A Family Update

Oooh, a family update? It sounds so exciting! But it's not. I just didn't know what to title this. I'm bored of having nothing to blog about. And there's no pictures because Matt is BUSY. And I just don't have the drive to do it. Sort of like how my mom only recently stopped asking my dad to pull up her email account when she would want to check it.

1. Matt is busy indeed. He's working on producing a low-budget independent film, and for the past two weeks he hasn't come home before the kids were in bed. I'm proud of his hard work but boy am I pooped! It's such a mad rush from 5-8, trying to make dinner, clean up dinner, pick up the house, do baths, and put the kids to bed all while Jack is at his fussiest. Tiring but good. But I have decided that the kids and I will be visiting Missouri during some of the peak craziness. We're going to be gone from November 21-December 5. I'm sad to be away from Matt and I know he'll miss us. He came home the other day and said he was so happy to have his family to come home to. He runs around with single people all day and said he realized that those years were fun but he loves having the people he loves most to come home to now. Sweet, huh?

2. As a last ditch effort I am going off dairy for a month. All the tests that came back on the junk that fills up my mastoid bones are negative. No bacteria, no virus, no fungus, no cancer. No lyme disease and no tuberculosis of the ear. All the doctor knows is that it's a substance my body is producing in response to inflammation. Sometimes a dairy allergy can cause inflammation and complications of the eustachian tube. So I'm attempting to rule that out. I'd love for it to actually be the cause but I'm doubtful since I'm not "mucousy" which is another tell-tale sign of dairy allergies. My hearing is bad again, and I've got signs of a traditional ear infection, both of which are not good signs that the mastoid bone isn't filling up again. And my doctor keeps talking about the next step being going in and taking out all my ear parts: ear drum, hearing bones, even the mastoid bone. Essentially the hole would go from my ear to my skull. Hmmmm....I would definitely prefer soy milk over that! Let's hope.

3. I took Jack to the doctor yesterday for his 4 month check-up. He weighed 13 pounds 6 ounces. He's in the 11th percentile! Well maybe he's tall. Everyone tells me he looks so long. Nope, 13th percentile. I guess he just looks long because he looks so lean. Jane weighed 14 pounds at her 2 month check-up. I don't know where this runt came from! But he is such a cutie!

4. The best news of all? For the past few weeks I have found my stride again! I mean, really, this is HUGE. I feel so normal all of a sudden. I'm getting the house cleaned and getting my shower in, but best of all I have started doing activities with Jane again. I've realized these activities aren't so much for Jane as they are for me. I just feel so great when I have something to accomplish and it's really my only creative outlet at the moment. Last week we celebrated Fall by doing all sorts of Fall art projects, learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin, baking pumpkin bread, doing scent matching with fall spices, and making a roll-the-dice take-the-leaves-off-the-tree game. This week has been all Halloween: making our family out of pumpkins, a build-a-jack-o-lantern game out of felt, a dried black bean bin full of all things halloween buried inside, and hopefully some mask-making, skeleton-building and pumpkin carving to come. Next week is all about apples. It's a blast. Jane loves it too. She knows when she wakes up from her nap that we get to do something fun. I can't wait until Jack can join us.