experiences with NAET/Bioset/NMT for allergies

When I first discovered that Nathaniel had allergies, and started telling people about that, about three people came out of the blue and told me to look into NAET, an alternative therapy for things like allergies. I said I would look into it, and I kind of halfheartedly did, but not really.

Then, my parents' exchange student of sorts told me about how the modality cured her of gluten intolerance, and I thought--perhaps now is the time. I will find a practitioner and see what's up.

I found a lady about half an hour away who practices NMT with elements of NAET and Bioset. She said that helping Nathaniel would probably take 4 sessions, with a cost of about $160 for the first session and then $80 for subsequent sessions. I decided that if Nathaniel's allergies could be cured for that, it would be worth it--and if not, well, at least we tried.

The lady said she could do it over the phone, or in person. Uh. I told her I was more comfortable in person, so we made the trek last week.

It was pretty fascinating. At first she used me as a proxy for Nathaniel, doing muscle testing on me to discern the issue. When Nathaniel went crazy (he got very agitated during the therapy), she used herself as a proxy. After the session was over, the baby went from being agitated to being super, super tired, even though he'd only gotten up from a nap like an hour before. He just cuddled into me and was so tired. The practitioner warned that he could be very very weird for the next day while his body reset, and that he may have allergic reactions to nothing as his body figures out what he is and isn't allergic to.

Well, lo and behold, I got home from the appointment, and when I pulled him out of the carseat, he had hives, even though he obviously had not been exposed to anything abnormal. He had hives on his face. A few hours later, he developed a bunch of hives on his arm. Meanwhile, he swung from being super insane crazy, to being tired and cranky and lethargic until I put him to bed. His bowel movements were a weird color that night.

So even though all this lady did was muscle testing on her own self, basically, and talking, it made an actual difference.

Yesterday we had a follow-up appointment, which we did over the phone. I figured, if she wasn't touching him anyway, I didn't want to drive half an hour for it.

It was super weird--Nathaniel woke up from his nap at her call, and started to fuss as she started to access his energy (or whatever). So I nursed him. Well, no sooner had he latched on (in silence) than on the phone the practitioner said, "Uhoh! You're in the way! I can't access his energy because your field is in the way."

As she said that, Nathaniel unlatched, and as soon as he did that, she was like, "Oh, never mind."

That happened twice more during the appointment: first, when he started to get agitated again and I nursed him (she said she couldn't access him because I was in the way, and then when I unlatched him she noted that something had changed), and when he was still very upset about whatever and wanted me to hold him. When I picked him up, she lost connection with him, or got overwhelmed by a connection with me or something, that cleared up when I put him down. All three times, well, it was obviously over the phone so it's not like she could see what was happening, and I didn't tell her. So that was weird.

She noted during the phone call that Nathaniel's energy felt "loopy." Sure enough, he was atypically strange during the call: walking around aimlessly, falling down on his bum, wandering around kind of strangely. Loopy is a good word for that.

Anyway, after the appointment, she said that he would be weird for the next 24 hours while he sorted things out--his poop was weird again last night, and he was SO CLINGY UGH. So so clingy. He wept at dinnertime because I tried to put him in his booster seat--we sit next to each other. I kept my arm around him. In the end his conniption was such that I just pulled him out of the seat and held him on my lap while I ate. I haven't had to do that for... months and months.

Also at dinner, my mother gave him a bite of carrots that she didn't know were cooked with butter. In the past, just for reference, the amount of milk in an M&M--Nathaniel could lick an eighth of an M&M and get hives all over his face.

He ate those buttered carrots and didn't even get a single hive.

So, so far so good, I guess. Bizarre, right? But if it works, it works...

More pictures!

Future doctor (glasses courtesy of Mom; stethoscope courtesy of hospice):




Sleeping on daddy:


Playing with Dr. Pepper before haircut:




Hair after hair cut:



Boy after haircut:

Pictures!!

Since I finally uploaded them!

Nathaniel sneaking up on the cat with a Dr. Pepper bottle in hand:


Baby and daddy:



Baby and mommy:



Baby and Uncle James:



Baby eating:




Baby and Great Grandpa:

9 month updates!

Baby is 9 months old, as of Friday. Today was his doctor's appointment. He is officially 19 lbs 10 oz, and 29.5 inches long. That puts him in the 35th percentile for weight, but the 85th percentile for length. When the nurse was first measuring him, she said that he was at the 90th percentile, then hemmed and hawed and said it was really between 85 and 90, and made his official chart say 85th.

Either way: our baby is long and skinny.

Remember that time he was born at the 98+ percentile for weight? I do!

Now he is so skinny you wouldn't know it.

But he still had fat creases on his baby thighs, so I'm not worried about him being underweight or anything.

I told the doc about Nathaniel's weird reactions he gets to food; she ordered some bloodwork to be done. I have to take him to the lab and I'm not sure when that will happen, but after I do that, we'll have the results the following week.

