beginning). Also we had a playdate at friend Amelia's house after soccer yesterday while Ben and Joel were at the movie, where Caroline defied all logic by being afraid of a seven pound dog, when she is not at all afraid of our own 65 pound dog, nor of our cat who probably, no definitely, also weighs considerably more than seven pounds. Caroline also continues to try and enjoy new foods, including gluten free waffles (pictured below), and hummus. 

Baby Loves Quinoa

Caroline is doing well with her diet so far. I cooked quinoa for the first time last night, which is one of the grains she is allowed to have, and she gobbled it up! Even Ben and Rebecca, who probably were not planning on touching the quinoa on their plates, tried it and liked it after being convinced by all the yummy noises Caroline was making ;) Her belly appears to be getting slightly more soft / less distended, but she still has a long way to go. She definitely has seemed happier lately -- more active, and more mischievous. The other day she was getting into all kinds of trouble, throwing her shoes in the trash, trying to throw her sippy cup into the toilet, throwing one of her books into the sink... basically making a game out of trying to dispose of all her things in various ways ;) So definitely, more spunk lately ;)

Mother's Day

I Call her my GFB Now

Gluten Free Baby. Here she is with the gluten free cupcake Joel brought her from his Orlando conference.

Tea for Two

Becca's  last Tea for Two at CJP... the necklace was SUPPOSED to be for Mommy but it looked so much better on her ;)

Bed Time

Something tells me Ben has a few too many critters in his bed...

Monday Again Already?

We had some relatives in town Friday and Saturday in honor of the 60th anniversary of Joel's dad's bar mitzvah, so Ben and Rebecca went to services Friday night with Joel and his dad and the extended family and from what I understand they were bizarrely well behaved (probably because they got to stay out until 10:30 PM!) Caroline and I came home after dinner since there is no way she would have lasted anywhere near that long.

Saturday was busy, with Ben's flag football game (his team played against Steve Smith's team and had a pretty good showing though they did not win - I don't think Steve Smith's team has ever lost a game, stretching back to last year also when Ben was on his team). We also babysat the 1 year old daughter of one of Joel's coworkers for the afternoon. We owed her a favor because she babysat Caroline for a day while Joel was in the hospital. We also visited with Joel's relatives some more, and then went to PF Chang's for dinner where I ordered off their gluten free menu so Caroline could share with me. I am much fonder of PF Chang's now -- they have a lot of gluten free choices, even some on the kids menu.

Saturday night Caroline had an AWFUL night though, she was up crying for several hours during the night, refused medicine,  and we couldn't figure out why she wasn't sleeping/ what the matter was. I needed 3 cups of coffee to get me through the day yesterday, and Joel left for a conference in Orlando so I had to put Caroline down for a late-morning nap and then bring her to Rebecca's 1:15 soccer game with me and skip the afternoon nap. (Ben went to a friend's house for the afternoon). Caroline was fine all day until about 5pm what with the early / short nap and how badly she slept the night before she had a total 100% melt down, so I ended up putting her to bed at 6pm right after she finished dinner. She fell asleep almost immediately and slept all night. She did wake up about 30 minutes earlier than usual this morning. Her belly is still distended and despite my earlier post about a normal poop, that was the only normal poop I have seen. It makes sense though that it's going to take some time for her intestines to heal themselves/ start absorbing nutrients properly.

So we're just hanging in there, and religiously reading food labels. Joel's dad's cousins David and Ellissa who were in town this weekend and who also eat gluten free and had heard about Caroline's recent diagnosis, brought us a whole shopping bag full of gluten free stuff from Trader Joe's. Which was great because although we intended to stop by Trader Joe's this weekend, what with everything else going in we didn't get a chance to.

Doe-Eyed

Caroline was home from day care today because they are having staff training. She took it easy on me, getting in about four and a half hours of napping. Which was not surprising considering she was up at 4am this morning (she has a junky cough). While she slept I tried out a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie mix that Joel bought the other night. Since Caroline has never really had a chocolate chip cookie before she obviously could not tell the difference (but seemed to enjoy it). Ben and Rebecca, more experienced chocolate chip cookie connoisseurs, pronounced them "Awesome" and "Amazing". In other very exciting news, Caroline had her first normal looking poop in months this afternoon. Who knew the sight of poop could make a mommy so happy? I practically saved it to show Joel, LOL. Now hopefully her pot belly will start to go away soon too!

Day 1 Gluten Free

Today is Caroline's first full day on her gluten free diet. Joel went to the grocery store last night and bought all manner of gluten-free items, some of which are ready to use (waffles, Chex cereal, bread, chicken fingers), and some of which are less ready to use (pizza dough mix, chocolate chip cookie dough mix, etc). Her first gluten free lunch involved gluten-free chicken fingers, gluten free graham crackers, and fruit. Whether or not she liked it/ate it remains to be seen when I pick her up from day care later. Tonight we might see what she thinks of gluten-free macaroni and cheese ;)

We met with her GI doctor and a nutritionist this afternoon, the main purpose of which was to go over the lists of things she can and cannot eat, what to look for on food labels at the grocery store, etc. It turns out there is a lot more than the obvious bread/pasta kind of stuff that may contain gluten -- canned soups, salad dressings, marinades, seasoning packets, lunch meats, chewing gum, etc. So pretty much everything we buy that's not a fresh fruit or vegetable will require reading the label carefully and perhaps calling the manufacturer  to ask, for example if the "dextrin" listed on the label is wheat dextrin or corn dextrin. Ugh.

Besides that, there is not much to do. She needs to have a follow-up blood test in 6 months to make sure her levels of gluten antibody have gone down. Otherwise, as long as she remains on a gluten free diet her symptoms should all go away and she should start gaining weight again and be perfectly healthy. As long as she's having no more problems and doing well on the diet, she only needs to be seen by the GI doctor once a year.

I also ordered a couple of books from Amazon -- Real Life with Celiac Disease and Gluten Free Recipes for Kids which I hope will be helpful.