Catching Up

August and September thus far have been a whirlwind of activities at the Griffin household...so much so that I haven't posted since July! So here goes...

Bryce is ONE! Our little guy turned one September 15th and we had a whole week of celebrating! Ok, so it wasn't all celebrating his birthday, it was our family vacation to Myrtle Beach (more on that later.) Bryce is starting to walk and will take several steps on his own before deciding that crawling is still more efficient. He loves playing with his cars and trucks and I've caught him saying something to the effect of "vroom, vroom" a few times now. He also loves balls and will try and throw anything. His latest game is throwing things through the bannister railings in the playroom and watching them tumble down the stairs into the living room. And speaking of stairs, he loves to "escape" and climb them and had gotten VERY fast! He is all boy, that is for sure! He hasn't had his one year well baby yet, but at his 9-month he was 95th percentile in height (29 inches), and 5th percentile in weight (18 lbs). What's funny to me is that I distinctly remember Morgan only being 18 lbs at her first birthday too...I guess it's in the genes.

However, Morgan has caught up and gotten tall! At her 3 year visit she was 80th percentile for height and based on last winter's clothes, most of her height is in her legs. She's in a 4T now in pants but we try and get the one's with adjustable waist as she is still thin. She continues to amaze us with how smart she is and is learning how to be a good helper and a good big sister. She loves to help me with lunch and enjoys helping to stir whatever it is we are making. She still colors several pictures a day and her current favorite color is purple, but she said today that next it will be green, and then red "just like Mommy". :)

Perhaps our biggest adventure in the last few weeks was that we were finally able to have Bryce allergy tested (the skin test). He had the blood test at 6 months which revealed an egg, peanut, and dog allergy so we had eliminated those food items and tried to keep Lucy from licking him as best we could. We also suspected he had a dairy allergy based on his reactions to milk products so we eliminated that as well. But, I had read that sometimes kids can grow out of allergies even by age one and I actually thought he was doing a bit better this summer. But, according to his test results, this was not the case.

Our allergist uses a 0-4 scale with 4+ being the highest. He was a 2+ for peanuts, and a 3+ for egg, dairy, dog, and household dust. So basically, he's highly allergic and we couldn't even test him for other common allergens like cats and the seasonal things since his back is still so small. So we just picked the big ones for us. Since we had assumed all of these allergies, they were not a surprise but the severity of them was. He is now on Singular daily and also Zantac but I personally don't think the Singulair is working for him so I may try OTC Zyrtec and see what that does.

So needless to say, meals at our house just got alot more complicated! It was one thing when all I had to worry about was feeding me the special diet and Morgan and Sandy could eat whatever, but now that Bryce is eating table foods our whole family is moving to this diet (for the most part anyway). So no more lasagnas and pizzas, and we have a completely nut-free house now. It's just safer that way. I'm sure I will continue to do modified foods for just Bryce, for example I'll make his pizza with vegan cheese, but we are trying to keep things as simple as possible as far as meal prep and we don't want him to ever feel like this is a burden. I guess if nothing else we'll all be healthier! :) It sure does make going out to restuarants stressful though. So far we've found that Brixx Pizza and Outback both do an excellent job of catering to those with allergies so they are now our go to places for dinner out. We also discovered that Hard Rock Cafe does a good job too, at least the one in Myrtle Beach did.

And as for the dog allergy, we decided it was best to get rid of Lucy. We love her and will miss her but are thankful that some good friends of ours would like to have her. I couldn't bear the thought of her going to just any family that might not treat her the way I would want, so I am thrilled that this worked out. I do think the transition will be difficult for Morgan (and truth be told, me too). She has gotten very attached to Lucy. We welcome prayers!

I'm hoping to download some vacation pics this week, so more on Myrtle Beach soon!