I know this post is several months overdue. I've been really busy for several reasons. My private practice (as a therapist/counselor) picked up a bit this winter, so that's taken more of my time.
Ammon has been dealing with allergies since about August/September. He gets a bad rash (or eczema) on his arms. It started out as an allergy to sugar. So we tried our best to keep him from sugary foods. Then he became allergic to dairy (milk, cheese, butter). That was hard since he is a cheese-aholic. Then the worst was when he developed an allergy to fructose.....meaning NO FRUIT!!!! UGH! Fruit was our sugar substitute. Instead of peanut butter and jelly, he always had peanut butter and bananas. When I made pancakes, biscuits, bread, etc. I used fruit or unsweetened fruit juice instead of sugar. Now I suddenly had to figure out a way to feed Ammon a balanced diet without ANY sugar, dairy or fruit. At that point I realized I needed to get super strict about his diet so he could get over these allergies and not continue to develop more. I had been allowing him to eat things like Cheerios, soy milk, and bread. But not any more. Cheerios has 1 gram of sugar per serving, soy milk and bread have even more. So, I cut out ALL sugar! YES, ALL SUGAR (and honey). That's hard because sugar is in everything! I got good at identifying it on ingredient lists by it's alternate names like dextrose and sucrose. So, Ammon's diet became severely limited. Instead of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, he started eating peanut butter in a tortilla wrap (I had to be sure to buy the ones that don't have any sugar in them). Finally we found some specialty bread (very expensive) that didn't have any sugar, honey, or artificial sweeteners. For breakfast we have old fashioned oatmeal with just cinnamon and water (instead of adding raisins or bananas and milk like we did before). For snacks he could no longer have his favorites: Goldfish, cheese, apples or bananas. Now he eats pretzels and nuts (and carrots if he'll actually eat them). Fortunately, he loves the homemade humus I make, so that's been another source of protein to replace cheese/milk. Cooking dinner became a huge headache because I'm telling you sugar is in everything!!! I couldn't use broths, soups or anything else I normally used to cook meat in, because there's sugar in all of those. I couldn't make any of our favorite Mexican or Italian dishes, because of the cheeses in them. And I couldn't use soy cheese because of the sugar in it. UGH!!! So, I started having to cook even more from scratch than before. We started making our own chicken broth. We found a certain brand of marinara sauce that didn't have any sugar in it, so we use that in place of spaghetti sauce. Yes, spaghetti sauce has sugar in it!! If you start looking at everything you eat you'd be amazed at all the sugar in things! No more tomato soup either.....it has sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup in it. That's too bad because Ammon loved eating grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Now he can't have either.
Anyway.....having to learn completely new ways to cook has been rather challenging and time consuming. Fortunately, I don't think this will last forever. I've been taking Ammon to the same chiropractor (Dr. Stacey Francis) who cured me of my many allergies years ago. I'm so grateful for this, because otherwise Ammon's eczema would be more severe. Although it has gotten worse in terms of developing new allergies, I believe the treatments have kept the eczema in check. A couple months ago, Ammon developed an allergy to polyester. So he could only wear 100% cotton clothing and only 2 of his blankets didn't have polyester in them. Fortunately, he has cleared that allergy and is back to using his favorite blankets again. Plus, I'm happy to say that just recently we have been able to re-introduce apples and then strawberries back into his diet. You should have seen the pure joy and excitement he displayed when he was able to have an apple again. You'd think it was Christmas morning!! And now he loves strawberries more than he ever did before. I was very happy too, because I've refrained from eating all the foods he can't eat.....because I'm with him for every meal and snack. It's not fair for me to eat something he can't eat. Of course when I'm away from home and him I have indulged. But I won't eat those foods in front of him. How can I expect a 3 year old to stay away from certain foods if I can't do it myself?? I've missed the fruit the most. We rarely have anything sugary in our home, but going for months without fruit is really hard to do.
Of course I never think of taking pictures of Ammon's eczema when it's really bad, but here's a picture of what it looked like when I actually thought of taking a picture a couple months ago. It certainly was NOT at it worse here, but you get the picture....it's not been fun.
Funny story: Before Friday, I would have said that Ammon hasn't had ANY sugar since Halloween which was before we TOTALLY put the brakes on sugar (that's 4 months). Well, he put the brakes on that sugar-free streak. Friday was our Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet. I went up to the church that morning to set up tables and decorate. I brought my niece Abigail so she could play with Ammon while I was busy. A couple other leaders and I were in the gym setting up when Abi came to the door and said, "Have you seen Ammon?" The kind of question that just makes your heart sink as a parent. She said Ammon had left wandered off and said something about finding me. Fortunately, I had kept the church doors locked so I didn't have to worry about someone coming in, so I didn't panic because I figured he was probably just looking for me. When I didn't find him easily, my search became more intense and anxious. Another mom started looking too. I found the baby stroller from the nursery parked in the kitchen about a foot away from a cart that had a cookie sheet full of cupcakes for the banquet. One corner of the plastic wrap was peeled back and a cupcake was missing. Ahah! Now I knew he had taken a cupcake and was hiding somewhere eating it, and I'm thinking "Darn....that's going to leave a rash!!" So, our search continued. Every classroom door was opened. I looked in the Chapel. Still no Ammon. Then the other two adults joined the search party. I had looked outside twice because I wasn't sure if he would have gone to that length to hide. Finally, Abi says, "Ammon! There you are!" With relief I run to find Ammon with chocolate smeared all over his face and crumbs all over his shirt. What a sight for sore eyes! I wish I had a camera to capture his expression. He had a slightly sad countenance because he knew he had done something wrong, but you could also see sheer bliss in his eyes at the same time. He had thoroughly enjoyed that cupcake. We had him take us to the scene of the crime....his hiding place. It was covered with more evidence.....crumbs galore and the cupcake wrapper.
