Milk Allergy?

Once again, I'm seeking the expert advise of all of you wonderful moms and dads out there. I'm wondering if any of you have discovered a milk sensitivity/allergy in your infant. If so, what were the symptoms in your infant, and how long did it take (after cutting milk proteins out of your diet) before you noticed an improvement?

Just to give a brief description of our situation: Baby Caroline (11 weeks old) has had green poop (so sorry, I know that's gross), and also a good bit of gas accompanied by discomfort, and one of the possible causes is a sensitivity to milk proteins. It could also be a whole host of other issues - a virus in her system, teething, or stress, to name a few - but this has been going on for quite a while. I hate to cut all milk products out of my diet, but if that's what I need to do to then of course I'll do it!

Thanks!

Tuesday of (Maybe) Poetry Month

Here is a favorite from my Latin American Studies days:

"I Was My Own Route"

I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:
an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of nows,
and my feet level on the promissory earth
would not accept walking backwards
and went forward, forward,
mocking the ashes to reach the kiss
of new paths.
At each advancing step on my route forward
my back was ripped by the desperate flapping wings
of the old guard.
But the branch was unpinned forever,
and at each new whiplash my look
separated more and more and more from the distant
familiar horizons;
and my face took the expansion that came from within,
the defined expression that hinted at a feeling
of intimate liberation;
a feeling that surged
from the balance between my life
and the truth of the kiss of the new paths.
Already my course now set in the present,
I felt myself a blossom of all the soils of the earth,
of the soils without history,
of the soils without a future,
of the soil always soil without edges
of all the men and all the epochs.
And I was all in me as was life in me ...
I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:
an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of nows;
when the heralds announced me
at the regal parade of the old guard,
the desire to follow men warped in me,
and the homage was left waiting for me.

Julia de Burgos (1914-1953)
puertoriqueña

Just for Fun...

...Texas Mommy and I thought we'd gather our six children (ages 6 and under), put them in a small chapel, and see if they could sit patiently and quietly through a baptismal liturgy for TEN babies. We'll let you use your imaginations for the outcome :)

Seriously, Tex and Mr. Tex, thanks for the huge effort that you made in being at Caroline Rose's Baptism - it meant the world to us and we know that it wasn't easy!

*Note: Our children are the baby, the little girl, and the boy farthest to the right (sitting next to Mr. Tex). Tex and Mr. Tex's children are the other three adorable boys!

Thursday Kid Poetry

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . .
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . .
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold french fried and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That it finally touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
"OK, I'll take the garbage out!"
But then, of course, it was too late. . .
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout
And always take the garbage out!


first commenter w/ the author of this one wins.... Builder respect and admiration

May is National Poetry Month

Friends, I am a poetry-lover. To me, reading a poem feels like eating a small, but decadent piece of chocolate torte. The words make me feel alive and human and pricked at the soul.

In honor of national poetry month, please allow me to share four of my favorite adult poems on the Tuesdays of May and four great ones for kids on the Thursdays of May.

"Hope"

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs
from the eyes to the tail of a dog
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum that makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.

Small Bedtime Victories

Bedtime can be unnerving for parents, especially when there are uncooperative children and/or fussy babies added to the mix. Here are a couple of small changes to our bedtime routine that have made a huge difference, especially with our two-and-a-half year old:

1) Bath-time: Maria loves her bath and was having a very hard time getting out when it was time to dry off - crying and flailing of limbs were commonplace, and I was getting desperate. Not only is this annoying, but it is extremely dangerous to have a slippery toddler throwing a tantrum in the bathtub. I decided to use a kitchen timer to mark the end of bath-time, and for the past few days we have had no trouble leaving the bath. Wow! Perhaps the novelty will wear off in a few days, but I hope not! Somehow, having the timer "tell" Maria that bath-time is over (as opposed to mommy) has made a huge difference.

2) Brushing teeth: Our toddler was also hesitant to let me help her with brushing teeth, so I decided to try something silly as a distraction. I tell her that the "sugar monsters" are trying to eat her teeth, or the "chocolate soldiers" are setting up camp in her mouth, etc., and then we try to brush them away. Again, since we've started this she is happy to let me brush!

3) Bedtime: Maria was always asking for "one more story," as all children do, and was getting very upset when it was time to climb into bed. Now, before I read the last story, I have her repeat the words "This is Maria's last story, no more stories after this one," and usually it seems to do the trick. Not always, but usually.

Hope these small tricks can help some of you out there! And if you have any pointers to share with us, please do so in the comments - we can all use all the help we can get when it comes to sending the little ones off to dreamland :)

God bless!

