In Full Bloom

For the first time in a long time...
I am not here to write about the 'silver lining', if you will, in our lives. Instead, I have genuinely good news; because since May began, life has taken a dramatic turn...for the better.

About a year ago, my son-who was at that point climbing up and down stairs by himself-eeek-and saying some words and things, and was pretty advanced in having gone from part EC/part cloth nappy to fully potty training himself at 18 months old. All of these great advancements happening after we made some huge changes in our diet and lifestyle. He was pretty impressive in a lot of ways, however challenging...
but suddenly, it was like..I don't even know. We had made these tremendous dietary changes and I had seen so many positive things happen for him just prior. He regressed...it happened so unusually slowly, too. He lost more and more words until he could no longer speak again, he wanted to be carried a lot in places where he had felt so confident walking, stairs? forget about 'em. Gradually he spent less and less time doing the things he loved too...and over the last month it had gotten so bad that he wanted to sit watching TV half of the day. I could not go to the toilet by myself through any of this or I would face screaming despite that my son grew to what he is now, a 2 years & 8 m/o boy who weighs 27 lbs...some days I would carry him on my hip, before my wonderful friend was so kind as to loan me her Ergo (which I can't seem to adjust tightly enough...IDK if I am doing it right...any ideas??) which although yes, is a bit heavy on the shoulders, is a great, in fact tremendous relief compared to how i was carrying him...and I love having him snuggled up against me and he loves it too.

Well anyway I had decided to eat differently the night before the Mayfaire because I just was feeling desperate and wanted to change, in any way. I gambled that I might feel worse because as it was I certainly wasn't feeling well enough to go-we had gotten worse and worse and worse-I should mention that I had been feeling really healthy at first, and then the last few months, my health has really taken a dive too especially mentally. Well then we woke up and after snuggling and giggling in bed a while we had enough energy to make it-even with a bloated belly and an aching head- and wow, am I glad. I didn't expect that O.O. would want to stay for long, given how sensitive he is-there was around 30,000 people crowded into our tiny town, come from all over Europe to follow the Obby Oss and relish in the abundance of the season.

Well oh well. Not only did O.O. have a great time-we stayed for over 3 hours! One of the drummers of the marching band let him play the drum whilst they waited for the Oss to make its way on another round through-which took quite a while-and he just loved this. It was so sweet and I loved that they were so nice to him because he has had such a really hard time with people not really understanding him and seems to always get left out. Not this time-he was the star and everyone thought he was so cool! Yeah!!!

We got some great video footage and I got to touch the Oss-which was a great thing, because this is supposedly an omen of good luck. I thought it was just a bit of fun but hey, everyone was having fun and I figured it couldn't hurt-positive energy is positive energy.

...but maybe it did bring good luck???...because what happened from thereout has just been uncanny...

Like a fog has lifted from us...

I realised that all along it has been almonds-yes-almonds-that have caused all of these problems for both me and my son. As if we didn't have enough NOT to eat, right? The realisation was incredible...and other things hit me too, like how dehydrated we have been and how much my sun allergy has been flaring lately (I really need to stay out of it, in short).

So what happened, rectifying these problems---we woke up from our second sleep (we are biphasal) and my son stood up in the shower. For the first time ever. For the first time too, he did not cry out when the water hit his head. He gave me kisses-on the mouth!-and was happy all afternoon. He did not "ask" for the TV to turn on even once.
The next day, even better. We woke up and as I nursed him I told him I loved him. As he sometimes hums words and phrases (he does understand language, he just really cannot speak more than a few words), he for the first time ever hummed "I love YOU" back to me. If you are the parent of a special needs child, you will understand how joyous, how unbelievably marvellous and wonderful and splendid and good and all things incredible this was. Together we set up our second sprouting jar with seeds, making a mini science experiment of it-he poured in the seeds and water with my help and just loved it and got a mess of silly seeds everywhere. He is so excited every time we go and check on them and he is really happy to see they have little tails grwing-I told him when they grow long enough we are gonna EAT them, YUM YUM YUM! and then we'll grow some more. :) I hope this fun project will encourage his tastebuds in a good direction.
Then...as well as just enjoying all sorts of fun things, like playing ball and drawing and cutting out shapes, he wanted to show me something in the hallway. O.K........
Suddenly, my son climbed the stairs. All by himself. :') He came back down, scooting on his bum....and for hours that day we played a silly ball game on the stairs, and climbed up and scooted down the stairs on our bums. Not the most comfortable of activities, but I was just so happy that my son was feeling confident and capable once more, and that he wanted to share that with me meant the world to me.
As if this weren't enough news, he has also learned to say "wa wa" to tell me that he wants water, and has said "O.O." when looking at pictures of himself!!! How GREAT is that??? Today, he went all the way down the stone stairs leading downtown-just holding a hand. I'm STUNNED-those stairs are not an easy climb, even for me!!!! Oh my life!!!

