My big boy's sleeping in a bed now. :)

*sigh* Where has the time gone? It sounds so cliche, but really, I wonder.

Nic dismantled the crib last night and so Ben bunked in his inflatable/travel Thomas the Tank Engine bed last night. His new furniture arrived today just in time for his afternoon nap. He settled into it no problem, had a great nap. Bedtime rolled around and Ben just climbed right in, no questions, got under the covers and after goodnight kisses from Mama and Daddy he was out like a light.

Now, what *I* love about the bed is that I can actually tuck Ben in properly, with goodnight kisses and all. It was impossible to do a good tucking in job with the crib because of its high rails.

I'll take some pictures tomorrow morning when Ben wakes up and will try to post them soon.

Sweet dreams, little man. :)

A small twinge of hope re: Ben's peanut allergy

A recent discussion on a food allergy forum encouraged me to do a bit more digging into the reliability of skin prick testing (SPT) and radioallergosorbent (blood) testing (RAST).

Here's a bit of what I found...

Extensive screening against broad panels of specific allergens that are not linked with symptoms should not be performed, as many of the positive results will be false positives, reflecting the common entity labelled "asymptomatic hypersensitivity". For example, screening an atopic patient for peanut allergy when there is no history of peanut reactions may produce a false positive result. It is inappropriate to recommend allergen avoidance on the basis of SPT or CAP testing alone, as most positive results in patients without an appropriate clinical history are false positive results. (Click for link to source.)

This first snippet is particularly relevant because Ben has *never* had a peanut induced rxn. It had me thinking because I ate peanut granola bars (remember my sweet n' salty addiction?) when he was a wee babe, was careless with a wrapper, and he ended up handling it. I had also kissed his cheeks and never saw a rxn. It could be dumb luck that he's never reacted, or maybe he's not contact sensitive, OR with a whole lotta luck, it'll turn out he's not really allergic.

The reliability of a positive SPT is only about 50% in general; however in cases of anaphylaxis it can confirm the diagnosis. A negative SPT is about 95% predictive but may be a false negative in the very young. This is the situation when the RAST test can be utilized. (Click for link to source.)

A RAST test is a blood test looking for the presence of allergen specific antibodies. It's generally less reliable because it produces more false positives than SPT, *but* a negative is a negative and a positive, in conjunction with a positive SPT, can serve to confirm an allergy, so it's a useful tool for sure.

Anyway, I'm planning to push for a RAST test whether or not the allergist performs an SPT test.

I know it probably sounds like a bunch of gobbledegook, but I'm hopeful. I'm doing my best to not get my hopes up too much though, because logically it really is a small possibility that the positive peanut test result was incorrect since the other positives from that round of testing (egg and milk) were correct.

I'm not one to pray, but that's all I've got right now. How wonderful would it be for my sweet boy to not have a life threatening food allergy hanging over him for the rest of his life.

The 2's are definitely upon us!

Two is more than an age, it's a state of mind. And that "state" is best described as stubborn with a good dose of independance. A sure sign that a toddler has achieved this state is flat out refusal punctuated with the word "no."

Yep, Ben has finally learned that horrid two-letter word every parent dreads, *but* delivers it very delicately and in a soft voice, as in "no-no, Mama" (as opposed to "NOOOOOO!!!") as if he's gently scolding a puppy. So, it seems Ben's not only learned how to say "no", but he's also learned to say it convincingly and persuasively - a skill that will serve him well for the rest of his life!

Daddy turned 40 on Jan 10th!

Ben's new big boy bedding!

Yay! I don't know who's more excited, me or Ben, but here are some photos of his new bedding. I found it at HomeSense after checking a few other stores.

Ordered Ben's "big boy" bedroom set today

And I'm so excited! I can't wait for it to arrive. It's a mates bed with three drawers, a two drawered night stand, and a tall chest of drawers. It's pine, but a light brown stain (I'm not a fan of the dark yellow natural pine achieves over time).

Part of me is sad to put away all the baby stuff, but it's time. Ben will do great in his new bed. He's ready, and at this point I don't anticipate a struggle. He loves to go to bed, never fights it. The only time we've ever had sleep woes is when we've had big changes going on here at home, like when we moved house. The first month in our new home was a long first month... for all of us.

