Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis on the Today Show

The family featured is from the UK, where they call the disorder, Eosinophilic Enteropathy. I'm always interested in hearing a "big kid" with the disorder because most of the patients I know are under 5.

Caillou's mommy and daddy and hummus

Just wanted to post a quick update (actually, I'm sick of grading papers right now)...

The boys are doing well despite me farming them out to anyone who even says, "well...maybe I could watch them for a bit," as I try to keep on top of everything I took on this semester. As I got each new too-good-to-pass-up-opportunity, I kept thinking, "This is probably a bad idea..."

Asher may be a little mad at me since I haven't been as available. He talks a lot about his new favorite parents, Caillou's mommy and daddy. Anyone (grandparents, friends, nursery leaders)hear about them. Now, Asher's speech isn't always super clear, so it usually sounds like, "Caillou's mommy and daddy mumble mumble orange juice." Or, "Caillou's mommy and daddy mumble zoo mumble moose mumble mumble."

I can't really blame him. I've never seen Caillou's mommy yell or not have dinner ready or refuse to take him to Grammy's house. She's a pretty rockstar mom from what I've seen.

And, Nate would like to point out that Caillou's daddy apparently doesn't have a job and stays home to play with Caillou all day.

I guess we should just be glad that Caillou and his parents are cartoon characters. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure Asher would find a way to take a bus to Canada.

Luke did his first real crawl last night. He was so pleased with himself; he just laughed and laughed.

The solids are coming along well for Luke, too. We were out at playgroup on Thursday at Arizona Mills. I brought hummus and pita bread for Asher and me, squash, applesauce and rice cereal for Luke. Luke ate all of his and was still starving. All I had was hummus, he's still pretty new to solids, and I thought with all the garlic and lemon, he probably wouldn't like it. I was wrong. He loved it. Now if we could just convince Nate to love hummus like the rest of us...

Ok, really, I better go grade papers...

BINGO night!

FAMILY NIGHT BINGO
Saturday, Oct 20th, 6-9pm
Red Mountain Multigenerational Center in Mesa
(on Power Road and University)

Asher's eosinophilic disorders support group is going to do a Bingo night. It costs $5 per person (ages 3 and up). There will be prizes for every winning Bingo card. It should be fun, and the money we raise will all go directly to medical research for this disorder.

Some days, I think, "How involved do I need to be in this? Asher is doing well. Frankly, he's got enough foods he can eat now that his diet is nice and varied--we even have a few fast food resturants."

But, there are lots and lots of kids who aren't doing as well as Asher. Kids who sit and eat ice chips while the rest of their family eats dinner. Families who sneak their meals while their toddlers play because the toddler still doesn't get that he or she can't eat what every one else does. Think of all the social events we go to where food is the focal point of the gathering...

I still remember a post from my Yahoo groups over a year ago when the topic was "Helping your kid through a hard day." One mom wrote, Sometimes, when my daughter is throwing up and sad that she only gets her formula, she turns to me and says, 'Mom, do you think Dr. Putnam (the current expert on this disease) is working with those rats right now to make me better?'

Even if it's 1 am, her mom always answers, "I bet he is.

Ok, off my soapbox...come enjoy a night of Bingo! We will!

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.