Helpless

We've had our fair share of illnesses go through our house since Jackson's been born. With Jesse working outside the home and Jackson being at the age where we go play at germ infested play places it is inevitable that one or all of us will get sick many times this coming winter. To be honest I feel a little foolish in the fact that Jesse came down with this recent round of sickness first and because it wasn't till the tail end of his that Jackson caught it that I thought Jackson and I were in the clear...silly me!

I think that no matter how many times your child gets sick, even if it's just a cold, that helpless feeling will never go away. It's now been a handful of times that I've seen that awful number of 104 show up on the thermometer and every single time my heart starts racing and I look into my baby's eyes full of fear and question "is this ok?" Numerous doctor's have told me repeatedly yes, don't bring him in until it hits 105 but I just can't help but want someone, anyone to do SOMETHING when I feel so helpless and out of control.  Jackson has been such a trooper through every illness he's had. We are now on our 3rd round of Croup since last year and I am always fearful that that uncontrollable, uncomfortable sounding seal bark is going to turn into something worse. This bout of the bark has got to be the worse thus far. Poor baby can hardly hold his eyes open most of the day and for only the 2nd time since he's been alive has Jackson fallen asleep just laying on the floor.

This just goes to show you how incredibly awful he must feel....

Anyone that knows Jackson knows that he is a HUGE ham for the camera every time it's pointed at him.....poor little guy :(

For now I will give him the best medicine I can...lots of hugs and kisses!

Our First Colorado SNOW!!

The news has been talking about the snow coming for the last week or so but being from Oregon we never allowed ourselves to get too excited about it because we figured it just wouldn't happen. Well...we were wrong, it certainly did happen and is still happening now!

We have about 5inches on the ground at our house and when Jackson saw the snow for the first time off the deck he pointed at the snow covered tree and squealed "SNOWMAN!!!" So precious :)

hehe SNOWMAN!

This morning we got all bundled up and Jesse decided to go in just a little late (he had a manager's shift so it was ok) and enjoyed watching Jackson experience the snow for the first time!

He was pretty darn excited to get his snow clothes on

I'm pretty sure he liked it, hard to tell though :)

This picture is so special to me

We LOVE the snow!

If I could reach in and pull them through myself I would!

Yesterday was a rough day! Jackson was up at 5:30am for some ungodly reason and then to top it off he would only take a 1 hour nap. In typical Jackson fashion this led to one grouchy kiddo and mommy.

I am certain that this was due mostly to the massive chompers he has coming in (All 4 second molars). Jackson has been such a champion teether. He broke the first tooth around 4 months old and they haven't taken a break for longer than 2 months since that. These molars however may be the death of me! I swear he has been working on them for 3 weeks now and it breaks my heart every time he points at his ears and says "owie mommy." If I could reach my hand in there, without him biting me, and pull those suckers through i'd do it in a heartbeat.

Anyways, these angry teeth have led to many challenging days lately, including yesterday. Jackson has taken up poking Jesse and I directly in our eyes, throwing wooden puzzle pieces at my face and pinching our legs as hard as he can. Most days we get through simply by mommy drinking an obscene amount of coffee throughout the day and taking DEEP breaths. I always wonder if I'm the only one going through this right now and if this last forever? Funny how looking back now the colic and lack of sleep don't seem so bad compared to the physical injuries we receive from our active and "Spirited" toddler. Don't get me wrong, colic was BAD! At times after 10 hours of constant screaming we found ourselves wondering if we dropped him off the balcony would he bounce? OF COURSE we would NEVER EVER do that but after that much screaming and crying and lack of sleep you just aren't in your own head anymore.

Needless to say, I hope these dang teeth break through soon because while I know I can't take the challenging behavior much longer I know Jackson doesn't want to endure the pain even more so.

Moments like these make everything worth it...

Jackson and I had a pretty quiet day today. We started out the morning like any other day...mommy is on her second cup of coffee by 8am and we're watching the Today show to make sure we're up to date with what's going on with the world.

After nap we headed out for our errands and then got home right before the rain started. Finally it felt like Portland! I heard this song on the radio and it really made me think.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDA1s0Uzaq4

Jackson was cuddled up next to me in the big chair watching the video when we got home and bobbing his head along to the music...one of his new forms of dancing and pretty dang cute :) I started singing and when i got to the Youuuuuu part he chimed in and was actually singing the word! I couldn't believe it...I looked at him with his eyes closed, head tilted up and in that moment everything stopped and all I saw was an innocent,sweet,loving and beautiful baby with the biggest grin on his face. I forgot about how he had just hit me in the face with his snack cup and how his little toes digging into my thigh was killing me...all i could think about was WOW Jesse and I made him and all of his imperfections and at times "spirited" attitude make him so perfect and who he is and I wouldn't change that for anything in this world.

He then looked at my arm and saw a little zit i had, looked into my eyes and said "owie mommy" and with tears in my eyes I said "yes Jackson, owie" and without hesitation he leaned down and gave my zit a kiss and said "owie no mommy".

Moments like these make everything worth it.

A new challenge

 Since being diagnosed with Sandifers Syndrome in March of this year we have put Jackson on several medications before we found one that reduced his "episodes" enough that he could be comfortable.

(For those that don't know what sandifers syndrome is: basically Jackson's body has "shuddering spells" in a reaction to acid reflux).

Within the past few weeks his episodes have been more frequent and other concerning symptoms have been popping up as well (i.e. a boat load of gas and burping). We went for a visit with his new GI doctor here in Colorado and we LOVE him which is fantastic since we weren't such a big fan of our last GI doc or pediatrician. He agreed that Jackson's reflux was not under control at all and our next step should be to increase his medication dosage. Now he informed us that 95% of children have either shown much improvement or have been rid of acid reflux by the time they're 18 months so we are kind of in limbo right now with the fact that Jackson could start to show improvement signs now or he may end up being that 5% that it either takes longer to go away or he struggles with it for who knows how long. If this next dosage amount doesn't improve things then we can go up one more dosage (which is the maximum dosage he can be on) and then we will have to discuss a possible endoscopy procedure (really not something we want to put him through or go through ourselves).

Ok so now that the back story has been told :)

We began Jackson's new dosage this past Friday and I also started a food and symptom diary thinking that maybe, just maybe, there is some food that we give him that is setting him off. Really I was just trying to find anything that would allow me to get my baby off this medication! After 2 days i started to notice a slight pattern with consuming dairy (specifically milk) and his symptoms.

So here we are....we have decided to have Jackson be completely dairy-free for 3 weeks to clear his system of all dairy.

I apparently had NO CLUE just how many things have dairy in them...pretty much everything! For now shopping trips are much more difficult and time consuming as I have to read the labels of EVERYTHING i might give him and 8 times out of 10 I have to put it back because it has some form of dairy in it. BUT we have found a few good items to get us going and so far we have seen  a lot of improvement in Jackson's attitude and symptoms. Now don't get me wrong, some days aren't as good (for example yesterday he had about 12 episodes) but today he had 2 so hopefully we're headed in the right direction! He has also gone from refusing every meal to eating everything on his plate AND asking for more!!! YAY! We have struggled in the past with getting Jackson to gain weight so the fact that he was barely eating anything was freaking me out. He seems so much happier now and not nearly in as much pain.

While having Jackson needing to be dairy-free will certainly pose a challenge for me as a mom and a chef for the family :) I have no problems doing it if it was provide Jackson with a pain free childhood.

Here's to a new challenge with hopefully a very big reward!