Life With An Allergic Child

Sometimes, Diego's allergies really get me down. Usually, I make myself focus on the fact that there are far worse things, and that in the big picture, it's really not that terrible. I know Marcelo and I are really blessed that Diego and little Marcelo are relatively healthy kids. But every once in awhile, I allow myself to get a little sad about the fact that there are a lot of foods that could make Diego really, really sick.

When you have a child with severe allergies, you have to be a hawk. At 28 months, Diego doesn't understand that the foods that his little cousins or friends are eating could make him have a bad reaction. So whenever we go somewhere where there's going to be food, I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn't steal something off of someone's plate. I think this age is especially hard because 1) he doesn't really understand his allergies yet, and 2) most toddler foods are not Diego-friendly. Goldfish crackers, mac & cheese, cookies, ice cream, pizza, hamburgers, even certain chicken nuggets are not okay because of the breading.

Honestly, I haven't really figured out the best way to handle it yet. When I go to a playgroup, I can never relax and enjoy some adult conversation because I'm worried that Diego is off in someone's room, trying to grab a forbidden food out of their hands. But I'm starting to realize that I need to step up and get control of the situation. Probably the best thing to do would be to ask all the moms if it's okay for me to bring the snacks for everyone, so that everyone is eating Diego-friendly foods. But then the stupid, shy part of me is like, "But maybe that'll just be a big inconvenience for everyone and maybe they'll think I'm super complicated and annoying." Well, that part of me needs to shut it because this is my baby's health! I think most of the moms I'm around on a regular basis just don't know the extent of his allergy. And how could they if I don't tell them?

Marcelo and I have decided to start taking pictures each time Diego has a bad reaction. There have been many many reactions, most including a lot of vomiting, but these are the only ones I've captured on camera.

This is from December. He tipped over a cup that had seriously a drop of chocolate milk in it. After touching the milk with his hand, he touched his eye. Just that skin contact caused his eye to get red and swollen.

This one is from April. It's from sunscreen. He breaks out in a rash with every sunscreen I've tried. This picture was actually taken before it got even more red and puffy.

And this was two days ago and it was all my fault. Again, it was just skin contact. I handed him a wagon wheel cookie that I was going to give Marcelito. I assumed they were made out of the same thing as the rice puffs I always give them, so I didn't bother to read the label. Diego held the cookie for a minute and then said he didn't want it. Then he started rubbing his face like crazy. He turned all red, broke out in little bumps, his eyelids got swollen, and his nose started running like crazy. I could tell his nose was itching him really badly because he couldn't stop rubbing it. He rubbed so much he made it bleed.

The rest of the stuff on his face is remnants from his lunch. He made quite the mess that day. Anyway, as soon as I saw the reaction, I checked the label and sure enough: non-fat dry milk. So I gave him benadryl, put him in the bathtub with very warm water, and prayed that he would keep breathing. His nose got so stuffy and he seemed to have a hard time breathing for a little while, but the benadryl finally kicked in and he started to clear up. I just sat next to the tub and cried. I just had a moment of self-pity that we have to deal with this and that poor Diego has to live with such boundaries.

The thing with food allergies is, you never know if the next reaction is going to be severe. That's why we have to carry the Epi pen. That's why I'm such a freak about people giving my son food.

I don't know why I'm writing this publicly. I guess I just want everyone around us to know how serious it is. I've spent too much time not opening up about it and just expecting people to know. But I'm done being shy and I'm ready to "inconvenience" others, if it means I'll keep my son safe.

Teeny Tiny Undies

Diego has been wearing teeny tiny undies for over two weeks now. I kept a detailed account of the potty training experience in my regular journal, so here's the condensed version.

Diego started showing a lot of interest in the potty towards the end of April, and had gone a few times. So one morning in May, I decided I should go all or nothing. I had just spent $40 on diapers for both kids and I thought to myself, that's the last time I buy two boxes of diapers. So I woke up one day and put undies on Diego. For the first 2 days, he had a lot of accidents. By the third day, I figured out when he needed to go, and started asking him in time.