As far as milestones, Nathaniel is:

- crawling
- cruising
- standing
- clapping
- blabbing
- playing peekaboo
- imitating people

He's a super fun kid. Glad we had him.

Gardening with baby!

I decided that THIS YEAR, I will GARDEN.

I have this crush on Square Foot Gardening, and last year I got all the supplies for it, so this year I was psyched to get it started.

It's not done yet--I still need to mix the soil and put it in--but I did weed the area where the soil belongs, and stick my weedcloth down (maybe a dumb move, but oh well) and my square.

I did it with Heather and the baby. Heather was kind enough to take pictures. We weeded together, and a cat from next door came by to cuddle us. It was pretty fun.

my baby is buff

I decided to switch my workouts up. Instead of doing Insanity only, I've added in Jillian's 30-day Shred. The 30DS uses weights, so I've brought mine out. I only have 5-lb handweights, and they're too light for me now, but I use them anyway out of principle.

Anyway, two nights ago Nathaniel was chilling with me as I was working out, and it got to the cardio section of the workout and I put my weights down. Always wanting to copy his mama, he crawled on over and started messing with the weights. He was actually able to drag one partway across the room with him as he crawled.

I think it's safe to say my 7-month-old is buff. Considering I know babies older than him that can't even scoot, and he's crawling with 5-lb weights and all. But then again, I think he's always been buff.

It's because his bones were made to be Dorito strong.

baby stuff

Yes, I'm procrastinating. But I decided that a nice way to procrastinate would be to let you all know what Baby D is up to.

He learned how to crawl on Valentine's day, and by that Friday (three days later) he was pulling to stand on everything he could find, and cruising. Now he is a master at pulling to stand. He wants to stand always, all the time, without exception--which is annoying when we have to change his diaper.

We'd started disposable-diapering while we were on vacation in California for Christmas, and then we got home and I was sick for like the next month (and not feeling the near-daily loads of laundry), but we just got him back in his cloth diapers and that's been nice.

He loves to play with newspaper, which is convenient because I keep a stack of it in the room where I work out every day. So he just crawls on over and starts tearing it apart while we exercise.

He blabs all the time, with emotion. He uses his eyebrows when he talks, too. I wish we could understand what he's trying to say.

I gave him another haircut on Sunday, to get rid of his new Gollum hairs and his rat tail. He looks much more clean cut now that his hair doesn't break the BYU Honor Code.

He's been sick on and off for the past three weeks, but he's finally just about over it, I think.

He's started eating solids almost daily. My mom is fanatic about forcing food on the kid, so at dinnertime he always has a pile of Cheerios and teddy grahams and pretzels and whatever in front of him (and then, under him). He doesn't swallow a whole lot, but he licks a lot of things.

He also enjoys licking the bricks on our fireplace (??). I used to discourage that, but he does it so much I've given up. If my child wants to lick bricks, well! By all means--lick those bricks, kid! Whatever.

I took some more videos of him the other day that I need to post. I'll get on that the next time I have a chance.

sweet moments

Today I asked Carl if he would put Nathaniel on the ground while I worked. My plan was to watch him as I typed.

Carl didn't return for a while, even though he had work to do, too. Finally I looked for him. He and Nathaniel were sitting just around the corner, playing ball together. It was so sweet I could hardly stand it. I had one of those moments where I just realized that Nathaniel won't be so little for very long, so I had better treasure it. I have a few of those moments I've tried to tattoo on my heart. I treasure them all.

Just now I was trying to get Nathaniel to go to sleep. Over the past few days, he's done this thing where he gets super tired--you can tell from the circles under his eyes and how he rubs his eyes with his hands--but he cries if I try to nurse him down to sleep. So it takes some effort now. We turn off all the lights, and I snuggle him and try to nurse him in the complete darkness.

Just now I was getting a little frustrated, because he was clearly very tired but he just wanted to be going! going! going! I looked at the time and said I would try to nurse him for 15 minutes and if he were still awake after that, I would give up and turn on the lights and finish everything up with him awake.

Lo and behold, four minutes later he was sound asleep. He is sleeping beside me this very moment. I need to remember that he is a total n00b to being alive here. He doesn't know how to handle his body. I have to help him learn things even as simple as going to sleep at proper times. I have to be patient with him.

Here, you should read this great essay from my friend Lanette on being a mom.

Over and out.

baby is crawling!

Nathaniel turned 7 months old on Monday, and the very next day, also known as Valentine's day, he surprised us (not really) by taking his first crawling steps. REAL crawling. Today he built on that fine accomplishment, crawling several feet at a time, over and over throughout the day. I will add that the first day he figured it out, he did it about five times.

So, yep. Got a crawler now. I'm really proud of him. What a little rock star.

I will point out that six weeks ago, my mother said that he would be crawling within six weeks. This week she predicted that he would be walking before he is 10 months old. We'll see! The race is on!

teething

Nathaniel has been teething like crazy today. It looks miserable. A friend came over in the morning and swore she could feel three or even four separate teeth coming in. Last time he bit my knuckle, I could feel at least two very sharp things. Poor kid!

