purple baby

heehee. Andrew and I have been dealing with thrush for about 3 weeks now. It all started with a yeast infection on his diaper area caused by a round of antibiotics. Although he doesn't have any of the classic signs of thrush in his mouth, he is now a carrier. Since he is breastfed, I have been experiencing issues myself, in the *ahem* chest area. We have tried a couple different things to get rid of it and have found that yeast is a persistent thing. So, we have started gentian violet treatments. It is a home remedy that many nursing moms say works wonderfully. Basically, you coat the baby's mouth with this purple-staining liquid and it will transfer to me when he nurses. We are doing it at bedtime to try and limit the staining of everything around us. It's a messy option (apparently) but if it works, I can't complain. Anyway, probably a little TMI but I just had to share the pictures and I know that you would've wanted an explanation as to why my baby was purple. ;)

headaches

As some of you know, my headaches have been kicking my butt....again. I went to see my neurologist last Thursday. I have been having "regular" headaches pretty much daily now and the more severe migraines about twice a week. The doctor thinks that the daily headaches are rebound headaches from taking tylenol 3 on a regular basis. So, I need to cut down on the tylenol as much as possible. As for the big migraines, he increased my dosage of verapamil (a blood pressure med. sometimes used for headaches). I also ordered a holistic medication online called Migrelief. It is a mixture of high doses of magnesium, ribloflavin and feverfew and takes about 3 months to start working (if it's going to). My neurologist recommended that I try it after we asked his opinion on accu-puncture, massage, etc. As for those things he said that he isn't against any of them but he's also not seen them work. Anyway, the next step is to wait a month to give the verapamil a chance to work. If it doesn't, he would like to try either another kind of anti-seizure med (I've already tried two others) or maybe an anti-depressant. The anti-seizure medication scares me because the side effects of the other ones I took were pretty significant.

Anyway, I just wanted to give an update on what's going on with all that. Hopefully, we are able to find something that will work soon. I hope everyone is having a good week!

baby Santa

Thought I would share my new signature that I made for the cranio kids message board. It's very simple but oh so cute....

nine years ago

Nov. 1998

Nov. 2007

It's hard to remember being a family of only five. Boy, have we grown. :)

These are actually the only "professional" family portraits we've had done. I really need to make a point to get them done every year. Although, I must say that the dramatic difference 9 years makes is pretty fun to look at. For example, check out Nick's glasses. Awesome.