For the whole first week, I was the one initiating it. I would ask him if he needed to go potty, and sometimes he would say yes, and other times he would say no. If it had been a couple hours and he still said no, I took him anyway. I tried to make the potty fun, by singing to him and reading to him while he was on there, and making it a huge deal if he went. He ate more candy in that first week than he has in his whole life.

In the second week, he started telling me when he needed to go. Most of the time, I still initiated it, but he started telling me a few times a day. I was afraid to take the plunge and take him out in public in undies, so I put a pull-up over his underwear. To my complete shock, he told me he needed to go at Target one day. (See Victory in a Target bathroom.) After that, he started telling me whenever we were out in public. Honestly, at first, he was better at telling me when he needed to go in public than he was at telling me at home. I think it was because he figured out that if he went pee pee on the potty in the store, Mommy was going to buy him a new racecar. Smart boy.

In the last four days, he has made huge progress. I've forgotten to ask him if he needs to go pee pee because he's been telling me every time! On Saturday we drove two hours away for a family party, so I put a diaper on him thinking that he wouldn't tell me in the car. Well, he told me! He said, "Uh oh, I need to go pee pee." So we pulled over on the side of the road and he went in the grass! About an hour later, he told me again! I couldn't believe it. When we arrived to our destination, he had a dry diaper. On Sunday he told us at church. And yesterday, he told us at Sea World! Today, I didn't have to ask him once. He's told me on his own all day. He's well on his way. I know he's not 100% trained yet, but we're getting really close. Hooray for that unopened box of diapers I bought for him!

Here he is in his Go Diego Go underwear. (Oh and that's Mr. Bear. Some days Diego doesn't want to let go of him.)

I love seeing him in his little tiny undies!

All about Marcelito

Marcelito is almost 10 months old and I still haven't posted his 9 month picture. So here it is.

That's the best I could do this time. I tried to do this photoshoot outside, but he wasn't having it. So I came inside and tried to find a spot where he would cooperate.

This is all I got outside. Maybe next month he'll let me play photographer a little more.

Marcelito is getting to such a fun age. He's learning new things everyday. Here are some of the things he's doing:

-He loves to stand up wherever he can, and uses everything as a walker. He'll use an upside down laundry basket, a chair, whatever he can get his hands on.
-He loves to pull himself up on the piano stool and reach up to play the piano. And by play I mean bang. He entertains us with these little concerts almost daily.
-He always wants to play with whatever Diego is playing with, and gets upset if I try to give him something more baby-ish. For example, he'll see Diego playing with Hot Wheels, so I'll give him a soft plastic car to play with. He throws that aside and grabs a "real" car. He's like, why would I play with this baby car when I can play with a hard, metal Hot Wheels with dangerous little wheels that can fall off for me to swallow?
-He won't go to bed at night unless he knows Diego is in bed, too. I'll try to lay him down in his crib, and he'll cry. So I pick him back up and take him to Diego's room to do the bedtime routine. We'll read a book or sing a song, say prayer, and give hugs and kisses goodnight. Then I walk back into his room and lay him in the crib and he goes right to sleep. It's like he knows the party is over and Diego is asleep, too, so now he can go to sleep. It's crazy.
-He loves to play with his voice and babble new sounds, and he wrinkles his nose non-stop.
-He's very jealous! If he sees Diego climb into my lap, he'll start to protest and crawl as fast as he can to climb into my lap, too.
-He's Diego's little shadow and doesn't understand that he's not 2. He wants everything Diego has, whether it's toys, food, or attention.
- He loooooves food. Here's proof:
He's so much fun, and can always put a smile on my face with that flirty little look he does. I think we'll keep him.

Tagged!

