He's Back!

The Cold
Well Evan has been a little out of sorts this past week. He came down with his first ever common cold which I think is not too bad considering it took 8 months for it to happen. It's not really a big deal, kids get sick all the time but it was tough being a mom for the first time when your baby is not feeling well.

Before Evan got sick he was babbling constantly. His favorite thing to say lately is "Dadadadada". And when he first realized he could make this sound he did it non-stop. When he was sick he stopped babbling for about a week. He was also very cuddly and wanted to be held all the time. His cold is completely gone now but he threw up 3 times the night before last and once yesterday morning. I have no idea why. Today he is back to his normal self but something is different. Evan has started waking up in the night again. I've had to get up a few times a night the past few nights... I know, I know, those of you who are ferberizing are saying poor you but it's hard to adjust once you're used to sleeping again and it's puzzling to figure out why the change?

The Rash
We finally got the results back from Evan's trip to the allergist. For those of you who don't know, he got a rash the first time I fed him oats and then a week later when I fed him barley for the first time he broke out in hives along with sneezing, coughing and some excessive drooling. It was pretty scary, we made a trip to the ER and I was sure he was allergic to these grains. I also started thinking he might have other allergies as well and that this could be the cause of the super spit up. I wanted to post a picture of his 1st rash cause it was pretty impressive but Brian figured that would be poor taste, I see it as good documentation. Warning: May not be suitable for some viewers

The skin tests the allergist performed were negative which was surprising but she ordered blood work just to be sure that the antibody levels to those grains weren't high. Well the blood work came back negative as well. So, was that just a coincidence that he had a virus or a reaction to something completely unrelated on the days I first introduced those foods? And if so, what was it from then? There is one more precaution we are going to take. The allergist wants to feed him barley in the lab at the hospital and monitor him for two hours afterwards. I really hope that he doesn't have food allergies but I wish I knew what the cause was.

The Baby Food
I was feeling overly ambitious last weekend and decided to make baby food from scratch. I made a huge batch each of carrots and sweet potatoes. By the time I had steamed and chopped the vegetables then pureed them in the food processor and cleaned up the huge mess I had lost my entire Sunday afternoon. I can soooo justify spending the extra pennies on storebought baby food.
Today I noticed that Evan's face looked a little yellow but I brushed it off as nothing. Then I saw a picture that we had taken of him this morning and the yellow nose is really noticeable.

So of course I googled yellow nose and found a forum where a mom was noticing the same thing in her eight month old baby. She also mentioned that it is especially noticeable in photos. Well, turns out it is from too much Vitamin A ( or beta carotene ). And what do you get vitamin A from? Orange and yellow vegetables such as squash, sweet potatoes and carrots.