3 AM, Nico's third time waking up to eat, I fed him on the left and then tried to put his binky in his mouth. I always feed him on both boobs but I tried to get away with just one this time. He shut his mouth tight and wouldn't take the binky. He finally opened his mouth to take it, and the second I put it in, he pulled it right back out and looked at me and smacked his lips. He smacks his lips a lot while eating solids. If he could talk I'm sure he would have said "Momma I KNOW you have another boob, don't try to fool me!"

Also, I don't want to get my hopes up, but for the past 2 days he has consistently been signing milk. When he's hungry or while I'm feeding him.

So everything is all better except my breast is still a little sore. The night that I posted my previous entry, I got a fever that hovered around 100.2, and I alternated between taking two different homeopathic remedies. There is apparently a remedy that you take for mastitis if it was caused by an injury. And wouldn't you know it.. I tripped over a baby gate a few days ago and landed on my left boob. And my right elbow and knee. I didn't connect the two until I read that the remedy Arnica is for mastitis caused by injury. Anyway, I called my homeopath for guidance and she called back twice, the first time she called back she said I was taking the right remedy but to up the frequency (I was taking Phytolacca.. it's for breast pain plus whole body soreness - exactly what I had). The second time she called was to check in and at that time I told her I was alternating remedies (Phytolacca and Arnica) and she confirmed that I was doing the right thing and to continue doing it until there was definite relief. The sore muscles stopped mostly the day after my fever. But dude that fever brought me such terrible skin sensitivity, it was like I had the flu but without all the nasal and breathing problems. It really sucked. I guess it didn't suck as much as actually having the flu :) Last night when I started slacking taking the remedies, my fever came back. About 30 minutes after I took Arnica again, the fever was completely gone and my temp was 98.0 (normal for me, at least for ear thermometer).

The pain in my breast is moving, it's really weird. It no longer hurts to nurse but the pain has moved to the left and is lumpy now. I'll continue taking the remedies, at longer intervals, until the pain goes away.

I don't know what would have happened if I wasn't taking the remedies, because I've never had mastitis before, so I don't know how much good they did and how much better they made my experience. Would mastitis go away if left alone? Or would it just keep escalating? I did find it cool that it dropped my temp so fast and so low on the 2nd night.

Also, the homeopath asked me which remedy I felt was doing the most good and I said "I have no idea!" She said you can usually get a sense for which one is helping the most but I seriously had no idea how to tell. I didn't feel any different after taking the remedies. Ok, now that I say that, I do remember feeling quite chipper after taking my first doses of Arnica. And Arnica was what dropped my fever.

I'm pretty sure I have mastitis. I'm interested to see if homeopathy will cure this one. No antibiotics for me!

I have a sore breast and a headache and my whole body is aching. So much pain...

Welp, my period has finally returned. Now that I know I have my fertility back, I am overwhelmed with a desire to produce more offspring. You know our original plan was to start trying again after Nico turned one, but as I learned more about the benefits of child spacing, I changed my mind. Of course that didn't change my heart though. I have always wanted my children close together, and only said we'd wait a year because I didn't think Guy would want to have children that were 11 months apart in age.

It wouldn't be a smart move on so many levels. I'm still not emotionally myself yet, or physically, and can barely keep the house clean enough to live in. Can you imagine adding another child to the picture right now? That still doesn't mean that I don't desire it. OH and going through another labor? :(

But dude, to have like 5 more children running around, my body is like "dooooo ittttt".

Nico does the cutest thing at night while nursing. With eyes still closed, he'll stop nursing for a few seconds, unlatch (before let down), and say some gibberish. "Nnnnaa. da da. Duh". Then he'll relatch and nurse some more. I think he must be still sleeping when he does this. It's adorable!

Then after he's done nursing, I grab him under his arms and pull him back to the right side of my pillow. But before I start to drag his bum across the bed to the right spot, he puts his arms behind his head and tilts his head back and ssssssstretches. Then he goes limp and I'm free to drag him to his spot.

Then in the mornings when he wakes up, I'll have no idea he's awake, he'll have his binky in his mouth and he'll all of a sudden start making sounds. Eyes still closed. "jjjjjsshhh. Duh." Then when I move, his head pops up and he's smiles for miles.

Still trucking along. Nico has 6 teeth now, and is crawling and pulling himself up onto furniture. He still doesn't eat much apart from breast milk, but is warming up to solids slowly.

We started the GAPS diet on Monday. We've been having soup soup soup! It's been really tasty. I'm missing the sugar, though, and have tried making up for it in honey, since we can have honey on the diet. And fruit. I probably shouldn't be eating that much honey. The probiotics I started taking don't appear to be sitting well with Nico. He was Mr. Crabby Pants the days I was taking it. I got him his very own probiotics "Baby Biotics", but haven't consistently been giving them to him.

