Moving and Scooting

Naomi's newest trick is to wave hello and goodbye. The other day I pushed her around Target and she waved at everyone the entire time, as if she were were on a parade float. Too cute.

She's also understanding lots of what we say. Yesterday when I saw her move across the room and pull herself back into the sitting position to play with her toys I exclaimed, "You think you're so big, don't you?" She beamed back at me and threw her hands up in the air (her sign for "so big").

Allergist Update

We met with the allergist this morning. Naomi's definitely allergic to milk and showed borderline reactions to eggs, carrots, and almonds. The nurses administrating the test were doing training and messed up the first test, and she didn't have enough space on her back for a repeat, so we won't know about those other things until we get back for another test. In the meantime she needs to avoid milk (obviously), eggs, nuts, fish, and shellfish. That means I need to avoid those things as well in my diet. We also need to carry an epipen with us at all times in case of accidental exposure. Did you know that milk is in almost everything?! It's going to change lots of things when it comes to the way we eat until she (hopefully) outgrows the allergy. 80% of kids with milk allergy outgrow it by age 16. I'm hoping she's in the 20% that outgrow it by age 4, not the 20% that don't outgrow it at all. In the meantime, I'm mourning her loss of all things dairy: milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, chocolate! Oh my.

Pulling Up

Naomi isn't fully crawling yet, so this trick came highly unexpected yesterday. She was playing on the floor in the office next to Tyler and suddenly pulled herself up on the file cabinet drawer. Amazing!

Moo......Boo

I keep wondering how the great-granddaughter of dairy farmers can be allergic to milk. Over the last few weeks, Naomi has been showing signs of a food allergy, coughing and vomiting after certain meals. The common denominator was milk, so the pediatrician had me slowly introduce food with increasing amounts of milk protein throughout a week. We made it to day 3 when she had a terrible reaction to a little string cheese. That reaction earned us a trip to the lab for a blood test and the allergist (we go tomorrow).

The bad news is that she does indeed have a milk allergy, but the good news is that the allergy is only to milk and we have some answers. In fact, the milk allergy explains her dyschesia as an infant.

Game Time

It's officially soccer season. Ava has her games in the morning and Lilly has her games in the afternoons, so if you want to know what we'll be doing every Saturday through mid November we have one answer - SOCCER!

Lilly likes to be Ty's assistant coach during Ava's games. Ava and Naomi like to cheer for Lilly during her games. It is even more fun to watch than I expected. I love to see my girls learning to love the sport I love most.

Growing

Naomi is such a sweet little thing. She's growing fast and learning lots of new tricks. She's crawling now. Well, sort of crawling. She gets up on her knees, then pushes off one leg, and collapses on her tummy. A few of those, and a few pivots and rolls and she can get around surprisingly fast.

She also claps her hands when you say, "Yeah!!!" and she puts her arms in the air when you say "So Big!!!"

I think she has developed a milk allergy. Boo. We'll find out more at her 9 month appointment tomorrow. Yep, 9 months tomorrow!

Coach Daddy

Tyler is coaching Ava's AYSO team this year. Ava definitely loves the fact that he's her coach even more than she likes playing soccer. I love that he's taking the time to be her coach and help her have a fun, positive experience. Go Purple Pandas!

Walking to practice.

Back to school, back to school...

We started school again in August. Summer was a blast, but ALL of us were missing school. Ava's first grade teacher is Ms. Marchi and she is super awesome. Her class is split-grade - half first graders, and half kindergartners. The school has a staggered schedule, so they spend very little time with the kindergartners. In fact, she spends most of the day with only 14 kids in her class, which is not too shabby.

Lilly is enjoying pre-k. Her teacher is teaching her Spanish, which she loves, and all the teachers are so wonderful. Between Ava and Lilly, this is our 4th year in a row that we've been at Kirk House and we sure love everything about it. We will miss it next year, but we will NOT miss paying those tuition checks.