I Can NOT, I mean I can NOT believe that my baby is already a year old!!! Where has the time gone?! Since it fell on a Monday we decided to keep it just a family affair, and since we traditionally take the boys to the aquarium for their 1st, but have been to both the Dallas Zoo & Aquarium more times than I can count we skipped it, got Dax two new toys - which IS a luxury when you're baby boy #3 and made some cupcakes and we called that a Happy Birthday to Dax!!!
My Sweet Birthday Boy
What's a Birthday Without Presents?
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| We were starting him off right, a steering wheel and a cell phone - PERFECT! |
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| Tell me you don't look at that and see T-R-O-U-B-L-E?! |
I know, I know - this is a far cry from some of the cake masterpieces I've made in the past, but THOSE are made with MY homemade buttercream, which has butter and milk along with extracts which I wasn't sure Dax could handle. See, at this point, I had surmised that Dax was lactose intolerant. Back in September when I tried to ween him from the boob to a bottle I noticed that the few bottles that I actually mixed pump milk with formula he would get red bumps on his chin and cheeks. SO when it came time for his birthday cake I made sure to read the ingredient list on the box and canned frosting (ALL I can hear is the quote from Everybody Love's Raymond Marie bust in to Ray's kitchen 'Oh Deborah you are using canned frosting, I guess it's SO much more convenient then homemade' HA!) Since neither had milk listed on the list I figured we were Good to go.
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| You see Dave striping Dax in the background - this ain't our first rodeo!! Ha! |
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| BEFORE |
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| AFTER |
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| Wait - last one, better shove it in. |
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| Searching for crumbs - that was GOOOOOOOOD! |
His Year Stats
So as you may remember Dax was our littlest Kirk Baby yet, and since I have been both breastfeeding and making all of his baby food homemade. YUP - you read that right?! I have NO idea how this happened for the 3rd but not the first two, HA! My girlfriend was so excited by Dax coming early that she went 'celebratory shopping' and she had this Babea baby food processor so she got us one and I tell ya what, homemade baby food is AWESOME!! So dang tasty. And since I'm in the kitchen all the time anyway it really is nothing to peel another few veggies and throw it in the steam cup for Dax and he gobbles up every single bite! ANYWAY, I digress.
Height: 28"
Weight: 18lbs 14ozs
That boy is GROWING like a weed! Since birth he has gained 14 pounds and grown 11 inches!! WOW that is BIG stuff. I mean I know that doesn't make him a giant when compared to the "growth charts" BUT it does make him our 'biggest' baby at their 1st birthday - he was 5th percentile for weight and 8th percentile for height!! I think Kaiden was 2 before he made it ON the charts and now I don't even know if he's still on them, that boy is so stinking tiny.
At the one year check up I took the time to express my concerns to the doc about the rash that developed the few times he was exposed to milk/dairy she said to wait a while cause kids can usually grow out of it and that I could try introducing the 'Lactaid" whole milk as opposed to regular whole milk. PERFECT - I got what I was looking for and that was the OK to stop breastfeeding - Momma WANTS her boobies back! The doc also said that it was fine to try introducing some more of the "wait to try" foods like eggs, peanut butter and honey. OK perfect, we LOVE our eggs in the morning so that will be great and maybe I won't have to keep making separate baby food just give him smaller bites of ours.