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:

1. Beginning my crush on Marcelo at church dances
2. Singing in chorus for the last year
3. Getting a driver's permit
4. Going on vacation to NYC with my family
5. Counting down the months to my 16th bday

5 things on my to do list:
1. Fold the laundry
2. Unload the dishwasher
3. Reorganize my closet
4. Call Michelle
5. Get started on Marcelo's homework

5 favorite snacks:
1. Combos...the pizza ones
2. Spinach artichoke dip with tortilla chips
3. Cookies and milk
4. Cut up strawberries with condensed milk drizzled on them...mmmm
5. Queso y bocadillo

5 things I would do if I was a billionaire:
1. Buy our dream house
2. Travel, travel, travel
3. Buy Marcelo whatever vehicle he wanted except a motorcycle
4. Set up a nice inheritance for the kids
5. Start up Marcelo's dream business

5 bad habits:
1. Staying up too late
2. Watching too much mindless television
3. Leaving the kitchen dirty and putting off cleaning it until the morning
4. Leaving too many lights on in the house
5. Talking too much

5 places I have lived:
1. Florida
2. New York
3. Colombia
4. Connecticut
5. Georgia

5 people I tag:
1. Maria
2. Andrea
3. Lorenia
4. Um....everyone I know has already been tagged.

Mother's Day - Late

I know this is over a week late, but I had to wait until after Mother's Day to post these pictures and I didn't get around to it last week. I've been wanting to come on here so bad to post these pictures of the boys! I took them for my mom and Marcelo's mom for Mother's Day, and I love how they turned out, so I have to share.

This one is my favorite:

This is the only one I got of Marcelito smiling. He didn't like this photo shoot one bit. He never likes any of my photo shoots.


Diego on the other hand, has been getting much more cooperative lately. It must be the 2 years of practice he has under his belt. With a Mommy who is constantly taking pictures, he was bound to get used to it at some point.

And here's one of me with the kids on Mother's Day.
Diego was pretty excited about wearing an orange vest. He's obsessed with that color. Interesting fact: That was my mother-in-law's favorite color as a child, too.



I love my boys (all 3) and I loooove being a mommy. I felt so blessed this Mother's Day. Not only because of my boys and the happiness they bring me, but also because of my mom and my mother-in-law and the examples they are to me. My mom is one of my bestest friends and I admire her soooo much. She's loving, giving, talented in so many ways, and, as I told her in her mother's day card, she's "macha". I love that about her and I try hard to be like that. Thanks to her example, I'm not a wussy girl...most of the time. (Well, thanks to that and the fact that at 9 years old, my dad told me to "take it like a man".) My mom is extremely generous, smart, funny, and a really good cook. Thank you for all you do, Mom! I love you! On to another "macha": My mother-in-law. She's a great example to me, too. She's one of the most service-minded women I know. She's kind, loving, and way stylish! She raised some great kids, but I have to say that my favorite is my husband, lol. (No offense to the others.) I see that a lot of his good qualities come from his mom, so I'm grateful for all that she taught him. Happy Belated Mother's Day to the two most special moms in our lives!

Sea World!

Two days ago, Marcelo was supposed to take an FCC test. But thanks to a local arsonist, the city he was supposed to take the test in was basically on fire and the test was cancelled. With nothing to do on a free day off of work, Marcelo suggested we go somewhere fun with the kids. We were going to go to Downtown Disney to just walk around, but on our way there, Marcelo spotted a sign for Sea World and said, "How much does that cost? Let's go there." He is not really a spur-of-the-moment kind of guy. He's a plan-ahead kind of guy. I love that he's very organized and analytical in his decision making, but seeing this spontaneous side was really fun!

We weren't sure if Diego would enjoy it because he hates to sit still and one of the best parts of Sea World is the shows. But he loved it! We only went to one show, Shamu, (where I didn't take a single picture because of the 9 month old jumping in my lap) and Diego did pretty well sitting through it. He looooved the rides. I love seeing him so happy! It turned out to be a really great day, and the best part is that for the price of just one day, we can go back all year! Marcelo and I will be planning some date nights to their luau. I'm so excited!

Classic Sea World picture

He loved this ride! He went on it twice.

This picture is a total fake. Shockingly, he didn't like getting wet. He wouldn't let go of Marcelo's hand and was like, "I wanna put clothes on now" and "Wanna get dry." But I was like, "Okay, just smile first" and this was the face he gave me long enough for my camera to capture it, before he almost started crying.