Speaking of Recalls

B-Mama just posted about a crib recall, and in the comments section MaryAlice mentioned the recent Tylenol recall. I didn't think much of it at the time, until this weekend when my daughter was feeling sick in conjunction with a bloody nose. While I suspected the nose bleed was related to her allergies, I called the pediatricians office just to make sure. They referred me to the triage unit at the local hospital (typical protocol for weekend hours) and I chatted with a nurse. She didn't think the nose bleed was a big deal, and suggested I give Gianna some Tylenol. She then asked me to make sure my Tylenol bottle was not on the "recall list." I got the bottle, read her the number, and sure enough ours was one of the recalled bottles. This conversation followed:

Me: finish reading the bottle number to nurse...
Nurse: "Umm, ok, did you open the bottle?"
Me: "Yes."
Nurse: "How much of it did your children consume?"
Me: "about 2/3 of the bottle." (it was a 4oz bottle so this was not a small amount!)
Nurse: "Oh, ok...(long pause)... well, what child had the Tylenol."
Me: "I don't know, probably all of them. We have had the bottle for a couple of months. I think my two year old has had most of it, he has had some ear infections, and maybe my 4 year old has had some too."
Nurse: "Have you noticed any funny behavior from your two boys.
Me: "Everyday," and I begin to laugh.
Nurse: does not laugh. "Well, I suggest after we get off the phone you call poison control. When is the last time they had the Tylenol?"
Me: Now mildly concerned, "I have no idea, it hasn't been in the past week."
Nurse: "Ok, well, you need to call poison control, and you also need to call this product information number. We are advising all parents of children who have consumed the contaminated Tylenol to call this hotline. Do you have the number for poison control?"
Me: a little more concerned, "yes, of course, I'm the mother of 2 young boys. Can I ask you to give me a little more information about how this product was contaminated, I mean, what is the possible risk to my children?"
Nurse: "You will need to call the number for more information, but I believe some of the bottles contained higher than normal doses of the active ingredient. In addition, there are unknown products in the bottle.

Great. I thank the nurse for the information, forgettting completely about sick daughter and nosebleed, and I call the hotline number. And, after waiting on hold for about 15 minutes--don't you just love corporations-- I give the rep the info about the bottle, and this conversation ensues.

Customer Service Rep: "Thank you for your address, I apologize for the inconvenience, we will be sending you a refund voucher."
Me: "Umm, I don't really care that much about the $7, but I'm a little concerned about the possible effect on my children of consuming this bottle of Tylenol. Can you answer a few of my questions regarding the possible risks or side effects?"
Customer Service Rep: "No, I'm sorry ma'am. You will have to call back on Monday to get that information. You will need to speak with a product representative."
Me: "Um, ok, well can I leave my number so a product representative can call me back tomorrow?"
Customer Service Rep: "No m'am, I'm sorry, but we can't make outgoing calls here. We just receive calls, we are a reception center only."
Me: "So you are telling me that my kids consumed some potentially harmful Tylenol, with unknown products, and you have no further details, and to find out more I have to call you back, and wait on hold again?"
Customer Service Rep: "That's right ma'am. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience."
Me: "Ok, well I find it pretty upsetting that in this particular case, when you have sold a defective product posing potential harm to children, that you do not have a system set up to return the calls of concerned parents. I find it hard to believe that with all the technology available to us, you don't have the ability to make outgoing calls."
Customer Service Rep: "I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
Me: realizing slowly that I'm wasting my time and breath talking to this guy about the poor customer service system, "I know this isn't your fault, but tell your manager that the system you guys have stinks." I then do my own research, call poison control, and confirm my suspicion that my kids will be fine.

Now, I have a tendency to lose my patience and my temper in these sorts of conversations with customer service representatives. I have been known to yell, cry, and name call. I'm sure I've given more than one priest a good chuckle in confession as I describe my embarrassing behavior. I loath the administrative dealings of large corporate customer service departments. I find it amazing that they can't make an outgoing call, they cannot transfer you to a supervisor without at least an hour wait, and that you always hear a voice telling you about the abnormally high call volume and the longer than normal wait time. The general feeling of helplessness that comes from the entire experience is unsettling. When I'm postpartum, overtired, or pregnant the after effects of these experiences are really frightening.

I've been meditating on this a lot lately, because last week I had a battle with Verizon over our internet connection. The internet had been down for 5 days and I spent over 8 hours on the phone trying to get the connection fixed. It was frustrating, and my efforts were pretty much futile. While each conversation didn't end in tears, each day I allowed the feeling of helplessness to consume me, even if only for a brief time, and I lost my interior peace. I then read this passage:

The exercise of freedom as a choice among options, plainly is important. However, to avoid making painful mistakes we also need to understand that there is another way of exercise freedom: less immediately exciting, poorer, humbler, but much more common, and one immensely fruitful, both humanly and spiritually. It is consenting to what we did not originally choose...The highest and most fruitful form of human freedom is found in accepting, even more than in dominating. We show the greatness of our freedom when we transform reality, but still more when we accept it trustingly as it is given to us day after day...in order to become truly free, we are often called to accept what we did not want, and even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here: one cannot be truly free unless one accepts not always being free!

To achieve true interior freedom we must train ourselves to accept, peacefully and willingly, plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom. This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, this or that situation that life imposes on us, and so on.

Quoted from Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe

In the life of this simple mother, it means accepting the difficult reality of customer service departments at large corporations. I am not "helpless" in a spiritual sense. I can "do something" about the situation. I can accept it as God's will in my life. I'm naturally an active and aggressive person, so the image of actually choosing acceptance, rather than passively dealing with the trials given to me, frees my soul and leaves me ready for the next challenge. To have interior freedom and peace, I don't need to be passive. I have a choice to make with regards to every trial.

And so today I'm praying for the grace to choose acceptance of small trials.

On a practical note, I got more information from my own web searches on the recall. If you want a complete list of recalled products, check out this site. I'm sure my kids will be fine. They have consumed unknown products before and I'm sure they will do so again in the future.