All in the Family

Ok so it's been awhile.

Quite a few things have happened. I have a 4 month old! I have a 4 month old with personal hearing aids. I also found out that BOR syndrome runs in my family. BOR stands for, get ready, "branchiootalrenal" syndrome.

It can affect internal and external ear structures, kidneys, and then some people with BORS have branchial cleft cysts which are basically disconnected sinuses that look like tiny holes in a person's neck. Madeleine has mild-moderate hearing loss, an ear tag on one ear, an ear pit as well as what they call a cup ear.

I have moderate hearing loss in my left ear and an ear pit on my right ear. Several of my family members on my mom's side have a mix of these symptoms; however, Madeleine definitely got the worst of it. Thankfully none of us have anything abnormal happening with our kidneys.

This syndrome affects 1 in 40,000 people therefore it's pretty rare!

I'm going back and forth with being upset and figuring that our situation could be so much worse. She gets to visit with a teacher who does play therapy with us in our living room. There's a neat preschool in Seattle that's intended for kids who are hard of hearing so they learn how to effectively communicate before going to Kindergarten. Such a cool program!

Introduction!

So I'm going to try and maintain a blog where I can document my life as a stay-at-home mom. I'm 24 years old. I just got my degree in Early Childhood and Family Studies from the University of Washington.

I married my husband, Matt, July 2012 and then we discovered that we were expecting a baby July 2013. My birthday happens to be in July, as are my grandpa's and my dog's birthdays. July is now incredibly busy for us. Good thing it's the best month ever.

Well I plan to blog about things like parenting, cooking, what it's like being at home all the time with a baby... etc.

Did you know I can't cook?

Yeah! I have a handful of things I can make fairly well, but even the most basic of dishes, I am far too capable of screwing up.... It took being a full time stay at home mom to figure out that I actually suck at making pancakes. I can however make spaghetti and meatballs....when the sauce comes from the jar and the meatballs are fully cooked and frozen. Gah!

Well I suppose since I still have an odd schedule, I can practice my cooking skills. I made beef stew today. It was so so. Nothing fantastic, but also not garbage worthy. 

Next week, I'm going to attempt to make this:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/perfect-pan-roasted-chicken-thighs

I did make this a couple weeks ago:  

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/linguine-vegetables-goat-cheese-00100000106291/index.html 

It turned out AMAZING!

I might also try baking something. I definitely suck at baking. I just can't stand measuring everything out perfectly... and therefore I definitely suck at baking. But being a new parent gives you practice at being patient which might be just what I need when I bake things. 

What?!

So we took little M to the audiologist a couple weeks ago. She failed the hospital screening when she was just a day old, so they suggested we wait a month or so and take her in to the Children's hospital. I wasn't too freaked out as hearing loss does run in my family, but we do just fine. Nobody relies on sign language and only my grandmother uses a hearing aid.... though my mom should probably use one, too.

The audiologist performed a few tests and lo and behold little M has hearing loss in both ears. Her hearing loss is in the mild range, but it's close to the moderate range for some tones. Anyway.... this qualifies her for hearing aids. I'm not quite sure if I'm in denial or if I have a right to be skeptical that she really needs hearing aids. I've known that I've had hearing loss my whole life. I never had any trouble in school because of my hearing. I could have the best hearing in the world and still get shitty grades in math. If I didn't hear something it was because I wasn't paying attention.

After the appointment, I briefly flipped out, thinking that this really couldn't be happening to us. But we're ok now. We get to decide if she's going to learn any sign language. I am very doubtful that she would ever need to rely on signing. We'll learn some signs, mostly because dual language learners are usually pretty dang smart.

Yesterday I went to Costco where they do free hearing screenings to see if you'd benefit from a hearing aid. I went mostly because I just wanted some numbers to compare to Madeleine's hearing loss. My left ear scored way further into the moderate range, but my right ear is mostly normal. I guess that's a pretty uncommon type of hearing loss. Plus my left ear has a hard time picking up low tones whereas most people with HL have difficulties with high tones. Looks like I get to go see a specialist and maybe get an MRI to figure out if it's an ossicle deformity. If that's the case, I might be a candidate for surgery. I'm not that interested in hauling ass to the hospital.... but we'll see.

Anyone else out there care to share their story of hearing loss?

Dairy Free

It seems that baby is sensitive to cow's milk.... I'm not totally sure if she was gassy before I stopped eating all dairy products, but the big clue about her intolerance to casein was the green poops! At first I thought it was a fore milk and hind milk imbalance, since that's a common cause of green poop! THEN I talked to a veteran mom-friend of mine who was pretty convinced that Madeleine's issue was me eating all sorts of dairy.

Every so often it feels like my life is over because I happen to love a lot of things that contain dairy. Like my beloved caramel sauce americanos... or cheese  tortellini and of course most Greek foods with tzatziki. Even the vodka sauce we bought has dairy? I can still have guacamole and all the Thai food I want! I hear that some babies grow out of the intolerance at 3 months or 6 months. I can't wait to order a caramel sauce americano next month! Hopefully she can handle me eating a little bit of dairy...

This creamer has definitely saved my sanity. I'm pretty reluctant to try other weird dairy alternatives but I'm glad I was brave enough to give this one a go. They also make it in PUMPKIN SPICE!!!

And I've found recipes for pumpkin pie using their creamer. This holiday season shouldn't be that shitty, now!