Easter in the HinJew Household

It's true: here in the HinJew household, we celebrate Easter. Better said, we celebrate the Easter Bunny and everything that comes with him - coloring eggs, going on egg hunts, and getting Easter baskets. Frankly, I don't see the connection between the Easter Bunny and Christ. For the children, it's a way for them to have fun, do some artwork (coloring eggs), get some exercise (running, searching, and reaching for the eggs during the hunt), have fun with friends (at the neighborhood egg hunt) and get a couple of pressies too. Gotta love that.

We also don't celebrate Easter with food. Nope, none of that chocolate shaped like a rabbit or pink or yellow edible chicks for us. Instead, our Easter baskets are filled with bunny shaped tiddly winks, plastic eggs filled with small toys, bunny temporary tatoos, and straws shaped like Easter bunnies. The children loved them.

'Bout the only complain we heard was when it was over. The children wanted to do it all over again.

Giving Big

I was on the track team when I was in high school. Each year, during Winter Track season, we had an annual fund-raiser for muscular dystrophy. The fund-raiser lasted 24 hours. We arranged ourselves into teams of four people. Each team ran around our winter track for an hour (one person ran a mile, passed the baton to the next person to run a mile, and so on.) Then we rested for three hours until it was our team's turn again. I can't remember exactly how much we raised; my guess is that we raised about $20,000 annually.

This is a mere pittance.

Students at Highland Park High School hold an annual fund-raiser too. They choose an organization which meets the following criteria: 1) the organization must focus on children, 2) have a local connection, and 3) be small enough that the money raised will significantly boost research budgets.

This year, the students chose to raise funds for CURED. Every single penny they raise will go to research on eosinophilic disease.

Unlike my high school track team, these children give BIG. They raised $247,000 for CURED. An anonymous donor has offered to match what they raise, bringing the total to nearly $500,000 for research on eosinophilic disease.

You can read more about their efforts in this first Wall Street Journal article, in this second Wall Street Journal article, and on the CURED Web site. Go ahead and watch the closing ceremony. It's amazing.

Talk about making a difference! To my knowledge, that's the most money EVER spent on eosinophilic research - in TOTAL!

Thank you Highland Park High School students. You are truly inspirational. And a great big thank you to the anonymous donor who, in one swift pen stroke, made a difference in a HUGE way.

As a family who suffers from eosinophilic disease, we're grateful for your fund-raising efforts. You truly have made a difference. Thank you.

The Leila

Now that Leila has gotten those monster tonsils removed, she's a very different child. She's eating like CRAZY! In her entire second year of life, she gained only one or two pounds. Now, just a mere one month post-surgery, she's gained four pounds! The girl just doesn't stop eating now. She's a little fatty! She loves her fat, too. She rubs her little Buddha belly and smiles and jumps up and down to jiggle her little baby fat. Admitedly, it makes us all laugh. I feel like we must have starved her last year when her tonsils got in the way of her eating.

Last night, during bath time, when I told the boys to clean their penises, Leila reached down and tried to clean hers. She looked very confused until I distracted her with some soapy bubbles and a toy.

After the bath, Simi and Asher were playing "super-heroes", which brothers tend to do instead of putting on their pajamas. They had their hooded towels on their heads and used the towel parts as capes and ran around the room and pushed each other. Leila just had to get in the act too. Except she's a lot smaller so she can trip on her towel cape. And get hurt when her big brothers trample her. That didn't matter to her and there she was, Miss Pink Girl, pushing and flying and running with her big brothers.

On St. Patty's Day, Leila dressed in pink, as she does every day. She just loves the color pink. Simi mentioned that Leila would get pinched because she wasn't wearing green. Personally, I pity the fool who tries to pinch that girl! She'd pinch them right back - and scream at them in the process!

That's my girl..

