Smiles!

Look how strong she is!



I particularly like her hair in these pictures. It's the result of a hat, a nap in a hat, and not having her hair washed for some time now - her scalp is rather dry. Boo

She's happy here but we're still having issues with her eating. I have decided to go on the "elimination diet" I can eat nothing but potatoes, rice, green and yellow squash, pears and range fed turkey or lamb. It can take up to two weeks to see results, but it can happen a lot faster. This diet is to remove any possible protein allergens from my system, and thus, hers. From there I can begin to add back foods one at a time and then see if there's a reaction. The poor thing has eczema all over her body, and even on her scalp, she's not sleeping great and she's not eating great. We don't have a history of food allergies in either of our families but I'm to the point where I'll try anything to make her better, except for switching to formula that is! Not that she'd take it anyway - we've tried once or twice. Anyway, if anyone out there in cyber land has a child with a food allergy and you want to give me some tips, that would be great! I'm flying pretty solo. Our pediatrician just doesn't seem to give much merit to the food allergy thing, but we're running out of possible causes here.

So, the good news is that as seen in picture above, Amelia can lift her head completely perpendicular to the floor now when on her tummy and she's getting really close to rolling from her belly to her back. I'm not in a huge hurry for her to figure it out though, that makes her harder to keep in one place! She smiles all the time - except after eating - and is really such a happy, go lucky gal. Most days she can play with a couple of dangling toys for 30 minutes on her own and she's happy hanging out in the bjorn or her sling while I do things around the house or go grocery shopping. She loves people and tries to talk and blow rasberries. This motherhood thing is definitely wearing me out and I'm in much better spirits some days than others. I'm just really hoping this diet will shed some light on what is causing her discomfort and then we can move forward much better off. Gotta run!