I certainly can't blame him, but I was really surprised that he did that. He has been SOOOOO good about not eating things he's allergic to. A few months ago he was in Nursery when Aunt Jackie was handing out the snack. She gave him a piece of cheese and he quickly said, "I can't have cheese." He's been amazing, especially since he connected eating certain foods to making his rash flare up. He's exhibited more self-control over his eating that most adults do (including myself). He's been very careful and often asks, "Does that have sugar in it?" One day he had been playing outside in the snow while Jared was shoveling from one of our many snow storms. Later on Jared told me that Ammon was eating the snow. Ammon said, "Is that okay, Mommy? Does snow have sugar in it?" Awwww.....I felt so bad that he had gotten so used to not being able to eat SO MANY things the he even worried about whether snow was one of those many things he couldn't eat!!!
So between dealing with Ammon's food restrictions, taking him to chiropractor appointments, working, being a Cubmaster, a mom, a wife, a sister and a daughter, there's still one more reason I haven't gotten back on this blog to post an update. For some silly reason I joined Facebook in November. So the tiny bit of "free time" I do have has been sucked up by the "Facebook Vacuum." I learned very quickly that I have to limit how often and how long I'm on there. It's awesome reconnecting with old friends, but I do have my own life to live here and now.
Yesterday I pulled out the dish pan and let Ammon play in water at the kitchen table. This time I added bubble bath to the water for some extra fun. He loved it. It's so cool to watch him focus so intently on something for a whole hour. He's getting really good at not making a mess with the water. He hardly splashed the water outside of the dish tub. When you watch the video below and see all that he did with the water and bubbles you'll be amazed to learn that there was only a tiny bit of water that ended up outside the tub. I'm grateful for that!! In the picture above you can see he has bubbles on his cheeks.....looks like an old man's fuzzy white beard. You can also see his rash/eczema on his arms (in the elbow crease). Yep, that's from the cupcake!
Afterwards I realized that perhaps I let him play too long because his hands were more wrinkled than prunes! I've never seen his hands that bad before! Oops!
Here is a slideshow of Ammon's adventures with the water and bubbles.
So, Ammon is now 3.75 years old. I have it scheduled on my calendar to measure his height every 3 months, so I did that about a week ago and noticed that Ammon has grown 2 inches in the past 9 months. Huh?! What a relief! I've wondered sometimes if he's actually growing. His friends and cousins who are a full year younger than him are as big or bigger! I'm glad to see he's growing. I'm not as concerned about how he measures up to others. The only important thing is he's growing. And he's putting on some weight too. He's getting closer to the 30 pound mark. A while ago Jared said we should throw him a party when he reaches 30 pounds. I said, "Yeah, we probably will....because that might occur around his 4th birthday."
I remembered that I had started a slideshow about Ammon's 3rd Birthday (May 21), but didn't get around to finishing it. Oops! So, here it is....only 9 months after the fact:
Well, that's all for now. I'll try to post another update shortly. Don't hold your breath!!
He was just anxious to be done with the mixing so he could lick the beaters.....the best part of making a cake!
Can you tell he enjoyed that??? 
After dinner, Grandma and Aunt Doreen came over to wish Ammon a Happy Birthday and join us for cake and ice cream.
He couldn't wait to dig into his birthday cake!
His birthday party with both sides of the family isn't for another week, so we will have more birthday fun to share later.
After we were finished with it Ammon said, "How do you make it work?" He was disappointed to find out it's not "a working robot" like Ryan and his Mommy (Amy) made.....or like the cool one Leslie bought that has a controller to make it walk and move. Once Ammon was able to accept that our homemade one wasn't a working robot, he had fun with it.
He got his face painted with an orange fish. He loved it....although I'm not sure why she chose to use orange paint when he was wearing a red shirt. O-well....
He got to build something out of marshmallows and dry spaghetti. Poor little guy couldn't eat his creation though like other kids. The conversation went something like this: "Do marshmallows have sugar, Mommy?" "Oh yes, sweetheart, that's pretty much ALL marshmallows have!"
Then he made a little maraca with a toilet paper tube, green construction paper, beans and tape. Fun! He got to use that later in the evening when The Music Lady did her concert. He also got a balloon shaped like a sword from the clown. What boy doesn't enjoy a balloon sword? Especially Ammon who LOVES balloons!!
Next we went to the "Nutrition Station" where Ammon was able to create a "healthy snack" necklace out of dried fruit and colored Cheerios (I can't remember the name of those Cheerios). Of course, being the sugar conscious person that I am, I had a hard time believing that using those Cheerios made it a healthy snack. Sorry, but I think any Cheerios cereal besides the original one has TOO MUCH SUGAR! But since they have the Cheerios name people automatically assume they're healthy and low in sugar, like the original Cheerios. Not!!!!! Sorry, I'll step off my soap box now.
Anyway... Ammon had fun creating his edible necklace and eating it. Yes, I caved on this one. I'm always telling him, "No, you can't eat that it has sugar in it (or fruit or milk)." Lately, I figure that once every 10 thousand times he's faced with yummy temptations it's better to just let him have it, if it's something that has a little sugar. Of course notice I did that with the fruit and Cheerios, NOT the marshmallows!! I'm not THAT crazy!