So my son is now kissing my face again-and LOTS, at that <3 , has expressed to me in his "words" that he loves me, can now climb LOTS of stairs, no longer hates showers, knows his initials and water, and is just enjoying life again. He is just blooming. Oh my life. I am feeling so much better too, my soul is smiling to be this way again. I have hoped for so long-the weight of relief is almost too much to bear! Ha ha. My entire self feels relief. In any manner, I am just bursting with love and gratitude.
....and I am certainly not planning on eating almonds any time soon.

Ergh. Spring..

Two and a half...
2 1/2...
2.5...
Two.
and.
a.
half...
PLUS
a month...

ALREADY!

Last night-as I often do-I lay awake, adorning my fondest friend, most precious creation, handsomest aquaintance, the strongest predilection I have ever known with a loving gaze, it struck me that my son is only five months away from being three years old. It feels like it is going so quickly and it kind of scares me, because I am desperate to pause it all. I don't want much of anything in the world to move. Time, an imaginary manmade concept to which I am blind, petrifies me. It is not that I do not believe I will enjoy my son as an adult, because I know without any shadow of a doubt that I will. It is simply that I love him so much as he is right now. I love to nurse him. I love that his little body somehow keeps me warm at night while we sleep. I love the single lengthy, tightly wound curl that grows at the back of his wispy strawberry hairs. I love that we fit into the bathtub together and I love putting the socks on his feet. I love the little dimple-dent creases that are always on his legs, even with how slender he is. I love how excited it makes him to have his favouritest-ever shirt clean & dry. I love scooping him up to bring him up the stairs at night and I just love being needed and wanted so much and I love him so much just the way that he is. I wonder sometimes if I am the only silly person whose heart breaks as often as it does shine, because of how severely they love.

Osrid Olov has met his grandfather-my father-for the very first time! Of course, right before my Dad got here, irony of ironies...he began to really start to cut his..-dun-dun-dun, MOLARS. Yowch. It was a bittersweet time in that sense, because O.O. was having a really hard time and staying up so late that I got only but few hours with Dad in the days he was here. We went for some long drives, and had some much needed, soul-feeding talks though and on Paul's birthday we went to Looe for the first time since we moved. We took a long walk around and then got Sam & James to come over with their beautiful little girl to Paul's folks house too to celebrate and O.O. and her got along really well which was incredibly cool, especially because he doesn't really interact with other kids at all. Both of them got very upset when all of the cake was eaten, though. Understandably...I do make a pretty good cake ;) It was very hard to see my Dad go, as I had not seen him in 4 years, but that evening he just started having such a hard time anyway and it showed me how much he needed my full attention.
                              

O.O. has regressed in his speech development. Paul believes it might be related to dentition(molars). I am not entirely sure, but it is sad to me that he struggles so much with verbal communication-he is back to only saying a few words now. He is getting better and better with nonverbal communication though; and is starting to draw recognisable pictures. I can see faces in his drawings, even, which is incredible to me. I asked whose face one was and he said it was Daddy, which was so very sweet! He is also making a lot of different humming noises and gestures to indicate different things when he needs them. It is a language all in its own and the more I memorise, the easier things do get...

