Camerons testing

We had Cam's appointment with the GI dr, and she suspected lactose intolerance but something else as well since we have eliminated milk and he is still having bowel issues. She sent us off for testing. We were given 7 little containers to take home and fill with poop, which was truly the most vile thing I have ever EVER done. EVER. Then we were sent to the Childrens hospital for a lactose intolerance test which is breathing into some little bags, they then analyze his breath for the enzyme to break down lactose. We had to wake up and leave the house by 5:45, the test started at 7am, and it was supposed to last 3 hours- fasting. Jim was at work and I decided to let Ethan babysit- he is really good with Sloane, and knows how to get her ready and fed in the mornings. Cam and I went to the hospital and we were home by 8. Turns out he has a bacterial overgrowth in his stomach so they couldn't complete the test. Nice. Of course, they still charged us $1700 for the dang test ($500 was our portion after insurance). Technically they did do the test, they just didn't complete it, so I don't know if we will get some money back from that or not but frankly if we don't I can't afford to do it again! Bah! He has to take some special antibiotics to get rid of the bacteria- and that may actually solve many of his problems! The last remaining test is an abdominal ultrasound- he does that tomorrow at the Children's hospital again. Hopefully this test is cheaper! It is in the morning again so I will just let Ethan watch Sloane like last time. He loves having that responsibility, and having that time alone with Sloane. I am so lucky for that! And he is great about calling me if he has any questions which makes me feel so much better about it all. Too bad there is no cel phone reception in the hospital!

pool time with daddy

Sloane loves the water- she is really pretty comfortable being in it- I can't wait for next year so I can get her in swim lessons!

a few of my favorite things...

I tried to take a picture to show just how pretty Sloane's curls are but I couldn't get a good enough picture- but I will show you anyway. Ethan is so cute with his longer hair- even if it is kind of scroungy looking here.

This picture annoys me and I will tell you why- I did not do anything special to get this picture, he just looked at me, I clicked and bam. This boy can not have a bad picture taken of him. his smile is about as amazing as his eyes. Why can't anyone ever get pictures of ME this good???

Summer is here!

June 3 was the last day of school for Ethan. Now the boys get to spend way too much time together! I am doing something new this summer- homework! I know- I am so mean! But Ethan had such a rough year and I want him to be ahead of the game just a bit when he starts 5th grade. Other than that, we aren't doing a whole - lot this summer, Cameron will do swim lessons, Ethan will do karate, and I am not sure if I am going to do mommy and me swim with Sloane or not. I think we will just spend alot of time at the gym, since all the kids' neighborhood friends will be at bible school during the day anyway so there isn't alot to do around the 'hood!
In July, I have been asked to teach 1 class to our church on Japanese! They are learning about different countries every week as well as the language, songs they sing, and religions in that country. I am really excited about this! I think I am going to teach them to sing the alphabet and maybe write their names in Japanese. Yeah!
Other than that- Sloane is doing GREAT with potty training. I have not put ANY effort into it at all, she does it all on her own. She wears a pullup to bed at night and strips naked as soon as she wakes up. She uses the potty when she needs to and I put a pullup on her for her nap, which she again promptly takes off when she wakes up. She is naked all.the.time. My boys loved being naked but they would tolerate clothes at least and she doesn't. she really only wears clothes at bed and nap time- it is hard to dress her if we have to go somewhere and then she tries to take her stuff off in the stores sometimes too! Crazy!

Oh and Big big news......Sloane is weaned! 2 years 2months of breastfeeding her and we are finally done. I didn't think that time would ever come and I have never had either of my boys demand it for so long. It didn't really interrupt our life though so I didn't mind terribly- especially since she was my last baby. I have been having alot of migraines though and I have to be careful with migraine medications and nursing- now I don't have to be so careful and hopefully I can find something to finally get rid of these migraines! Yeah!

Just testin g out the new feature on blogger: blogging from my phone :)

tummy aches

Cameron has had tummy issues for forever! When he was a baby he had diarrhea- multiple times a day every day. EVERY DAY. This was after his reflux....now he has moved on to stomach aches... His tummy hurts nearly every day. It has been going on for a couple of years now- it comes and goes and we haven't really found the cause. He still doesn't have normal poops either- it isn't the big D anymore but it still is never formed and smells worse than , well worse than anything I can describe. I talked to Sloane's dr about it and he suggested that it could be dairy (even though he had a small amount of testing done in Virginia that included dairy) so we took him off of milk. and cheese. oh, and butter. Bah- dairy is in everything! Thank goodness we have a large selection of health food stores in the area, so he gets to have rice cheese (american slices & mozzarella) vanilla flavored almond milk (we call this ice cream milk because it tastes like melted ice cream), coconut milk icecream, and some kind of dairy free soy free butter.
What do you know- the stomach pain is gone!!! Well, it was until I messed up today and gave him some microwave popcorn (buttered). Oops. luckily he only felt bad for about 30 minutes.
We had some bloodwork done last week on him- they tested for celiacs as well as some other things, but that all came back negative. He sees a specialist next week in Fort Worth.