Finally moving and other updates.

My baby is not like most babies or even like his siblings. Most babies roll over at about 4-5 months, but not Micah! He is just beginning to roll over. He actually rolled over once yesterday from his back to his stomach; he was after some granola that we were snacking on in the living room! We tried to get him to do it again, but he wouldn't. Well, it's a start!

He does not like to be on his stomach, so some days I put him on his stomach and set my timer for two minutes. I let him whine the whole time.  This is why he hasn't rolled over yet! Every time we put him down, he whines, so we pick him up. We just have to let him on the floor so he learns these skills!

He can sit up great and now he wants to walk all the time.  I even helped him walk up the stairs the other day. He thought that was fun.

As for sleeping, we are getting MUCH better. We are consistently sleeping through the night now and taking decent naps during the day. I can actually predict when he will be getting tired and can work around it!

His eczema is getting better, but it is still there. I still hear, "He will just outgrow it" over and over. I actually asked a dermatologist about it yesterday and he said eczema is mostly genetic. He gave me some cream to put on it, but of course, it has 50 ingredients (of which three are alcohol based), so I won't be putting that on him! I have been putting lanolin on his face and aloe and shea butter on the rest of him lately. I try not to do steroids unless I absolutely have to.

I still haven't started solids with him yet. I haven't taken the time to grind up some food. We sometimes give him strawberry juice when we are having strawberries. Honestly, it will just be a whole lot easier when he can feed himself! He is growing well and is obviously not short of food!

He is becoming much more interactive and is definitely getting out of that "baby" stage!

Long Camping Trip Planned

We did our trail run with Micah last weekend in the camper and let's just say it went "ok." He had a hard time sleeping because his pack-n-play was in the middle of the kitchen overnight. No private bedroom for him. It was also hard for him to nap because we had to move his pack n play into our bedroom during the day, which has more privacy, but is still not the best. It was hot and he had to be held quite a bit.

It was hard putting him down to play too because he was just in the middle of everything. We never put our table up all weekend, and we ended up putting him on the table to play most of the time.

Now that we know how things work in the camper, we went ahead and planned our yearly trip to Illinois to see some old homeschooling friends that moved away a couple of years ago.  We will probably be gone for about a week, so we will see how that goes! I am a little scared!

We are going to be driving 425 miles to their house in two separate cars. As of now, we have decided not to buy a new towing vehicle, so we are going to be taking two cars. I will be driving the van with Micah and I don't know who else will ride with me. I guess we will see when the time comes!

We will probably spend about a week there like we usually do. We may head into Chicago one day and be tourists. That's always fun. :) 

I just have to remember that Micah is just a baby this year and next year will be better. Next year we will be chasing him everywhere!

First Camping Trip!

Matt has taken two weeks off in June and we are debating if we want to take a long vacation or not. What is our concern? This baby of ours!!

Matt and I have decided to do a trial run. We are going to break our minimum 3 night rule and we are going to go camping for two nights this weekend. If Micah does well, then I think we can do a longer trip. If not, we may have to wait until next year!

New Conclusion

After dealing with Megan's hives and eczema for over a year now, we are going to try a new theory.

1.  Our first theory was that it was food related, so we had her tested for food intolerances. Quite a few things came up, and we have been pretty strict with her diet for the last six months, but her eczema is still there and she is still breaking out with hives.

2.  Once we knew she was breaking out in hives whenever she took a shower, we tried different soap and shampoo. Again, nothing changed.

3.  Now that we know she breaks out in hives when she takes a shower AND when she goes swimming, my new theory is that she has developed a sensitivity to chlorine. After talking to a few people and looking online, she exhibits the patterns of a chlorine sensitivity.

The way I understand it is that the hives are the immediate reaction to the irritant and the eczema is the long-term reaction. Today when she was done swimming, you could tell the chlorine really dried out her eczema. You could see her scratch marks on her spots and some were close to bleeding.

I would love to test this theory somehow, but I don't know where she could take a shower or swim in non-chlorinated water (besides the yucky lake). Somebody did mention getting a filter on our shower, which might help. My husband mentioned getting a dechlorinating system for the entire house. This doesn't help though when she goes swimming, but it may calm her system down and maybe she won't break out so bad.