Though, some things have been very very hard recently. The teething pain is driving him very crazy, I think-he doesn't quite seem himself the last couple of days. Recently, he developed a new allergy, on a more serious note-it came on so unbelievably quick. It happened as out-of-the-blue as him, and then eventually me, becoming allergic to capsaicin/chillies. He reacted twice in a row, very very severely, to things with cocoa in them. Not chocolate. Please, anything but that! Sigh. Oddly, I reacted too, but in a much smaller way (my atopic exema flaring, tiredness)-his was shortness of breath, a humongous bright red rash through the entire body with bumps and crying, shivering/fever. Both times. It is so sad that this is happening, especially since I have been working so hard to heal our guts and avoid environmental toxins, ect etera. It makes me scared of what other things could develop. I hate living life without being able to eat at restaurants or grab things at stores I'm unfamiliar with, ect. But this is what it costs to be well. There is no other choice.

It is finally spring weather here in Padstow. Which is disgusting and I wish it would go back to being winter. I do not like the sun, or outdoor warmth, or any such hoopajoo. That is all.
                         

Sleepy Bus

It's July already and I'm terrible at keeping up my blog.

I've been keeping busy, having had much to do with an application involving my immigration that has taken up a lot more time than I had expected. It's caused a lot of stress but I'm trying to breathe. Paul has had great news, he's been promoted already to the Customer Service desk which is a contracted permanent position, and in the Union to boot. No payraise yet, unfortunately, but it does imply some degree of stability which we've been looking for a long time. I am so proud of him!

We've been on more adventures lately-the little one had grown a lot and was in desperate need for new shoes, so we headed to Bodmin to meet his Nana who helped him with that-he also got a new outfit from the charity shops because he'd gotten soaked with rain. We also headed to the pond to see the ducks, and O.O. had a laugh running in circles in the health food shoppe. 

This week saw us travelling to Newquay-no good reason other than to get a break in scenery for Paul's day off. The cliffs and beaches are so beautiful that I was ashamed that my camera had ran out of battery. I didn't feel very well as my fibromyalgia decided to flare randomly, and Ozzy slept through both bus rides, but it was still beautiful and we've got some good ideas for future outings. 

We've had such a lovely break in the weather the past couple of days with some sunshine-I have been enjoying it as much as I can, taking Ozzy to the park and playing ball in our teeny backyard. O.O. has such a wonderfully silly sense of humour and giggles when the ball hits his head. 

Little spiders have made cobwebs all over the laundry that I hung up, what, two months ago? I love them and their little webs so much that I've not dared to take the washing in. They can borrow my linens, for now!

My Little Guy is 1!

I cannot believe it-officially a toddler.
We had a lovely day yesterday. Osrid Olov opened presents-he got so much stuff! A new outfit, new cloth nappies, a DJ station toy (he is REALLY into making music) with like 80 gazillion sound effects, a cuddly colourful spider with a mirror on the belly, new slippers, and a swim spider (octopus) that he picked out at a shoppe window from Mum & Dad, Grandparents on Dad's side gave him a wooden Xylophone (more music stuff, cool!) and toy cars, uncle Matthew got him a stacking animal toy set, Grandad on my side sent some $ (which no doubt he will blow at the casino when we are asleep), and great grandparents on my side seem to have sent a bit of that too-and we also got some nice cards from everyone. Thanks everybody!

It was raining, as it always seems to in North Cornwall (seriously. EVERY. DAY.), so instead of going to the Newquay aquarium like we had planned we decided to just bundle O.O. up and take him for a walk downtown. It is the first time we have been down there because it is a little bit of a walk away, but it is quite nice. Lots of ships on the quay. The people are very friendly here, which is nice. We all got quite winded at the end of the walk but fortunately some nice people at a seafood restaurant (ironic) called a cab for us.

We did a hand and foot print of Osrid's with carob powder and water-I forgot to buy paint but it is just as well, less of a carbon footprint this way I suppose. Totally nontoxic and Ozzie liked making a mess with it.

I can't help being a bit emotional...it is hard for a mother watching her babe grow. I sort of wish he could stay small forever, he is so sweet and cute and special. <3 Aww, my little boy! Just don't grow up too fast...