Even Grandpa Would Be Proud.... (I Think?)

Abby recently discovered ketchup.

And I'm not talking about a little squirt of ketchup on a hamburger. I'm talking puddles and pools of ketchup for just about everything (although I do draw the line at having ketchup with cereal, no matter how much she begs). Now, we really do see this as a good thing... she's trying new foods she otherwise wouldn't eat just because she can dip it in ketchup.

We keep telling her that Grandpa (and Nana) would be proud. My father is a know ketchup user. One of my clearest memories as a child is him piling gravy and horseradish and ketchup on his roast beef at Sunday dinner.  Or sour cream and fried onions and ketchup on his perogies. Or... well, you get my drift. He always ate every lick too.

So anyway...

::ahem::

Abby's latest ketchup taste sensation?

Mmmmm.... wait for it....

Deeeeeelicous red grapes dipped in ketchup.

Yum!

(She had three helpings.)

The Day Google Was Unhelpful

My search request?

gf quick buns (meaning, gluten-free quick buns)

My results?

SIR MIX-A-LOT LYRICS - Baby Got Back
So your girlfriend rolls a Honda, playin' workout tapes by Fonda But Fonda ain't got a motor in the back ... Unless you've got buns, hun. You can do side bends or sit-ups, ... And I pull up quick to retrieve it. So Cosmo says you're fat ...
www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sirmixalot/babygotback.html


Not quite what I had in mind....

::sigh::

When Lightening Strikes

I'm writing this late at night when I really should be in bed, but I'll give it a shot.

I often get my news via CBC, either on the radio or online. After an annoying week in weather (you know, where our prairie spring somehow got replaced by hurricane season), I woke this morning to read that a beautiful, old church in the Capital City's core was hit by lightening, and one of the spires collapsed overnight.

Generally, I like to read the comments left online by various readers (and have been known to make a comment or two of my own), but it was with wry amusement that several commentators noted: "God must have been aiming for a Catholic Church, but missed."

After the fifth or sixth time I read that same comment from a different poster, I grunted. Enough, I thought, I get it. Don't make me admit that I agree with you!

Maybe us, as a Catholic collective, do deserve to be smoted by God for the things that have happened in recent decades. Things that have only really come to light in recent years. You know "the things" I'm talking about: Abuse scandals. Cover-ups. Lies. As an ever-faithful Catholic, I find it very difficult to reconcile what I believe the Church is and should be with what appears to have actually happened. That we allowed to happen.

Most priests out there are good ones. A few are not. And it really is truly only a few among the tens or hundred thousand or so priests in the world today. I hate hate hate hate hate that those few have cast so much doubt and judgment on the rest. I hate that I find myself questioning whether or not I can trust a priest. A bishop. The hierarchy.

I disagree with how this whole thing has been handled. I just want the Church to admit that it was wrong, it screwed up, pay the price so that everyone can move on. Instead we get this pussy-foot dancing happening. I believe in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but there are times where one must accept a temporal punishment for their sins are part of the penance.

To do anything less would be.... unchristian.

Procrastinating, Impetigo, The Best Part and Pandemonium

Okay, so I've been ignoring the blog. I just checked my Google Reader and cringed that I have 558 posts to read from the various blogs I follow. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... That's what I get for procrastinating.

Abby is doing better. The identity of her mystery illness was never discovered, but she seems to be mostly over it now. We've gone from sleeping 16 hours days to barely sleeping 8 or 9 a lot of nights.

::sigh::

But she's happy, giggly, skips through the house, puts her feet in my face and demands I place the "stinky feet" game (she gleefully chants "key-key, key-key" over and over again). Apparently, 8 or 9 hours seems to be enough sleep for now. I just can do without the 5 a.m. wake ups.

The mystery rash? Impetigo. Her sister caught it too.

Oh! And I didn't even tell you the best part!!!!!

As mysteriously as her seizures started in December, they quit on April 23. None since then. Nothing. Nada.

So now I'm very convinced that this whole winter and spring of seizures-sinusinfections-liverishsymptoms-malaise-sleepingsickness is all related. To what, I haven't a clue, but I guess I won't dwell on it too much as long as she gets better.

That's all I gots energy for. Gotta get to bed before the 5 a.m. wake up call. We tuckered the kids out at the Y tonight, so maybe they'll let us sleep in tomorrow.  (It was awesome. Fourty-five minutes in the pool followed by another 45 minutes of utter pandemonium in the gym with screaming children, tricycles, a giant pirate-ship bouncer and kid-sized shopping carts filled with basketballs. Oh, did I mention the pirate-ship bouncer?)

