Family Health Ramblings

ME & J
So, we've recently been discussing drinking red wine every day for the health benefits. I don't know if we'll actually stick with it but yesterday the little ones and I headed to the wine store to pick up a couple of bottles. Last night we enjoyed a yummy Shiraz while we watched our hour and a half of Bachelor. Good times. Cheers to our health!

DALTON
Well, I'm still considering the possibility of allergies for this little dude. His poos have stayed strange and he pukes way more than I think a kid on reflux meds should puke. The other things making me continue to suspect allergies are that allergies often tend to affect more than one "system"--digestive system, respiratory...you know...that kind of stuff. Well, he's been a little stuffy. I'm not sure if it's lingering from the cold he had or if it's maybe the food allergies surfacing in that system. Then there's the diaper rashy stuff. Since it's in the diaper area being affected by the digestive system I'm not sure if it counts as affecting the skin "system" too. I do plan on talking to his doctor about it all at his 2 month well baby coming up at the end of the month.

As far as his bum health goes, I've decided to stop the antibiotic ointment today...it's been 2 weeks and that stuff hasn't made any difference in healing the sores. So, I plan to continue to let him air out his tush when possible and practical and to keep slathering on the "barrier creams". For now, anyway. Who knows what I might decide next?

EASTON
Oy, where to begin with this one? Well, my latest obsession for the last 24 hours or so has been his nutrition, or lack thereof, and how I don't think he's meeting his caloric needs. My blog buddy Kyla knows a lot about this kind of stuff and I was asking her what tot nutrition should look like. I also found an interactive online calculator to help me determine how many calories Easton should be getting. While I don't keep track (yet) I can say with near certainty that he's not getting what is recommended for an active guy like him to gain weight. Darn. I was pleased to discover that through just his daily milk and yogurt intake he is getting even more than the recommended amount of protein. Not bad for a kid who doesn't eat much "other" sources of protein and refuses to eat meat. But, calorie intake, I don't think he's even coming close. What to do? What to do? I'm wondering if insurance would cover a nutritionist visit. Especially since he's not on the charts and is anemic. Obviously he needs some nutritional help, right? I don't have too big of a problem with him being picky, I personally feel that's normal for his age and from being Jason's and my son. :) But, if he's perhaps not even coming close to getting necessary calories then we need to make some changes. I'm already worried about big boy underwear not staying up once it's time to potty train. He's too skinny!

And, moving on...his surgeries. Well, I still haven't heard from the eye clinic's scheduler. She was on vacation. I did hear back from the general surgeon, however and he didn't see any problem with combining the tear duct probing with fixing his umbilical hernia. So, that made Jason and I discuss a little more what we'd want to do. Since, he doesn't technically need the hernia repaired yet and there is the slight chance of it fixing itself we're thinking we might not opt to have both done at once. Even if that does mean a second operation (and anesthesia!) down the road. We're still not absolutely certain, but that's how we're currently leaning. The doctor said because it's already improved so much he believes there is still a possibility (however slight) that it could completely go away. He says the "defect" is very small...about a half a centimeter...I guess that sounds small enough. Especially when you consider what it used to look like...here he is on his due date 2/26/05...the day we "discovered" the hernia:

We said it was a mouse and we named him Clarence...see?

And here it is on 7/3/05, getting smaller but still significant:

Crazy eh? This is what is looks like now:

If it wasn't going to cause issues for him later in life we wouldn't even care that he's got it. Hopefully it'll go away, however slowly.

As a sidenote, we don't think Dalton's got one. I thought he might have one before his cord healed but now he's got a nice tight super-innie.

Okay, so I think that about wraps up our family health summary for the day. You should be all caught up on the latest medical matters. Why am I so strange? Don't answer that. :)