I Need A Nap

Rainbows and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss

2017-03-19T19:59:00.001-07:00

I've written this blog in my head so many times over the last three years, but if I ever actually post it, it's only because our rainbow has finally arrived after a long storm. For those not familiar with the language used in support circles for women who have lost babies and pregnancies, a Rainbow Baby is a baby born after the loss of a previous pregnancy. Grateful doesn't begin to

Food For My Kid with Multiple Food Allergies

2016-05-14T10:04:00.002-07:00

This is the last of my Food Allergy Awareness Week Posts and I thought I'd go through the process of what it's like to buy and prepare food for my son. To start, when you look at it all at once, it's a lot to manage and it's all very overwhelming. Although it would have been great to somehow download this right from the get go, we are still learning the nuances of feeding our kid with

My Favorite (Allergy Friendly) Things

2016-05-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hand in hand with my post earlier this week looking at silver linings of food allergies, we've discovered a world of products and companies that are sensitive to the needs of individuals with allergies. They've become such staples in our household and in our daily lives that even if my son outgrows his multiple food allergies, they're likely to stay a part of our regular purchasing habits

Five Things I Want People To Understand About Food Allergies

2016-05-12T10:41:00.002-07:00

1) No one knows why food allergies are on the rise. There are many theories about what has spurred the rise in life-threatening food allergies - but there is no single answer. It can be frustrating to read about or to be told about all the things I should do or should have done to prevent my son's food allergies - especially from strangers who don't know the first thing about the

Food Allergens... Where You Wouldn't Expect Them

2016-05-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

Until you have to check every single label every single time you buy something, you can't really understand how sneaky allergens can be... creeping their way into things you never ever expected them to show up. Ingredient lists CHANGE ALL THE TIME so no prepackaged food is ever safe 100% of the time and although we have brands we generally trust, I still have to check it several times and

The Silver Linings of Multiple Food Allergies

2016-05-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

It is SO easy to wallow in despair when you're living with multiple life-threatening food allergies. There is a lot of anxiety that goes hand in hand with the vigilance required to keep a child safe from the dangerous crumbs lingering around every corner. Every parent of a child with life-threatening food allergies has shed plenty of tears over their child's diagnosis before picking

Navigating a Social Life with Food Allergies

2016-05-09T09:14:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, things have changed significantly since my son's food allergy diagnosis. Having a child alters your social life anyway, but having a child with multiple life-threatening food allergies requires a bit of extra effort and planning on our part (and sometimes on the part of our friends and family) to make sure O is included. Many times the safest

Food Allergy Awareness Week - React with Respect

2016-05-08T12:50:00.001-07:00

Today marks the start of Food Allergy Awareness Week, and this year's focus is on encouraging individuals without food allergies to react with respect when someone tells them they have a food allergy. Now, for most people I know, reacting to food allergies with respect and compassion seems like a no-brainer, but you only need to spend a few seconds in the comment section of any food

Our Anaphylaxis Story

2015-05-15T15:50:00.002-07:00

Just retelling this story brings back all the anxiety of that night in late October of 2014, but this week is Food Allergy Awareness week, and I'm going to share our story. When my son, O, was 14 months old, he was rushed to the ER by ambulance due to a severe allergic reaction. O was at my parents' house (like he is normally when The Husband and I are at work) and had just woke from his nap

29.

2012-03-14T21:46:00.002-07:00

I'm pressed for time, but I just have to crank out a blog tonight. Today I am 29. Tomorrow I will be 30. I started my first real blog when I was 19. It was really stupid, but I think I downloaded all that stuff into an archive before I deleted that account. I should go back and read it sometime. I'm pretty sure it was all about the boys I had crushes on and stuff I did

Falling Out of Facebook

2012-02-16T21:57:00.003-08:00

Photo by opensourceway, opensource.com via Flickr. Created by Ruth Suehle When I first joined Facebook, my tagline was "I hate Facebook." A year into my Facebook addiction, I realized my old tagline wasn't true anymore and I changed it to "I love nachos." This is still true. I REALLY love nachos. The strange thing is that I'm starting to find truth in my old tagline again.

Oh Hai...

2012-01-24T22:23:00.000-08:00

Um. Hello? Not sure anyone is there anymore. Same old story, I've neglected this blog for months. Two years ago I blamed NaBloPoMo for my absence. Last year, I didn't even make it to NaBloPoMo. I have a backlog of things I've been meaning to blog about. Pictures I've meant to edit and post. At some point in the next 500 years, I'll get around to it. To be fair, I've

Mini Hoodlums

2011-08-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

This morning as I was driving into work, I spotted three middle-school aged boys standing outside my friend's apartment complex. They had backpacks on, so I assumed they were waiting for a bus or something to come pick them up. I had a bad feeling about three mischievous seeming boys climbing on and around the apartment complex signage at 6:50AM, so I proceeded with caution. I watched them

Comic-Con 2011: The Blog

2011-07-31T20:46:00.001-07:00

It has been precisely a week since we've returned from the insanity that is Comic-Con International in San Diego, CA. This year's SDCC was the most memorable of our trips thus far and it's difficult to imagine how the experience could be any more awesome in future years. Here's how it went down. Wednesday: Preview Night.This is usually the night we pick up our badges, buy our passes

Significant Time Capsules

2011-05-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

This was an entry I originally wrote in 2008 for a "family update" kind of blog that we were supposed to write in to keep extended family up-to-date with our lives. Our day to day activities are pretty boring so when there was a lack of entries, I'd blog about something random to fill the space. Now I do that here and since the husband isn't as fond of blogging as I am, that blog

Voice-over Work

2011-04-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

From the day Apple became part of our family, Mike and I have done this thing that I'm just starting to realize not all pet owners do. When one of us asks Apple a question, the other will answer as Apple's voice-over. Describing it now makes me realize how strange that actually makes us, but what's even stranger is that it wasn't something that came up gradually, it just automatically

Doppelganger Dream Theater

2011-03-24T14:04:00.000-07:00