Baby steps

For about two weeks Evelyn has been taking single steps to get to me, Michael or Nana or to go from the footstool to the window ledge. The past two days she has taken 2 steps in a row. She is still wobbly, but making progress. The moms at the play group last week were calling her a toddler. My breath caught in my throat at that. My baby could be a toddler soon?! How can nearly a year have gone by so quickly?

Dairy update #3: major progress

We have made incredible strides on the dairy front. I am afraid to talk about the amazing strides for fear that I will jinx the whole thing. I am regularly eating yogurt and cheese and I have eaten 1.5 pieces of Pops's cheesecake. YUM! and some banana bread with butter in it. I can't bring myself to put butter on my food or drink a glass of milk yet, but maybe soon...I don't even know what to cook these days, everything tastes SO GOOD with cheese on it. Tonight I ate some leftover black beans with CHEESE and avocado. A random meal, but SO GOOD. Almost anything could be a meal when you add cheese!

But the best part: Evelyn has been eating yogurt every day this week. She bangs her hands together to tell me the sign for MORE! MORE! MORE! when I get the yogurt out. And she has had cheese twice without incident. And, some banana bread made with butter (more enthusiastic banging of her hands!). A whole new world is opening up before her. In less than 3 weeks Pops will be here and I believe cheesecake will be on little Evie's menu:)

Baby sign break-through

This week Evelyn started using some new baby signs and really focusing on signs in general. It's like she suddenly fully realized the importance of using her baby sign language and is gung-ho to move it to the next level. She's been doing milk, water and potty on occasion for the last three months or so, but not necessarily when she wanted any of those things and always with a look of silliness on her face like she didn't quite believe what she was doing. But now, she has a whole new relationship with those signs. She is visibly thoughtful before she does one of the signs and she is using them in situations when she is frustrated because she wants something and isn't getting it.

She picked up the sign for "more" this week and is so thrilled to use it. Our most difficult times of the day (Althea is laughing hysterically thinking of the differences in scale we have between Evelyn's and Sylvia's difficult times...) are when Evelyn is eating. At nearly every meal she gets fussy (maybe frustrated? with us?) at least briefy and we distract her by using the sign for water (and giving her water from a cup) or by putting her food in a dish of brewer's yeast for her to fish out. We often wonder if she has to use the potty since she almost invariably pees during her meals. But really, who wants to take off the tray, wipe the baby down, take off the bibs, remove the clothes, hustle over to the potty and wait to see if pottying was the source of the fuss?!

Now that Evelyn has learned that she can tell us she wants more of something, she has used that sign at every meal. it doesn't hurt that most of her meals have involved blueberries or mangoes in the past three days:) And she does it with such character. She'll do the more sign and then clap, as if to say, "I'm amazing! I just said 'more!'" Just tonight she started fussing when she ran out of blueberries and when I asked her if she wanted more she became very thoughtful for a few moments, did the sign for more a few times and then clapped. It was so adorable...all 10 or 15 times she did it.

A mom who was nursing her second child told me last fall that it wasn't worth teaching a baby signs since they only really use them for a few months before they start to speak anyway...I was so disapointed in my heart to think that moms in-the-know think signs are a waste of time, but I decided we should do signs anyway. And, I'm so glad I did. Just the past three days have been amazing. The pleasure Evelyn gets from communicating, the break-through in understanding her fussiness at dinner, both of these things are so worth the absolutely minor effort we've exerted in teaching her signs!

Now we have to get that signing book and DVD out (thanks, Ben!) to refresh ourselves on the signs while Evie is so receptive!

skipping work and dairy update #2

Yesterday I took the afternoon off of work because it was absolutely beautiful, 60 degrees and sunny and my office doesn't have a window so I was feeling trapped and yucky. I left work around 2:30 p.m., picked Evelyn up, picked Pippin up and drove to the Rachel Carson Greenway. We hiked for about 1.5 hours in the warm sun stopping to throw the ball for Pippin and watch him swim across the creek to get it. We saw trees gnawed down by beavers, we got very intimate with some moss on a rock and some old leaves, we touched tree bark and baby budding leaves, we sang songs, we talked about the rooster (Cock! says Evie) and the turkey (Gobba! says Evie) and we threw the ball some more for Pippin. It was a wonderful afternoon.

We then messed it all up by my trying some food at Trader Joe's that unbeknown to me had whey in it. Poor Evie had a very rough day today, lots of crying, refusing to eat or drink or be happy unless Mommy was holding her. Poor dear, I thought maybe the dairy problems were over. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Meet me, I'm Bob...or Pbopb!

You may have always known me as, "Heather," but I am hereby telling you that my name is currently, "Bob." We've all said "Mom," "Mama," and "mommy," to Evelyn for months now and just three days ago she finally responded with a very soft and hesitant, "Bob." Maybe more of a, "Pbopb." And every day since then she's become more confident in saying my new name, "Pbopb!"

This is in stark contrast to the perfect DAAAD! that she constantly says:) Lucky, lucky, Michael:)

The dairy saga continues

On Monday I intentionally ate some cow's milk cheese (cheddar in my omelet) after 9 months of abstaining from all cow's milk products. In fact, every day this week I've eaten some cow's milk cheese of some sort.....and....Evie seems to be doing fine. She was a little fussy today, but she is NOT bloated, she does NOT have red spots on her face and neck, she does NOT need intensive comforting constantly and she does NOT wake every 1 or 1.5 hours screaming and arching her back in pain and agony.

I can't even comprehend the possibilities that are opening up for my daily diet....and maybe, in a few weeks, Evie's!

It has been such a long 9 months of difficulties when shopping and eating out (if you are ever a waitperson and a customer with an allergy present him/herself at your table--TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! YOU COULD BE HURTING SOMEONE, MAYBE EVEN A BABY!). We've lived much of this time very happily in the sunshine of dairy-free life but the dark clouds of evil dairy products have constantly lurked nearby often coming on all of a sudden with weeks of pain and sadness for Evie. It takes about 2 weeks for dairy products to clear out of Evie's system after she's been exposed, so just one trip to a restaurant with a lying or inconsiderate or just plain stupid waitperson could lead to 2 weeks of trouble. The last time I went to a restaurant where someone lied to me about reading an ingredient label (and I know she knowingly lied because I forced her to show me the label she told me she had read...the label that had microwave directions on it instead of a list of ingredients!), I actually stood up for myself and my daughter. I told the person that her behavior was unacceptable and that I would not eat there since I couldn't be sure it was safe. I then wrote a letter to the owner of the restaurant--and received a very nice phone call of apology.

But, I digress. I just wanted to tell you about this testing process we're in right now and how tentatively good I'm feeling about it. I'm not sure what to try next. It seems that Evelyn has been most sensitive to the whey part of milk (as opposed to the curds part) so I suppose I should have something with whey in it. Maybe I will try yogurt next. I'd really like to try the fancy chocolate cake Michael's boss's wife is making tomorrow, but that might be too much of a jump:)

Temporary site for lerner clan

I've been wanting to post some updates the past few months and just haven't been able to because our site is down so often. We're having some very strange issues with our lerner clan blog computer so I'm posting this blog as a temporary site until we fix our problems with the home computer or establish a fancy shmancy blog somewhere else. Thanks for traveling here with us:)