Sunday, February 26, 2012

Golden Hour

There's something really amazing about the sunlight in our part of the world in the winter. It doesn't sit directly overhead, so you don't get any crazy unflattering shadows for a good chunk of the day. And the golden hour, that fleeting, fantastic moment of time right after sunrise or right before sunset, where the light just glows, is so amazing.

We had a few days of incredibly forgiving spring weather in the middle of winter. This winter hasn't been a cold one, but it's been typical as far as the lack of sunshine. So the gift of a sliver of gold was seized upon by yours truly and our favorite kid.

Enjoy the pictures. They're some of my favorites yet.

Sunset over the Olympics
Beach bum
Golden hour
Golden hour
Footprints
Beach sunset
Beach sunset
Best playground
Playing in the sand

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Wandering around Seattle

I have some photos to catch up on, specifically from early December. I just took these pictures recently, though, and wanted to share them. They're kind of artsy fartsy and black and white, but bear with me. I'm trying to get caught up on the backlog of photos this week. Enjoy!

Tesla reserved
Brick wall
Do not enter
Safety first
Bucketload
IMG_0020
Happy
My boy
Smiles
Woo! Trolley sighting!
Reading the Sunday funnies
Kipper and toy
Cultivating Genius

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Fructose update

What's new?


On Monday, I met with a nice lady named Suzanne, who has a five year old daughter with fructose malabsorption, just like Anthony. Our pediatrician put us in touch with her. She is a fantastic, funny lady, and she's incredibly helpful. Her daughter was diagnosed six months ago and they have a decent routine now where her daughter doesn't have any tummy issues most days. We learned from Suzanne that some things we thought were safe (some fruit juices, garlic, carrots), could be a real problem. We also learned that honey is pretty much the worst possible thing that Anthony could ever have. I was thankful to find out all of these new things and can't wait to meet with Suzanne again.

Since then, I've noticed things that I didn't before. We tried a small amount of orange juice the other night, and it was a disaster. We noticed that even a tiny bit of ketchup from Wendy's (which has high fructose corn syrup), or too many gluten-free cookies (too much sucrose, or table sugar, which makes the entire load of fructose too high) makes our guy's tummy hurt. We are absolutely ecstatic to find out that brown sugar is a-okay, as are chocolates, Smarties and Pixy Sticks, Anthony's favorites (yay!!!).

Just reading this blog post, you're all probably scratching your heads going, "How do you handle it?" I think, if I hadn't had the experience with the tummy aches myself, and hadn't gone through the dairy allergy with Anthony, or the gluten issues with myself, I would probably be sobbing during most trips to the store. The few times we've ventured down the cereal and fruit snacks/juice aisle, I've felt sadness, knowing he's not a normal kid anymore. But that's quickly replaced with joy, knowing our once very sick little boy feels great almost all of the time and he doesn't have some awful disease.

We'll update soon with more information as we know it.