That Was a Long Bath!

As Stacy pointed out, in her comment on my last post, in er, June, I had taken a mighty long bath. Yeah, er. I did take a long bath. It didn't actually last over a month, though. I did some other things, too!

Let's see. School ended. The boys and I flew to Orlando to meet up with Hubby, who was at a conference there, and the in-laws drove down. We spent a week at Disney World, which was fun, but tiring. The hotel pool was great, and after spending the morning and early afternoon at various parks, we'd head to the pool. Hutton didn't nap, but the rest of us took turns taking naps, or we wouldn't have survived! Back at home, it took my over six hours to upload all of my 300 pictures. And my MIL has another 500 or so from her and FIL's camera to send me. Whew!

The boys are now in swim lessons every morning for two weeks. I don't know if they're actually learning anything, but at least they both like going! Hubby finally finished our deck -- he started it last summer, and just had "finishing" work to do on it when he put all the tools away last September. Now, I just have to plant some things around the edges to cover the more "craptacular" areas, as Hubby called them. There's lots of scrap wood, too, that's taunting me, saying things like, "You really want to turn us into something, but you know that won't happen! Just suck it up and throw us away! You're not going to make planters! You're way to scared of power tools!" The scrap wood is right. Well, I have no fear of the power drill/screwdriver, but saws...nope, not happening. Hubby is probably done with all projects for the rest of time. Our washer and dryer were both acting up, so he had to fix those for me, too.

Let's see. What else has happened? Four of my college friends are or were pregnant this year. I am finishing the third knitted blanket, for unborn baby #3, and have a ring sling 90% finished for already born baby #2. (I finished one sling for baby #2 already, but for some reason, was feeling industrious at the fabric store. You know how that goes -- my eyes are bigger than the room on my dining room sewing table. We're having a baby shower in two weeks for baby #4, the same weekend most of us will get together for a wedding. Jen, no pressure to start getting pregnant immediately or anything! The wedding is in Aptos, CA, about an hour from my late father and stepmother's house, so the family and I will go visit with stepmom and stepsister and meet the stepnephew (is that even a word?) who was born just a few days after my last visit last summer.

Two of the baby-mamas have solicited me for vaccination advice, too, which is nice, that they actually look to me for advice. Apparently, they think my study habits have changed since college, and believe I've actually researched these things! Kidding! I have spent so many hours reading about vaccines in the past three years, I feel I should have a degree.

And speaking of vaccines, Amanda Peet, the, er, actress, recently said in "Cookie" magazine that parents who don't vaccinate their children are parasites. Aww! So sweet! Mandy did her research, see. Or rather, was reassured by Paul Offit. The same Paul Offit is a co-patent holder for RotaTeq, the rotavirus vaccine manufactured by Merck. Hmm, no conflict of interest there! Don't bother reading about the cons of vaccines, Mandy! We parents of vaccine-injured children, er, I mean, parasites, are all just crazies who didn't really see our children regress before our eyes after vaccines. Don't look behind the curtain.

It seems whenever I'm ready to move on, get past "the whole vaccine thing" something like this comes up. But, I think it has helped me. Today I grieved for a bit. Something I have kept bottled for a while, so it was good to get it out. I was lying in bed, thinking of all the signs Hutton showed me his first two years of life, clues that his vaccines were harming him, but I was too ignorant to see. New mom syndrome. Believe the doctor. First came the colic. In hindsight, I see it as food allergies to my milk, probably brought on by his first vaccines, at birth and at two months. If I had known then, I would have tried eliminating various things from my diet to see if it helped (most notably cow's milk, which Hutton still reacts to). But, I didn't. I trusted my doctor that colic was just "one of those things" that happens to some babies. Nothing much happened for a while. Then came the ear infections. Again, these were when I started introducing food into Hutton's diet, and were his way of saying, "hey slow down!" I didn't listen. Again, just one of those things some kids get. Of course, he also got more vaccines at the time.

The one that really haunts me though, is the appointment at 15 months. Hutton was due for shots at his "well baby checkup." But he wasn't really well at his appointment. He had an ear infection, plus eczema all over his face, thanks to the cow's milk he had started drinking because I'd just weaned him. It didn't take me long to figure out the cow's milk was the cause of the eczema, and eliminate it from his diet, but it took me longer to figure out that eczema is an autoimmune issue, and I never, in a gazillion years, should have let the pediatrician give Hutton his vaccines that day, when he was sick. But, again, I didn't know these things at the time, and apparently neither did Hutton's pediatrician, or at least, he didn't believe they could harm Hutton. I will give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I really hope he wouldn't knowingly give my child vaccines if he thought they'd harm him.

But, just googling "eczema" right now, the first page I clicked on mentioned halfway down: "Eczema is an auto-immune response to a perceived invader. And there is more and more evidence that food intolerance (as well as food allergy) effects the immune system. Gluten intolerance, Yeast and milk protein (casein) in particular are all strongly linked to auto-immune reactions like skin irritation." Today, Hutton is on a gluten- and milk-free diet and is taking yeast medications, as he's had chronic yeast since the antibiotics he took so many years ago for those ear infections. It makes me want to scream. I would, but Harrison is sitting next to me on the couch. I so wish I had not been so trusting and carefree, but had actually read some differing opinions. Ignorance is bliss. But what do I know? I'm just a parasite. Man, I'm hungry. My host needs to eat.