Pink

Leila LOVES the color pink. Perhaps it seems a bit stereotypical, but she's really really into the color. She chooses her clothes these days and she insists on wearing the color pink. She insists on wearing her pink shoes (not her tennis shoes, which are white with pink trim, but her PINK shoes). Although they're not pink, she LOVES her black patent leather shoes. They're very girly. But the pink ones are definitely her favorite.

The other day, while we were in the grocery store, she noticed some yogurt in a pink container. She just HAD to have it. "It's PINK!", she screamed at the top of her lungs in the middle of the grocery store. Didn't matter that she wouldn't want to eat it, she just had to have the yogurt in the pink container.

I think those marketers know what they're doing.

The Tooth Fairy

Simi's loose tooth fell out! It happened at night while we were all sleeping. I learned about it at 5 AM, when I went to check on Asher and Simi woke up to check under his pillow to see what the Tooth Fairy left him. He was VERY disappointed that the Tooth Fairy hadn't shown up yet.

A few weeks ago, Simi had read a book on Sacajawea, the Indian woman who led Lewis and Clark on much of their expedition. Her image (and that of the baby she carried on her back) was imprinted on a gold dollar coin in the year 2000. Somehow, a long time ago, Raj managed to get one of these coins. He also managed to keep track of it all these years. So, when Simi told me about his lost tooth at 5 AM, I woke up Raj and asked for the gold coin.

After the 5 AM check-in, Simi fell back to sleep. Asher was wide awake. He called me in to fix the bed sheet that hangs off the bunk bed between the bed and the closet. That sheet keeps the monsters (who lurk in the closet) from reaching his bed in the middle of the night. With Simi snoring away, I fixed the sheet and tucked the gold coin under Simi's pillow. Perfect.

So there we were, at 6 AM (It's true, NOBODY sleeps at our house!), when Simi woke up, found the gold coin and starting shouting with glee! He was absolutely thrilled that the tooth fairy had left him such a great treasure!

Asher, who was awake when the tooth fairy visited, told us all that. And he said he SAW the tooth fairy. She looked just like a sprite in the Spiderwick Chronicles, with wings that fluttered quickly.

I wonder where we can get more gold coins.

The Flu

It's official: Asher has the flu. He came down with it Thursday night/Friday morning (why do these things ALWAYS happen between the hours of 1 and 3 AM???). He woke us up from a sound sleep to complain about his body hurting him, and when I went to pick him up from his bed, I felt his fever.

I know all the fever-reducing tricks, but this fever just wasn't budging. And on our way to take a warm bath, Asher vomited all over the hallway. It was classic...there he was walking and then all of a sudden he was vomiting. Multiple times. Luckily, the hallway is an easy clean-up.

So, off to the doctor we went and got an official diagnosis of flu, type A. And we all got prescriptions for the Tamiflu.

The doctor told us that, with the Tamiflu, we could expect Asher to be sick for four days instead of seven. OK, I'll take that. So imagine my surprise when Asher awoke this morning fever-free and feeling fine. How did that happen? Aside from a lack of appetite, Asher has been feeling quite fine all morning. I'm impressed.

Which leads me to a related topic: Parents, if your children are sick, PLEASE KEEP THEM HOME! I know Asher got the flu from running around Monkey Joe's and putting his hands in his mouth. Why in the world would anyone bring a child with the flu to Monkey Joe's? I can certainly understand the need to bring a sick child to daycare because bosses sometimes just don't understand that you have to stay home with a young 'un AGAIN when deadlines loom. But, Monkey Joe's??? Mum, if ya just HAVE to have that playdate with your best friend and her child, do it at HOME. Don't make everyone else's child sick too. Thank you.

Loose Tooth

One of Simi's best friends is a girl named Christian. Simi and Christian have known each other since they were three months old. Every chance they get to be together, they're inseparable.

Simi has another best friend named Alex. Whenever Simi and Alex see each other, they run and play and play and play.

Simi also has a lot of friends at his new school.