I gave him a medicine binky of Motrin, and he started to do a lot better. I have a whole tube of Orajel floating around somewhere that I can't find.

He's been chewing on everything: his fingers, my fingers, toys, bibs. We tried to help him use a walker the other night, but he just kept on chewing the handle. It was pretty funny.

I'm not super excited for his teeth to come in, but now that they're serious and right near the surface, I think I'd rather have them out and over with. Teething seems like the worst.

army crawling

I think it's safe to say that as of today, January 5, 2012, Baby D is army crawling with proficiency. He's not perfect at it yet, but he can sure get around. I look away for five seconds and he's off his mat and trying to catch the cat.

(Don't worry, the cat got away just in time.)

Right now, he's crawled all the way around my brother's chair. It is amazing to me that just last week, he was still figuring out how to scoot around like this. Now he's a champ.

Nathaniel has been doing really well. He's such a happy guy; I am so blessed. Last night he whacked his head on something hard--no idea what it was--but I found him moments later with a giant welt on his head. He screamed maybe four times, and then settled down to cuddle with his mom. Yes, with a giant red swelling on his head. I know if it were me, I would just keep screaming, but I guess this little boy just doesn't see the value in screaming like crazy after the initial shock of pain has gone.

He is almost six months old.

Other random Nathaniel news:

- he is sitting pretty well by himself, though occasionally he still falls over

- he loves to play with James's toys, and it always boggles my mind that a regular baby would want to play with toys for handicapped people :^P (the joke is that James's toys were designed for babies)

- his favorite time of the day is morning, right when he wakes up

- overall, he is a happy kid!

cutest picture from last photoshoot

Our awesome friend Heather took pictures of Nathaniel on Sunday. Here is one of my favorites:



I guess the ornament must have tasted good because he kept on trying to eat it. Silly baby!

Baby's first basketball

Baby D just got coordinated enough to hold a ball like 2 weeks ago. Of course, to make his dad proud, it was a basketball. I took pictures to mark the occasion.





Maybe we should have named him Jimmer after all!

Thanksgiving pictures

We had a great Thanksgiving! We spent it up in Pennsylvania at Nana's house. Nathaniel was pretty good for the ride up. Normally it's a 75 minute drive, but on Thanksgiving it was 120 minutes. There were two gigantic accidents on the way that really slowed things down. We hoped that the people involved were okay, though.

Nathaniel loved sitting with Grampy:


And he had fun sitting with his dad:



Family and friends watching Charlie Brown:




Thanksgiving tummy time (don't you love Nathaniel's turkey bum?):




With Nana and Grampy:

my baby is huge.

Then:






Now:

baby stats

Took baby to the doctor yesterday for his four month visit.

Head circumference: 42.5 cm (50th percentile)
Weight: 15 lbs 13 oz (75th+ percentile)
Length: 25.75 inches (75th percentile)

The doc gave us a prescription for his eye gooeys but I'm not sure we'll use it. She said they were optional and massage is the best treatment for a blocked tear duct anyway.

He got one vaccine shot in each thigh and an oral vaccine. He gave a few loud cries but otherwise was happy. I distracted him with a binky and he was fine.

Everyone said that he is such a good, happy baby.

I think we have to agree.

Baby's hair--then and now

I just discovered a bunch of pictures. Can you remember how hairy he was when he first came out? Here's a reminder:



He was so cute and hairy--a true Phur:



He had the best turtle face ever:



He had the looks. He had the brains.



He had curls when his hair was wet.



He out-haired other babies:



He had the most Gollumy sideburns this side of Middle Earth:



But then he started pulling out chunks of his own hair (note bald stripe):




Then his mom treated his cradle cap and he lost all the hair in the front of his head--so he had Gollum sideburns AND no bangs but long stringy hairs on the top of his head:



Then his mom cut the sideburns and finished treating the cradle cap. Now it looks a little better and we are all a little happier:



But not that happy. Because he is still bald on the top of his head.

cradle cap part 3

As of this morning, my darling baby is a Baldilocks. :^( It's so, so sad. He's got his real hair growing in on the top of his head, but it's short--no more than an inch long, and very pale. The rest of his head, including the crown of his head, still has 3-inch-long very dark hair. So he's like half bald and half super hairy. I ended up trimming those blasted Gollum sideburns just so he wouldn't look AS weird, but he still looks weird. At least to me.

I miss him being so cute and hairy, but I tell myself: those hairs weren't even attached to his head anyway. I just cleared them off, and now his real hair can grow in.

It's true, but it's still so sad.

Maybe I'll post a picture--I took a few yesterday--but maybe I won't. The poor kid wouldn't want you to see, probably.

Halloween pictures!

Here are some pictures of Nathaniel from Halloween. He was the best cowbaby I know of. Thanks to Heatherfor the awesome pics!