Luke: 5 months old!

I haven't written much about Luke on the blog, which I feel bad about, so I thought I'd do a little introduction.

Luke is already 5 months old! He has many interests, like screeching at the top of his lungs when he's happy. Nate says we should pinch him every time he does so he stops, but I think that's mean. He's just trying to express his happiness.

Luke is a delight. He'll smile at anyone and show his cute dimple! And, he likes to laugh and laugh, which quickly turns into the screech described above.

I'm afraid thus far, he's about 90% Clyde, 10% Curtis. He's got my white, white skin, our family's dimple, and looks like a combination of my brother, David and my sister, Sarah when they were babies.

He loves his walker. I know, kids aren't supposed to be in walkers, but exersaucers entertain my kids for about 5 minutes. It's much more fun to run over Mom's feet and bang into her shins!

Luke has just started to enjoy his brother this past month. Asher can make him laugh and lets Luke pull his hair and grab his face.

And, best of all, Luke is a sleeper. Asher still doesn't sleep through the night, but Luke will go down at 7 pm and wake up cooing around 5 am, gets a little snack and sleeps until 7 am (assuming Asher isn't too noisy).

We love Luke (aka Yuke)!

Superheroes to the Rescue

Asher and his cousin, Evan, were being superheroes last week. Evan taught Asher a thing or two about proper superhero attire and proper superhero posing. I guess Evan was a kind of Super Cowboy, and Asher was, well, Asher was Super Leftover Guy (he got all the leftovers of our extensive dress-up collection).

I'm Stuck in the 1990's

Since I know most people come to the blog for pictures of the boys...

I post on another blog far more frequently than this one because I work with a fabulous group of Mormon feminists and have scheduled days to post. Usually, I try to write something high-minded for that blog, but I opened my Word doc to post this morning to find only about 1/3 of what I wrote had saved. So, I posted this instead.

New Pictures of the Boys

Here's some pictures of the boys...the first one is of Luke in the only part of Nate's blessing outfit he could fit into and another one of Luke looking puzzled.

There's a picture of the boys enjoying some Baby Einstein, Asher in an outfit he picked out for himself (a football jersey, no pants, shoes and socks), and one of Asher being silly. Enjoy!

And, finally, a video: Asher loves gum, and he found some boullion that was wrapped in a foil wrapper that made it look like gum. I thought I'd be taking a video of him eating it and making a funny face, but instead, this video turned out to be a much rarer moment captured on tape--Asher actually listens to me and decides not to eat it.

The Joys of YouTube

Uncle Tom has gotten Asher and I addicted to YouTube. Where else can I find Muppet and Sesame Street classics?

Here are some of Asher's favorites:
Mahnahmuhnah-I guess newborns really do absorb some of the world around them. I used to sing this to Asher all the time when he was in the NICU. I tried to sing something more touching or spiritual like hymns or lullabies, but I would start to cry. I didn't need to know the words to this song, and it made me feel better. And, now, Asher will walk around the house wanting to do a duet with me for this song. (Nate prefers this version.)

Swedish Chef making cake
Ernie catching fish

Not really classics but Asher loves them:

Elmo and the Goo Goo Dolls
Elmo and Andrea Bocelli
Do De Rubber Duck

This is one of my favorites.

Enjoy! (I'm sure we'll be finding more to post soon...)

Final Video Clips for Eosinophil Awareness Week

Just wanted to finish the week with two video clips

If you go to this website and go to the side bar on the right, there's a link called "View Just a Glimpse Video." (Warning: it makes me cry every time I watch it)

And, here's a video about a girl from Kansas who was selected to go to Capitol Hill as a patient with an eosinophil disease. Most of the kids in Phoenix who have this disease are Asher's age, so I was curious to hear what a kid who can talk would say.

I'm glad I did this whole week of blogging. It was helpful for me to realize that I'm not all that incompetent when it comes to this disease. It seems I've have learned a thing or two after all! Thanks for reading this week!

Food Items that help me

Missing our favorite dinners was a big concern to me when Asher was first diagnosed with food allergies. I've learned a thing or two about cooking without the "Big 8" allergens (90% of all food allergies are: dairy, soy, eggs, wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, and fish).

I've found a lot of foods can be just as tasty if a. you're only substituting one or two ingredients and b. said ingredient is not a major component of the recipe, which means there's just not good way to make macaroni and cheese (unfortunately), but with a little maneuvering, I can make an acceptable chocolate chip cookie with palm shortening or a safe margarine.

Spectrum palm shortening-This is the only soy-free vegetable shortening I've found. I prefer it to coconut oil (another good shortening/butter substitute) because coconut oil can flavor the dish more than I like.

Mother’s margarine-I ration this stuff very carefully (I have 12 tubs in my freezer) because it's the only absolutely safe margarine I've found--many margarines say they may contain soy oil; this one promises not to because it's made to be safe for Passover, and thus, it is only available at kosher grocers around Passover, which is usually in April or late March.

Chocolate rice milk-Asher doesn't drink much besides his amino-acid formula, but now that I've had to go dairy-free for Luke, I've found this to be the best alternative. Original soy and rice milk is sometimes too sweet for me, and I don't like rice or soy aftertaste. I like the rice chocolate milk; I think the chocolate flavor takes away some of the "riceyness."

Enjoy life cookies and granola bars-While their items, truthfully, taste a little funky, I buy them because they save me from having to make treats for Asher from scratch, and he likes having stuff come out of a package like other kids in nursery.

These are foods I would buy even if we didn't have to deal with allergies:
Costco fruit snacks-always a handy snack/bribe when we're out and about.

Costco guacamole-dairy-free! Asher and I eat this every day for lunch on chips or in a bean burrito.

Horseradish-Now that I can't have cheese on my sandwiches, I sometimes put soy cream cheese in place of the cheese, but I don't like the taste of the soy cream cheese--I just like the fat, I guess :). So, I put horseradish on with it to cut the soy taste when I have a roast beef sandwich.

Advocado-Another handy "creamy" ingredient, which tastes better than the soy cream cheese/horseradish combination on turkey and chicken sandwiches.

Bacon-My salad consumption has gone way down since going off daiy. I think I usually used salads as an excuse to have goat or feta cheese. Now, I try and put bacon, advocado, and nuts on to make up for my lost cheese.