the long version. in short.

today asher decided he's ready to potty train so for rewards he was getting the only candy in the house. the easter candy. in the same bag was paul's easter candy: reese's peanut butter cups. later i was outside getting the baby from the case worker. (yes-we have a placement...that's another post. he's adorable! like a red-headed charlie brown that never stops smiling.) paul was downstairs working on the basement. i came into the house and found 3 empty wrappers and only 1 still in asher's mouth. i know karyssa ate one...so where's the third? i knew he was allergic to peanuts, but he's never reacted. but i've never let this comment out of my head: "you just never know which reaction is gonna be the anaphylactic reaction."

this is the following 4 hours:
red cheeks (not an unusual response to his food allergies.)
puffy lips
coughing
hoarse voice
no voice
glassy eyes
epi-pen search
911
firemen
ambulance
breathing treatment
paul and asher off to the ER
neighbors in my yard with arms out for the other kids
drive to the ER with one quick call asking 911 if i can get a police escort. (i was freaking out and was told those only happen in the movies and he was fine.)
sheepish giggle and realizing i'm freaking out
found him at the ER!
hives
red from head to toe (minus the two areas on his chest exactly outlining his lungs...odd)
puffy puffy puffy
then just puffy puffy
quick education on the difference of allergic and anaphylactic
found out it goes: benedryl, steroids, then epi-pens
benedryl and steroids given
WHOA he doesn't react well to that mix!!!!
peanut scented burps (found where that 3rd cup went)
he went potty on the potty at the ER!
naked boy walking around the ER
fresh diaper located (we only had one!)
craaaaaash asleep in daddy's arms
discharge and home for the dinner i was making when this all began.

WHEW. that's all i can post now. i gotta bag of reese's cups to eat tonight.

Sunday night we went out on a date night and went to a Nuggets game with Paul's work...free tickets, so we couldn't resist making it into a date night. Well, me and my good friend Suma went out to get treats and they took our picture. She posted it on Facebook today and I realized how much weight I've really lost. I don't see it because I look at myself every day. I weigh myself, so I know the numbers have gone down (20 pounds since Christmas of '08)...but I didn't realize until I saw the picture how much I've really lost!

sugar sugar

i found out this week that sugar makes me really angry. like 0 to 60 angry in 1 second. i didn't ever notice it before but i know my family thinks i have a short fuse. they have alot of opinions about me that are wrong. yes, you do. you know who you are and i'm not going to fight with you about it. i get an oreo for that. (that was always our reward when we were little.)
anyway-this week i got really mad at tatum. we were getting ready to go for our daily walk and i put tatum on her leash and connected it to the stroller, then sweet pea was sitting in the stroller and peanut was in his carrier on my tummy and i stepped away to put on my shoes. that dog. went NUTS trying to get away from the stroller. like all of a sudden when i wasn't standing right next to it she went HAYWIRE! oh i was so mad at her. i grabbed her by the collar and said "SIT!!!!!! STAY!!!!!!" and she did for as long as i was standing there and then she went crazy AGAIN! OH. so mad. we finally got out the door like a three ring circus and took our walk but i was so mad i coulda drop kicked that dog a mile away. and she's my BABY! i couldn't believe i could get that mad at her. once we got home and all undone she moped over in the corner for a good hour. but it made me wonder if sugar is what made me get that mad that fast at my little goofy baby puppy dog!

warning: this is a pissy attitude post

ok. i'm having a bad day. actually i'm having a bad two days in a row. the duggars have announced #19 is coming. and she said on their show last night "by god's grace i will carry this baby and by god's grace i will give birth to it." and i just thought-where's my stupid grace? where's my baby? where's my giving birth? what did i ever do to not deserve some grace? it just makes me mad. and we paid the bills last night and again have no money to put into savings and i feel like i'm throwing money away to acupuncture. i'm still not pregnant, i'm just more money in the hole. paul says not to worry about it and it's not that i worry about it. it's that i'm tired of wasting money on something that comes naturally to what seems like everyone else. and i'm pissed. and hurt that i don't get any stupid grace.
i went to bed questioning paul if he really believes that we'll ever have our own baby because i don't believe anymore. he says he does.