I've had moments of calm clarity and strength since starting the diet, I'm hoping those moments continue to increase. No grains, no starches, nothing that is hard to digest. And eating lots of animal fat. I am rendering some lard at the moment. The higher the fat content in the meals, the less my sugar cravings! It's a wonderful trade off. I'm going to be ordering the prescribed oils soon too, to start taking them. We need a good seed/nut oil blend with a 2:1 ratio of omega 3:omega 6. Also a fish oil with more EPA than DHA. Also a cod liver oil, which I already have. Also butter oil! Talk about oil overload.

Nico has some kind of rash/eczema on his chin and in the corner of his mouth that I'm hoping will disappear soon.

Also we are going to switch to disposables. There are so many things about cloth diapers that I don't like. The smell (he sleeps next to me and after a few hours sleeping he STINKS), the bulk (I hate trying to figure out what size clothes to buy him), the diaper rash (I don't have the time or the desire to figure out how to fix it). The least of my issues is the laundry, because laundry isn't hard and I enjoy folding diapers. His diaper rash went away while we were on vacation because we were using disposables. His clothes fit him, he didn't stink, and I loved his cute little squishable bum. He's much more foldable when he's wearing disposables.

I took Nico on a bike ride yesterday that lasted an hour! He has a little seat on the front of my bike. We rode along the greenbelt. It was beautiful and sunny! The river was so high that the underpass under Broadway was flooded and there was a detour. I figured that was a good place to turn around. Hopefully it's open soon, I'd like to try to ride to the zoo. And the library! And the detour is a little too off-the-beaten-path for me. Nico seemed to like the ride, and I had so much fun I thought I was going to explode. The sun was shining and I felt GREAT physically and mentally and it was so awesome!

I better go to bed. So sleepy...

I told Guy that I wanted to hire someone to prepare GAPS meals for us when we start the GAPS diet, because I am feeling so overwhelmed with taking care of Nico and cooking and cleaning. And dealing with being depressed and exhausted at the same time was just driving me crazy. He took the suggestion personally and said that there's no reason HE shouldn't be helping out. He said he was a lazy bum, so I "hired" him to make us meals. He starts this Sunday.

Since we've decided this, I've felt better. Hope is so powerful in my life. I'm pretty sure that if I die young it will be because of hopelessness.

Nico is starting to pull himself along the floor army style. Not very often or very well, but it's a start! His motivation is the little popcorn kernels strewn around our carpet. We did buy a Dyson vacuum with our tax return a few weeks ago, you'd think I'd be actually USING it to vacuum up non-kid-friendly stuff.

I'm addicted to sugar. Now that I can eat gluten again I've been overdoing cookies and other gluteny treats. When we start GAPS I think I'm going to be hurting bad. We're starting mid-April.

Today was my niece's 2-year birthday party. For the first time in I don't know how long, I was able to eat everything. I didn't have to say "No thank you" ONCE. I ate a hotdog, I ate the potato salad, I ate some doritos. I ate a cupcake and drank lemonade. I didn't ONCE have to ask "what is in this?" to make sure I would avoid gluten. I ate everything I wanted and then some.

And I know this won't last long, because we are starting GAPS in a few weeks (4 weeks?)... I have been spending this past week mourning over the fact that our food life will probably never be normal again. Yes, I've heard you can recover your gut and eat non-GAPS food after a few years, but I've also heard that the older you are, the harder it is to heal completely. Kids bounce back, but a 30-year old? I don't know. Maybe I'm still pretty young on the scale.

I've spent so much of my life trying to feel better, I guess I just feel a little punked.

I also feel terrible! I have been eating everything I want, and most of it is sugary. Mint chocolate cookie ice cream, reeses peanut butter cups, snickers, chocolate eggs, chocolate, snickerdoodles. Not only that, but stuff like Blimpie and Subway.

I am on Guy's computer, so the subject of this post is a subject I selected from the dropdown Chrome let me select from, of "past" subjects.

love
Joanna

Terrible time today trying to find a swimsuit. Not because the swimsuits were stupid, but because I was by myself with Nico and didn't know what to do when he fell in the changing room and his mouth started bleeding. I felt like a terrible mom, trying on swim suits and letting my child topple over and bonk his face on the wall. He screamed and screamed and screamed and I just wanted to take back the last 5 minutes and do over. Blood all over his mouth, blood on my breast, blood on my hands. My heart felt sooo heavy I thought I was going to cry myself. I prayed quickly, and then he quieted. The bleeding stopped quickly too. Then I had to take off a tankini and get dressed all while holding him, he cried when I tried to put him down.

Finally got dressed, and I felt so bad that we went straight to the toy section and I picked out some plastic squishy blocks for him and a pair of baby sunglasses for the car. When we got back in the car I tried looking for the cut, but couldn't find it. He recovered much more quickly than I did. I still feel heavy and terrible.

Didn't get a swimsuit. I need to go back when Guy is available so that he can watch Nico while I strut in front of the mirror without having to worry about baby bonks.

I had a piece of toast for breakfast this morning. Looks like I'm gluten-free free!!!

I just made Guy's first appointment for NAET. YAY!