Christian and Alex - and many of Simi's friends at his new school - have something in common. They have all lost a tooth. They are at that age when their permanent teeth come in.

At school, they make a big deal when a child loses their tooth. The teacher writes their name on the "lost tooth" chart and the child stands in front of the class and shows the class what the tooth fairy has brought them.

Thing is, Simi hasn't yet lost a tooth.

Since the beginning of the school year, Simi has been hoping and begging for a loose tooth. He very much wants to join the "loose tooth" club. He asks quite frequently when he's going to lose a tooth. Every once in awhile, he states that he thinks his tooth is loose, and he points to one of his big molars in the back or some other very stable tooth. And he looks heart-broken each time I tell him that the tooth isn't coming out - just yet.

Until tonight.

Simi runs downstairs after his bath with a great big smile on his face. He thinks one of his teeth are loose! Sure enough, he's right! It's the front tooth on the bottom. Simi is losing his first tooth! He's so excited, he's jumping up and down for joy.

My heart is melting as I watch my baby reach this Very Important Milestone. Slow down, Simi. Don't grow up too fast. Stay my baby for just a little while longer. Please....

I can't wait to see what the Tooth Fairy brings him.

What the ...?!

When talking about the cause of autism, allergies, and asthma, the experts all agree on one thing: there is a genetic component to it and an environmental component to it. If you have the gene (or genes), the environmental cause pulls the trigger, so to speak, for that thing to happen. In eosinophilic esophagitis, they have already identified the gene. They also know that cases of EE have risen SIGNIFICANTLY in the past 8-10 years. They know it's not just an issue of not diagnosing the cases correctly. Researchers have pulled up biopsy slides for the past 30 years and the eosinophils just aren't on them. Now, all of a sudden, it's a problem. The question is, what is the environmental trigger?

Well before Simi was born, the controversy ensued about having thimersol, a mercury derivative, in pediatric vaccines. Thimerosal is known to cause neurological issues in humans. The only reason it's used in vaccines is because it's the cheapest preservative available. But in 2001, the vaccine companies agreed to remove thimerosal from pediatric vaccines. And the pharmaceutical companies are saying, "see, we removed this thing from the vaccines yet the cases of autism, allergies, and asthma are still increasing at astronomical rates. Obviously, it's not the thimerosal in the vaccines that's the cause."

I believed them. I completely believed all the doctors who told me that that horrible thing was removed from the vaccines. And now I learn that it's simply not true. That horrible thing not only still exists in our babies vaccines, but they also inject our babies with the stuff before the infant is even 24 hours old! It's in the Hepatitis B vaccine our infants receive immediately after their born.

Now, who in their right mind thinks it's a good idea to inject our newborn infants with a toxin known to cause neurological issues? And why in the world are we even injecting our babies against Hepatitis B at such a young age? Hepatitis B is contracted via 1) sexual contact, 2) sharing a needle with a person who is Hep B positive, or 3) at birth to a mother who is positive for Hepatitis B. Thing is, all pregnant women are tested for Hep. B - it's required by law. So why not just vaccinate THOSE newborns? Why vaccinate ALL newborns for Hep B? I can promise you that my newborn infant isn't going to be having any sex or sharing any needles for at least a few years. We can truly wait on those shots.

OK, if you want to see just what's in the vaccines your children received, look here. Or shield your eyes if you want to stay blissfully ignorant.

Epoca de Futbol

Spring time means that it's soccer season here in North Carolina. Which makes me wonder...why in the world is it called "soccer"? I mean, what does that word mean? It's called "football" (or futbol in Spanish) everywhere else in the world, so why not call it that? We can differentiate it between "North American football" - that sport that's played using some weird oblong ball and by hitting your opponents as hard as possible - by using exactly those words.


It's been a long time since the boys played futbol and they're really enjoying it. Gotta love a healthy activity...

Asher Update

I love to share good news, so here it is: Asher is riding an incredibly great wave right now. He is feeling great. He has tons of energy, is very active, and seems very happy.