Okay Jen, This One's For You

Bah, it's getting late, so you can go read her thingy here. And here's my questions (okay, technically they're Jen's questions and my answers, but you get my drift, right?):

If you could go anywhere for a vacation, money no object, where would you go and why?  Who would you take with you?
My husband and I would either go the East Coast during the Fall to see the pretty leaves. Or "do" Europe. Just because we've said we both want to do that.

What has been your biggest challenge as an adult?
::snorts::
Other than having to behave like a grownup?

What are you currently reading?  What led you to that book?
I am currently reading Healing Our Autistic Children: A Medical Plan for Restoring Your Child's Health. I borrowed it from my Mom. She said it was good. She was right.

What is one thing you will never ever ever eat?  Why?
Snails. Because I don't like them alive and outdoors, never mind dead and on my plate.

It is Sunday morning, 10:00 AM.  What are you doing?
Well, it's actually 12:07 a.m. Monday morning, but at 10 a.m. I was corralling my children into their coats so we could go home from Mass.

Which is more important to you?  A tidy home or a clean home?  Is there a difference to you?
Yes, a tidy home everything may be put away, but your socks will still turn black walking around on the bare floors. I would love clean, but I'll settle for tidy.

If you were given a full-ride scholarship to the post-secondary institution of your choice, where would you go? What courses would you take?  
I would go to school in Ontario to become a midwife.

Would you rather go to an action movie or a girly movie?
I don't know. I would just want it to be a Star Trek one.

If/when you start to grow grey hair, will you wear it with pride or dye it into submission?
Seeing how I started greying when I was 20 (thanks Mom, by the way), I usually dye it. I admit, however, that I have gotten rather lazy in that department as of late, and have two boxes of hair dye sitting under my bathroom sink doing nothing the past couple of months.

Dogs or cats?
We have a cat, but my kids think anything with four legs and fur are dogs (including horses, apparently). 


Okay now, I'm going to bed. Night-night!

Oh, and On a Happier Note...

We have officially gone 10 days with no seizure!!!! With a reduction in anti-seizure meds yet!

Abby is slowly getting better. I'm convinced the nutritional supplements are helping. However, she now has a weird rash on her leg that Dr. E says is allergy, but my own research suggests may be her body trying to detox.

After much hemming and hawing, it's been (un)officially decided that Abby has does have something weird going on with her liver, unrelated to her VPA, not showing up on her ALTs, not causing jaundice, but obviously effecting her systemically. We were sent home from the doctor's office with instructions to "keep doing whatever it is you're doing, as it seems to be working".

::sigh::

Question and Answer

When your child has a "condition", especially idiopathic ones, you inevitably look inward for causes. You can't help it.

Did I eat the wrong things when I was pregnant? 

Too much fish? Not enough fish?

Did I breathe in too much second-hand smoke? 

Too much time in the sun? 

Did I sleep on my left side like I was supposed to? Or was it my right? 

Was something wrong at birth and I just didn't see it?

Should I have let you get that vaccine? 

Is our water no good? Is it poisoning you? 

Should I have fed you the barley cereal before the wheat one? 

Am I letting you sit too close to the T. V.?

In short, I keep asking myself: Did I do this to you? 

I have often wondered that. Did I break her? I've come to believe, after these few long years, that Abby's epilepsy is a symptom of something larger that's been damaged inside her. I also firmly believe that there are environmental and genetic components to her difficulties.

Recently, I've also began understanding the Autism as part of the same damage, something malfunctioning that is causing these symptoms to bubble to the surface. In my mind, they must be linked, as part of the same parcel.

I have often wondered, in these years, if my taking Celexa during my first trimester of pregnancy had any role. At the time, I was tapering off my dose slowly when I discovered I was pregnant, as I had been taking it earlier that same year to treat a depressive episode. My physician at the time agreed that I should continue tapering the drug, as there was no significant risks known for continuing the take the medication in my first trimester. At the time, it was also thought that Celexa raised the risk of birth defects and it was recommended that it should be stopped before the start of the third trimester. I was done with Celexa by my 12th week of pregnancy.

That thought, that me taking the Celexa during early pregnancy could have played a role in her "condition", has secretly haunted me. It's why I refused medication when I was pregnant with Rachael even though I was suffering panic attacks. It's also why I've refused to take medications for a chronic, low-level depression that has continued to plague me since her birth. Not only do these medications cross the blood-placental barrier, it infiltrates the plasma in the breastmilk.

No one could tell me whether or not I broke one child. No one could force me to break another.

I was reading something totally unrelated today, and I found myself today wondering if anyone else asked that same question about antidepressants. Did anyone else feel the same way? So I asked Dr. Google. 

Click here for an answer.