Anyway, I'm thinking of a transportation theme for the bedding because Ben sure loves his cars, trucks, airplanes, trains, etc. Here's one set by Olive Kids I've been looking at (unfortunately they're in the US and I fear what sort of duty charges I might be dinged with if I order it).

Ben's furniture will take 4 - 6 weeks to arrive, so that'll give me some time to look around and find the (hopefully) perfect bedding set. I just want him to be completely excited when he opens the door and sees his new set-up.

*sniff* My wee boy is growing up.

Pretend play

Ben is getting more and more into pretend/imaginative play. It's so much fun to watch the adventures he takes his toys on. His Pablo dolls are dancing up a storm, his Thomas and Percy trains are "flying" around the room and getting "stuck", his little action figures go for walks off the coffee table and purposely land on their heads. It's hilarious. And just like a stereotypical boy everything is a "disaster", things getting stuck, things getting smashed, people falling off of things... what goes on in the mind of a boy? I didn't get that manual!

Ben's two year appointment

Ben's 3 ft tall now. One interesting factoid (or myth, maybe?) is that by your 2nd birthday you're 1/2 of your adult height. I guess we'll confirm or deny the theory in about 18 yrs.

Ben weighs 33 lbs at home, dressed, but in a fresh diaper. The GP weighed him fully clothed and with his winter boots on, and his weighed 35 lbs. Now he wants us to come back in a couple of months so he can check his weight again. *sigh* Ben stood on the scale all by himself though. What a big boy. :)

Our GP also filled in a speech development questionnairre to fax off to the screening people. He thinks they'll call us in for an appointment. Another *sigh*. Ben doesn't use pronouns, e.g., me, I, you, etc. and he doesn't read to his stuffed animals. (That last one makes me laugh.)

He does have superb stacking skills, however! He stacked eight pee bottles in the examination room. He could have kept going except he ran out of bottles.

Ben also rec'd his Prevnar shot, so we're all caught up on vaccinations, except for the chicken pox vaccine which I'm still on the fence over. I'll probably bring him in for it some time this year. The more reading I do the more comfortable with it I become.

And we're being rescheduled for more allergy tests. I asked for our GP to book us in with the allergist for March, so that will be one year after Ben's previous tests. I'd like to see if the tests confirm that the milk and egg yolk allergy are completely gone, and if there's any improvement in the egg white and peanut allergies. Not holding my breath on the peanut allergy, but if the egg white allergy were gone that'd be really awesome news. Or if we could even loosen the reigns a bit, y'know? Like not worry if he sticks a cookie in his mouth. I'll keep you all posted on the results of Ben's allergy tests when the time comes.

Thanks for reading!

Ben and his birthday presents

Now that the excitement has settled a bit around here I can post some pics of Ben enjoying some of his birthday presents.

A table and chair set from Nanny Anita:
A tricycle from Granny and Granddad Bloomfield:

An inflatable snail from Nana and Grandpa Beaton:

And a Crash N' Go race set from Mama and Daddy:

Ben got some other great gifts that unfortunately I haven't gotten pics of yet:

• fishing bath toys and a Cars-themed Doodle Pro from Andi, Vinny, and Cooper
• dump truck from Uncle Tim, Aunt Jennifer, Emma, and Ian; and a special present of cars and trucks from cousin Ian
• red car long-sleeved t-shirt and Cars book from Ben's long-distant buddy, Liam (and his mommy, Laura)

Thanks so much, everyone! Ben is one lucky little boy.

Green Eggs and Ham

Ben's favourite book these days.

That Sam-I-Am!

That Sam-I-Am!

I do not like

that Sam-I-Am!

[insert Ben's giggles here]

Baby

When we ask Ben what his name is he always replies "Baby" despite our concious effort to not refer to him as "the baby." Then we thought it would be fun to try teaching Ben his last name, so now when we ask him what his name is he says "Baby Boo-oh-le-oh", sounding nothing like his actual last name. Ha-ha!