WELL - he's always been our 'sensitive' boy - he is the cutest kid with the WORST skin - the boy had cradle cap for months it only finally went away when I washed his hair/head with adult prescription strength dandruff shampoo. AND I knew from pretty early on that he did not respond to milk well cause even when he was exclusively breastfeeding if I ate a peanut butter sandwich and washed it down with a big glass of milk his eczema would blow up red and scaly all over his legs and shoulders. It's been a challenge to stay on top of that buying the largest screw top container of Auquaphor I can find - cause frankly the squeeze tubes only last a few days round here. So I should've known it would go something like this.. . . . . BUT he got his one year shots, including the dreaded MMR shot - she said a small percentage of kids (like less than 10%) will actually break out in a measles like rash but they do NOT have it - BOOM 2 days after shots rash show up. The next morning so day 3 post shots, I serve the boy his 1st scrambled egg. He spits out the first bite, so we try again, UGH he spit it out again. OK - I normally have only given him the cinnamon raisin bread with just a little butter or jelly and he has done fine with that, but as luck would have it this morning we are out of that bread. FINE. No worries I toast him up a slice of MY 12 grain bread, and after making the boys a slice of peanut butter & jelly toast to go with their eggs, I slather a little jelly on Dax's toast and cut his bread into bite size squares and leave him in his high chair to work on that while I finish breakfast.
Uh-huh - look over and Dax is clawing at his face, neck, ears, and eyes. He is completely broken out with raised hives and obviously they are driving him NUTS!!!! Mind you it's 8:00 on Thursday morning the LAST day of school before Christmas break. I throw Dax and Pierce in Minnie and Dave and Kaiden follow in Foxy so that I can leave my boys in my van while I run into the pharmacy and get baby Benadryl. WELL guess what. They don't make Baby Benadryl. In fact what they make says for ages 2 and up. WELL I am NOT that great of a rules follower when it comes to knowing that my baby NEEDS an antihistimine STAT SO I googled how much to give a baby because I could NOT get through to the stinking advice nurse at the Ped's office and by the time I actually bought it and got out to give it to him his rash was subsiding but it still freaked my freak!!!
He was fine the rest of that day, no reoccurance or relapse and life went on as normal. Since I had given him several new foods on the same day which is a NO-NO, I wasn't sure what had cause the reaction. I thought maybe it was the 'tainted' jelly with traces of peanut butter or maybe my whole grain bread as it has sunflower seeds and such in it. I didn't think it was the eggs cause he had his birthday cupcake and a muffin here and there that had egg in it and he'd been fine. Well he got a bite of boxed cake made with egg & he instantly broke out in hives again. Not as bad as the 'perfect storm' morning but it was enough to let me know he needed to be tested.
SO long (LONG story, you know how it goes with me & my 3, drama, screaming, yelling, tears and full on sweat and that's just ME) after poor boy got stabbed in the back with a dozen or more different known allergens & a vial of blood drawn it was confirmed that Dax is MOST allergic to eggs and peanuts, followed by milk and last but not least all tree nuts. AWESOME!!!!!!
I'm pretty sure I got home from that appointment looked in the fridge and pantry and thought yup- EVERYTHING in here can kill my baby! May as well have stocked the shelves with toxic chemicals with straws sticking out the top! Melodramatic - maybe - but overwhelming all the same - YES!! AND (coming in another post) we had the puppy too and since Dax is allergic to both the substance touching his skin AND ingesting it all I could think is GREAT now when (IF) the boys get to eat scrambled eggs and a bite falls to the ground and before I can sweep it up puppy eats it then finds his way to lick Dax and then Dax has a severe reaction and I have NO idea how it happened. . . . yeah, I was a bit overwhelmed.
He's doing great - luckily since he's a baby he is none the wiser what foods he's 'missing' out on, and although his allergist thinks eventually he may outgrow the milk allergy and maybe even eggs and peanuts later on, for now vanilla soy milk mixed with a little soy infant formula is making him happy and I got to stop breastfeeding which is making me happy and I just keep on making his baby food careful to read labels of noodles or sauces to check for contaminants errr I mean ingredients. After learning his trigger foods, I was SHOCKED to learn that just about EVERYTHING Great Value makes has traces of one or more of his 'no-no' foods. I guess cause they make all their store brand foods in the same plant.
OK - Back To Dax - Happy Birthday sweet boy, I love you so much and can not wait to see what this next year has in store for you!
SO CUTE!! He is a doll.
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