I found these articles really interesting.

http://acaai.org/allergies/types/allergy-myths/chlorine-allergy

http://www.chlorineallergy.net/

Again, this may not be Megan's issue, but I have to keep trying!!

Deadline is Sunday!

This Sunday is the deadline to get my entire house back in order! There are still some things out of place from painting about a month ago. There are still children's items in my bedroom that need to be moved OUT. I promised Matt that if we painted our room, the toys would be gone. I would like to get some pictures up on walls, some wall decorations up, new rugs laid out, etc.

We have Micah's dedication and Christian's birthday party on Sunday, so it's a great reason to get everything put in order!!

We stayed home from swimming yesterday (because no friends were going) and started on the upstairs. I was cleaning my room and before I knew it, the kids had taken it on their OWN initiative to clean in their parts of the house. Christian and Courtney cleaned up Christian's room; they even vacuumed! I noticed that Megan came into the master bathroom and got the glass cleaner. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "Cleaning our bathroom." And she did too! I was very impressed by their hard work yesterday! 

Today we are going to finish the upstairs and then go swimming with our friends after lunch. :)

Tomorrow we are going to attack the main floor. It shouldn't take very long!

Then we will celebrate Micah's dedication and Christian's birthday and my house will be in order!

Megan's exzema

For the last year, Megan has been battling eczema and hives. She breaks out in hives every time she takes a shower. I have read that this is from the water opening her pores. It doesn't matter what kind of soap or shampoo she uses, she still breaks out.

Today we went swimming, and she broke out in hives at the pool!

Ugh!!! We need to figure this out!!

Adjectives and Adverbs

You know you have been listening in English class when.....

1.  You debate when you should use "good" and "well."
2.  You have a discussion over adjectives and adverbs at the dinner table.
3. You start correcting other people's grammar (but don't tell them to their face) and debate what is the correct way to say what they just said wrong.
4. You love to diagram sentences.

Megan and Courtney are both on a chapter on adjectives and adverbs right now. Courtney is learning about them for the first time, and she is really understanding the concepts. It helps a lot that Megan knows all about them, and we have daily discussions about what both girls are learning in English!

We debate "good" and "well" quite a bit in our family. "Well" is an adverb and describes a verb and "good" is an adjective and describes a noun. We have talked through many situations lately and have analyzed these two words almost too much! Even Christian tries to say which one he should use!

Matt keeps saying that he never learned any of this when he was in school. I remember learning grammar until about 8th grade, so I remember some of this. Neither one of us remembers diagramming sentences like these girls are doing. Even the public school kids do not diagram sentences. I think it is a great thing to do!

We also have discussions about when you should speak more informally and more formally. Things have gotten quite interesting around here lately!

Very Successful Nights!

After having two nights when we were up from 1-3 (even 4) hours, Micah has flipped! Now he sleeps so long, I wonder if he is still alive! Not that I am complaining, but it is weird waking up at 5 am and realizing that you weren't up with the baby ALL night!!!

After having two very long nights, Matt and I decided some things need to change and we are not sure if one of these things or all of them helped.

1. We put a radio in his room and turn it on really low all night.
2. I put cooler pajamas on him. Maybe the kid was just hot!
3.  I started giving him his probiotics again. Honestly, his eczema got really bad over the weekend and I was not giving him his probiotics.
4. Go back to being super strict on my diet. I had carrots on Saturday and we were up all night, then I had some soy on Sunday and we were up again.
5. Making sure he is getting his naps during the day. I have been able to rock him to sleep during the day and lay him down in his bed. He will sometimes take 1- 1 1/2 hour long naps!! He may do this 2-3 times a day. What an improvement!!
6.  I also feel that since we are somewhat on a better schedule, my milk supply has built itself up a little bit.  Maybe he is just getting fuller during the day. I know my thyroid is low and that affects milk supply, so maybe that is turning around for the better!

Whatever happened, I like it!!

Now last night though, I slept so hard that I couldn't move my neck in the morning. I ended up going to the chiropractor at 9 am to get adjusted!