My life has focused to a pinpoint.....

And that pinpoint is Sam. Everything else is a concentric circle around Sam and as you get further away, things become less important until they just drop off my radar. But that ring of concentric circles that are important in my life has gotten smaller and smaller.... There is very little I care about outside this small ring of things right now.....

What am I trying to say? I realized that Sam turned 6 months old on Saturday. I have been dealing with sleep issues, allergies, fussiness and more for 6 months. Most everything has been solved or at least dealt with, but the sleep issues are still there - rearing their ugly head. The other night, after trying to get her down for 3 hours starting at 8pm, I lost count of how many times she woke during the night. I got to about 9 and then couldn't focus anymore. It was then that I knew that my number one focus had to be getting this solved.

As a reminder, we were on our way there until a week and a half ago when she went into the ER. Since then, things have been bad, almost worse than before. So I went out and bought some books on sleeping and this is my focus in life right now.

That and trying to get Sam to eat. She dropped from 40% to 25% in weight and 75% to 50% in length - and the doctor feels this is because she won't eat solids. Yup, her two incidents with me feeding her and her getting violently ill have screwed up her want to eat. (She LOVED food the first 3 times we gave her some.) So we're working on that, too......

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why I'm not around much. I check in when I can, but I often can't muster up the time or inclination to post more than once or twice a day. I think about everyone, but just can't post.....

Wish me luck getting this one piece fixed. I just feel that getting Sam onto a good, happy sleep schedule will allow me to focus on the rest of my life - the other things I need to be thinking about. So for now, I need to focus only on that.

Six months is too long let this going on. I won't let it happen for 6 more.

I miss everyone. I miss my life

My other allergy girl: Ellie's allergy appt

So, today we went to an allergy appt to see if Ellie was still allergic to eggs and peanuts... She's more allergic to eggs than before (didn't know it was possible to get less then more) and she's very allergic to peanuts and pecans. (Not surprised at the peanuts. And she's never been tested for pecans so I wouldn't have known.) Mildly allergic to other nuts.

While I'm certainly not surprised at the results that she's still allergic, I was bummed to see that eggs had gotten worse. We go back in a year to get her re-tested. But honestly, these allergies aren't as bad as soy and dairy so I'm totally fine with them. (She can have trace amounts of egg in her diet and be fine. Nuts we completely avoid.)

On a different note completely, we're going to see the Winnie the Pooh show this weekend and she's completely jazzed! (I am going to put Sam in the snugli and hope that she does okay with all the noise.) It should be a blast!

The real truth: I poisoned Sam on Saturday (Sam ER update)

So.... I've been wracking my brain on what could have sent Sam over the edge on Saturday night.... And couldn't come up with anything but Rice Cereal. But, as most of you know, rice is VERY non-allergenic. So that just didn't quite seem right.

Then this morning I was talking to a friend and she asked, "What's in the rice cereal?" I answered, "Well, rice of course!"

Then I thought of the fact that I never looked at the ingredients! Dumb!!! What's the second ingredient?!?!? SOY oil-lechithen! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! How STUPID am I not to think there would be SOY in the damn rice cereal. So I feel really dumb, sad, and relieved that it's not a rice allergy....

*sigh*

Lesson learned. Poor Sam!

Quick update on everyone

Gosh, I'm so far behind.... Since it's so early in the morning, I'm just going to put down several notes to remind myself what I need to update:

Sam sleeping
Sam rolling over for real
Sam sitting
Sam small amount of lunch meat in my diet
Sam rice cereal
Sam ER visit

Ellie potty
Ellie counting to 12 (10.10.05)
Ellie "wife"
Ellie "lettuh crahckuh"

I hear Sam. Must run.

Update on Sam.....

I'm not going to post a full update yet - I want to wait a little while for things to even out - but I wanted to let you know that things are improving a bit. She is waking far less at night and sleeping a little better. Her naps have shortened dramatically - and she's obviously still tired. But I'm sleeping better, too, so I'm quite a bit happier!

As soon as we know where this will all land, I'll let you know what I did. But I will say this, I read and re-read what everyone said and tossed out everything I was doing and tried a TON of different things. Even things I said I never would or had already tried before. I decided that I should start from scratch..... And it's helped.