big strides. ok, not BIG strides, but strides nonetheless

this week i took sweet pea for a weigh in. 15 pounds 11 ounces. YAY!!!! ok-so she's still not on the charts for gaining BUT she's gaining AND she's starting to walk AND she's teething. so when you add in those factors it makes my measley 8 ounce gain look like i'm raising godzilla. she's actually chubbing out of her 3-6 month pants. i'm so ecxited. i would LOVE if one week someone said "ooh look at that! a whole pound" or something ridiculous. or even if they didn't have to go back to their office to "check the charts." she's just so small that she doesn't fit any of them.

this week was a little bit rough for me. i got news about how things are going and it made me shake in my boots a little bit. i know she's not mine until the judge says so. and i know we are so so freaking far away from that that i can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. but i still read into every little move and over analyze every report that comes back to me. and i know the case workers can't tell me so much stuff because of privacy and they can't mislead me in any way and i understand and even appreciate that. but if i could just get my hands on a genie bottle or a crystal ball. *sigh* i got to acupuncture friday night and molly said "so how are you doing?" and i just broke down into a pool of sobs. it was right after the shaking in my boots phone call. i feel so ridiculous. i KNOW what to expect. i can tell people exactly what has to happen between here and then. but my heart just refuses to follow suit.

which brings me to another update. acupuncture is coming along fine. but the sugar part of the diet is getting hard. it's still not hard to avoid sugar, but it is getting hard to avoid things like white flour, and potatoes that turn into sugar once they hit my metabolism. that part is getting frustrating. it cuts out pizza crust, french frieds, mashed potatoes, bread, crackers, sweet breads and treats that every office has sitting around. it's just getting hard. and i'm not doing good avoiding dairy. DAIRY. i gave up dairy YEARS ago because it made me sick. but now knowing that someone else says that i can't have it has me feeling like i need yogurt or american cheese. all these great little treats we have laying around to fatten up a certain sweet pea. (see above if you've already forgotten our fattening up mission.) i don't know. i hate to bitch and moan through this whole post of a pity party. and there's all these pregnancy announcements around me and i think "how'd SHE get pregnant?" i have to remember my problems are not everyone else's problems. and my journey is not hers. and i have to keep trying the path i've chosen because i don't know what else to do but give up. oh forget it. i guess i'm going to bitch and moan through this entire post. whoa is me. go on, give it to me. let me have all your pity.

it's been a WEEK!

sorry for my lack of posts. life keeps happening. tuesday we were supposed to run some stuff down to the girls and on my way home paul called and said their mom had called us to see if we could come over for dinner! OK! she made delicious stuffed shells and keep in mind-it was vegan and it was delicious. i told her "now i understand why the girls would cry through dinners!" ha! i took some fresh strawberries and white cake cupcakes for a strawberry shortcake of sorts and of course their mom knew how to whip up sugar-free-vegan whipped cream. we spent 3 hours just talking and eating and covering all the bases. their dad even thanked us and told us that we are welcome in their home anytime and we don't have to worry that we're calling too much because they appreciate everything we've done for them. it made me cry. we left feeling like our life is even more weird than we thought.

then friday night i went to my acupuncture appointment and we were talking about my diet and how i'm doing and molly was shocked that i was able to drop sugar so quickly. i kinda felt like "you mean i didn't HAVE to?" she also said she really wants me to try and go gluten free. at first i thought THAT is gonna be too hard. but then i got to thinking about what i would have to give up on top of what i'm eating and it would be....my whole wheat toast in the morning. we make pizza once a week with whole wheat flour AND mozzarella, i'd have to give that up. all dairy-ALL dairy-even my crack yogurt. my crack yogurt is: greek yogurt (that Brenda introduced me to just last week), organic dairy yogurt, a good squirt of agave and then some fruit-raspberries, strawberries, peaches, bananas-anything-you can't go wrong. BUUUUUUT, i'll have to give that up. but that's pretty much it-we're there already. the kids mom let me borrow a cookbook (again with the irony of my life) and it is all sugar free, wheat free, dairy free recipes. so that has been a wealth of information on other flours i can use. so today i'm going to make my grocery list and head down to whole foods and see what i can't figure out.

even though i have no kids of my own, i'm forming relationships with people i wouldn't have picked out of a crowd of thousands to befriend, i'm in a place in life i never in a million years, let alone 3 months ago, would have believed i would be, i'm using acupuncture to open my "chanels" in order to do what most people do on accident a million times around the world a day, i feel what i think others call "blessed".