Back by popular demand!

Hooray!! This blog is officially resurrected! Two things have occurred: 1) a surprising number of people told me they missed it and 2) Ashton is 14 weeks old and finally giving me some blogging material other than eating, sleeping and pooping. I do repeat my words of caution: some things that show up here (read: most things) are going to be way more exciting for me than for you, which is a more positive way of saying...you might be bored at times. But, here goes...

Ashton's latest adventure has been eczema. It has been steadily getting worse over the past few weeks until finally I took him into the pediatrician last Saturday. She told me it was likely an allergy to something that was coming through my breastmilk and instructed me to cut out all dairy (including eggs), soy, tree nuts and shellfish until the results of his allergy tests came back (he had his blood drawn on Monday and we get the results tomorrow). So I am now a vegan. More specifically, a soy-less, nut-less (ha ha that sounds funny) vegan. It's a much faster to list what I CAN eat vs. what I can't. We'll see. We also went to the pediatric dermatologist at Childrens Hospital downtown yesterday and they confirmed he has a pretty bad case of eczema, which is caused by many things. It could be the allergy (and they encouraged me to pursue the results) or it could be a lack of filaggrin, which is a skin protein essential to creating a strong barrier between our bodies and our environments. Without it, skin cannot hold onto water or protect against irritants, resulting in eczema. He could grow out of it, but likely it's something we will have to learn to manage for a long time. Most immediately though, our night time routine is as follows: 1) 10 minute soak in chlorox bleach bath in his baby tub, 2) application of 3 prescription creams: Cream 1 for his body, Cream 2 for his face, and then Cream 3 over Cream 1 and Cream 2. Cream 1 can only be used for 3-5 days as it's a steroid and can actually change the skin pigmentation, so after Cream 1 we have Cream 4 which is used more long-term. Get all that? :-/ and then 3) the wet wrap. This is me soaking a pair of his pajamas and wringing out the excess water, dressing him first in the damp clothes, then in a dry pair, then swaddling him for sleep. I have to admit I was pretty upset at the thought of putting my baby to bed in wet clothes, but he slept for longer than he has slept in weeks last night and is already doing it again tonight. It's clear being in the damp cloth gives his itchy dry skin some relief and holds in moisture overnight as well. He was less red today and I expect will be even better tomorrow too! His skin is still very sandpapery feeling and he looks like a bit of a mess but as long as he feels good, nothing else matters.

So here is his recent picture as of about 5 hours ago.

His hair has thinned and what's left is really long, wispy and sticks straight up. It's hard to see in this picture but let's just say Jason calls him Don King. I don't know if it's thinning because babies sometimes lose the hair they were born with or because I've taken a lot of it out while battling his cradle cap (a whole other adventure) but nonetheless, this is our baby boy :) Hard to get a clear picture because he's always moving. Oh I should mention, he rolled over three times today on his own! Of course I missed it because for the first time in almost 3 months I decided I would finally go get my hair done. Isn't that just the way things go. But that was very exciting and hopefully we will have prize-winning video footage of that soon haha ;) He also loves to try and shove both fists into his mouth at once, success with that one WOULD be prize-winning video footage!!  I mean, he tries and tries. I've attempted to tell him they won't ever fit...

Lastly, his favorite book so far seems to be "This Farm is a Mess" and his favorite song alternates between "Baby" by Justin Bieber and "Super Bass" by Nicki Minaj. At least, these are what I sing to him and he stares right at me the whole time, could be because my voice is terrible and he doesn't know how to tell me, but I'm choosing to believe it's because he likes it. Anyway, he smiles all the time now and that is enough for me :)

xo