Marcelito had fun, too.

No really, he did.

This was Diego's absolute favorite part: Touching stingrays. I'm quite surprised Marcelo could handle being that close to stingrays, what with his near death experience a couple summers ago.

I guess he's moved past that traumatic "attack". (I'm teasing. I know it was real.)
All in all, it was fabulous day. I can't wait to go back!

Victory in a Target bathroom

It happened! We were shopping at Target this morning and Diego said, "I need to go pee pee." I've never made it to the front of the store so fast. I had both kids in the cart, two big boxes of diapers, a big pack of wipes, and some miscellaneous items. The sign on the Family Restroom door said, "Please do not bring unpaid merchandise past this point." So I put the cart in only halfway, so that it was propping the door open and I could keep an eye on Marcelito while I put Diego on the potty. I covered it with toilet paper because, ew. Then I sat him down and heard the most beautiful tinkle. I was so proud of him! He was pretty proud of himself, too. We cleaned up and headed back out to the store, where I promptly bought him 3 new Hot Wheels.

We'll see if he keeps this up. I hope so!

Friends Forever (Saved By The Bell)

I wanted to piece together a few thoughts that I have about my wonderful Wife. Growing up, I thought that nothing could seperate me from the Boys only club. If you told me that my best friend in life was going to be a girl, I would have laughed and called you a liar. 18 years after the creation of the Boys club, I married her. She is the first person I think about telling an interesting story to. She is the first to know any good or bad news that I have. She is the first and last thing I think about each day. She is the one which I have been blessed to spend the the rest of time with. She can be found under a number of listed titles. To name a few, she is a mom, hotty!!( a professional beauty), finance tracker(finding good deals), teacher, helper, doctor of boo boos, hot wheels race car driver, contortionist, multitasker, janitor, potty trainer, nutritionist, singer/dancer, story teller (not a liar, literally a story teller), crayola artist, bus driver(with a van), corrections officer of the naughty room, Sanitation Engineer(nasty diapers), speed strollerist, kid juggler, and my personal favorite...My soul mate. She is truly a saint in roxy clothing(opposite of a wolf in sheeps' skin). Sweetheart, Keep up the good work. You make me very proud to be your other half.

Happy Mother's Day

Marcelo

OCD

This is yet another post about Diego.

I'm pretty sure he's Obsessive Compulsive. Why? Because of things like this:Every time he plays with his cars, or "Mustangs", as he calls all the Hot Wheels, he ends up lining them up like this at some point.

Note the concentration:

Admiring his work:

Other OCD characteristics:

• He can't handle hangnails. He comes to me and wants me to cut them off immediately. He'll be like, "Mommy, cut nails!" Or "Bite it!" (I think his father taught him that one.)


• He can't handle when his lips are chapped and there's a little dry skin on them. He tugs and tugs at the dry skin until he bleeds. Here he is playing with his lips:


• When he's playing with his trains, he lines them up on the track, much like the cars, and slowly pulls them around the track all together. If one falls off the tracks, he gets very upset, jumps up and says, "Oh no! Train fall down!" If a lot of them fall, he'll deal with it one time. But if it happens again....back away. He throws himself on the floor and covers his eyes and starts crying out of frustration.

He actually hasn't done the last one in awhile. And I'm mostly joking about the OCD. I don't really think he is. I know he's going through a phase that a lot of kids go through. They get frustrated easily if they have a hard time doing something. Still, Marcelo and I make fun of his OCD-like tendencies. But we love his little quirks! They crack us up.

From ACDC, to the ABCs

Update on Diego's singing: He's not tone deaf!

A couple of weeks after I wrote the Tone Deaf entry, Diego decided to start singing! It was really from one day to the next. I heard him practicing in his room before going down for a nap. He would just lay there and sing, "Go sweeeeep. Go sweeeep." (Go to sleep.) Then one day, he woke up from his nap, and he just started singing, "Sing sing sing, I yike to sing." And, "Go sweep, go sweep, have nice dweam, have sweet dweam, go sweep." And, "Happy Burday to you, happy burday to you, happy burday a mommy, happy burday to you." The person he sings happy birthday to the most is my grandma, whom he calls Tata Ceci. But when he sings the song, he just says, "Happy Burday Ceci". It's pretty funny.

So he went from singing absolutely nothing, to singing all the time. My very favorite is the ABCs.

It all started with Leapfrog's Letter Factory DVD. I first heard about it from my friend, Alisa. Diego was doing great with numbers, but had no interest in letters, so I bought this DVD on ebay. And voilá, now he knows almost all the letters. He has trouble with G, Q, V, W, Y, and Z.

For awhile he knew the letters if I pointed to them, but didn't know the Alphabet song. I knew a lot of kids his age already knew the ABC song, and thought, hmmm, maybe I should try to teach it to him. But, quite frankly, I hate the ABC song. I think it's so annoying. I think it should be replaced with the Choo Choo Soul ABC song. I can jam out to that one. Anyway, I sang the normal one to him a couple times, but every time I would ask him to sing it, he'd say, "ACDC". And that was it. Well, about a week ago, out of nowhere, I heard him walking around the house singing, "ABCDEFG, HIJK meno P. QRS, "TV", WX, YZ. ABCDEFG, HIJK meno Peeee." (Meno Peeee is the grand finale, apparently.) Some of the letters are hard to make out, but I think it's so cute. I love it.

We are an American Idol watching home. Diego now refers to it as "The singing show". He likes it, but not as much as he likes "The dancing show", Dancing with the Stars. Dancing is still his passion, lol.

Speaking of new talents, Marcelito is now saying three words: uh-oh, mama, and dada. He's also signing "more". Honestly, I don't think he understands what it means, but at least he mimics me when I do it.

Watching them learn is so much fun!

Park Fun

We went to the park yesterday. Or as Diego calls it, the pike.

Yes, I'm aware that yesterday was Sunday. But we went for like 30 minutes, as a family, for a little family time, so I don't feel bad about it. As my mom would say, "Is that bad?"


Anyway, we got a few cute pictures, so I want to share. Marcelito was a little monkey boy and climbed all the way up the slide. He's a crazy one.
After taking those cute pictures of Marcelo with the boys, I realized the last picture I got of me and the boys was taken 9 months ago. So here's an updated one.
You can't really tell from the pic, but I had a kung-fu grip on Diego. He didn't want to sit still long enough for a picture because there was just too much fun to be had at the park. Hence the annoyed face.

These pictures were from another park day last week. Sweni was in town, so we took the boys to the park.Marcelito's hair was standing up from the static.

At the park, Sweni and I tried to chat and catch up. It didn't really work for 2 reasons. 1) Diego kept pulling one of us away and wanted constant attention. 2) Sweni and I need at least 5 straight hours to talk and fully catch up. No....longer. We're marathon talkers when we get together. It was so great seeing her. But it was too short!

On Saturday we went to Sweni's dad's surprise 60th birthday party. It's so fun to see all the Indian women dressed in their beautiful sari's. One day, at Sweni's wedding, I'll get to wear one, too! I'll post a picture we took at the party when I get it from Sweni.

Silly Pictures

Our boys are so fun. They both have funny little personalities. Diego has been trying to make us laugh more and more lately, and I can tell Marcelito is going to be just like him. These pictures crack me up. And the one of Celo is just sweet. He was a little sick.




























The boys with their daddy (and Mr. Bear).














And this is a picture from the other night. Marcelo had gone out with the missionaries, so Diego was pretty bummed out that he had already spent all day with mommy and now had to spend all evening with just me and no daddy for the second day in a row. (Marcelo goes to school one night a week.) This is what happens when a 2 year old gets bored:













I know, I look like a hot mess. I don't think I had even showered. Hopefully your attention is drawn to my sweet neck accessories. Oh, and that's the first picture I've posted of my bangs. It's still weird to me but I'm getting used to it.