Yesterday, I took both boys to Monkey Joes, an indoor playground with lots of inflatable things to climb up, squeeze through, and slide down on. They met a friend there and ran around like crazy for 1.5 hours. Asher kept running from the front of the place to the back. He ran so super-speedy fast that we started calling him "Dash", his favorite character from the movie, The Incredibles.

Asher's naughtiness has also increased, much to Simi's chagrin. Asher really enjoys tormenting his big brother now.

Naughtiness aside, it's wonderful to see Asher feeling so great.

E028 Splash

Asher is undergoing a new food trial: E028 Splash. It, too, is elemental formula but there are many anecdotal stories of children with eosinophilic esophagitis who have reacted to something in it. We cannot assume that Asher can drink this stuff safely.

These "juice boxes" have rocked Asher's world. They add a bit of flavor to his life and make him feel like all the other children - because he, too, can have a juice box. He's thrilled. I'm thrilled to find something which could be safe AND nutritionally complete.

So far, the trial is going exceedingly well. He has been drinking the juice boxes for at least a week with no sign of side effects. In fact, I just ordered a month's supply of grape, since that's the flavor he loves the best.

Simi's Kindergarten Presentation

At Simi's school, each year, each grade level has a presentation for the other students and parents in the auditorium. The Kindergarteners sing songs and each child takes a turn to say one sentence in the microphone.

Simi's presentation was today. It is absolutely adorable. All the children wore the same thing: blue jeans and the same t-shirt. They wore bandannas around their neck and some children wore straw hats. The theme was: "A Day At The Farm". They sang songs like "Old McDonald".

Simi's growing up too fast. When he's with his friends, he doesn't want to pay attention to me. He's only six years old and he's already too busy with his friends. It breaks my heart. Soon, he'll be going off to college and moving away (to an Ivy League school, of course, on full scholarship). Thankfully, I still have Asher and Leila who don't mind hugging me and having me hold them and love on them still.

Bison for Asher?

Asher has been trialing bison for 2 weeks now. And the verdict is.....still out. After he eats it for a number of days, I notice that he is very tired in the mornings and can't get himself out of bed. He is low energy the entire day and, although not irritable, he's definitely not his smiley happy self. This past gymnastics class, he couldn't do any of the things the other children were doing. They were things he had done easily in the past, yet he couldn't do them on that particular day.

The question is: are these symptoms due to the bison or to something entirely different? I mean, I know that sometimes I'm more tired than other times and it's probably not food-related. There are so many variables, it's hard to tell cause and effect sometimes.

Yesterday and today, he's been feeling GREAT. He has high energy, very smiley, doing great on his puzzles and moving quite well. Let's hope he keeps it up.

So, we're going to stop the bison for two weeks and see what happens. If the symptoms stop, it'll be another data point. Then we'll resume bison for another two weeks to see what happens.

Leila Sans Tonsils

It is nearly three weeks post tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy and I'm proud to report that Leila is now nicely recovered. She's doing GREAT!

She's eating, easily, more than her two older brothers combined. Golly, that girl can really chow down! Prior to her tonsillectomy, she barely ate. In fact, she hadn't gained a pound in a full year (and she's only two years old). I suspect she's gained a pound just in the past week with all she's been eating. I have honestly never seen a child eat as much as Leila has been eating this past week or two. Wow!

Leila learned to talk with two large marbles (her tonsils) in her mouth. Once they were removed, she had a very difficult time talking. I couldn't understand a word she said. Now she has to relearn how to talk. She's working on it, but it's still difficult to understand her. I suspect, in time, her speech will improve. Of course we'll give her speech therapy if she needs it.

Even though she's back at daycare and it's the middle of the winter, she is congestion-free. It's the first time ever! And now, just because I wrote this, I suspect she will come down with some incredibly nasty bug!

I'm so glad she had her tonsils removed!

Jump Rope For Heart

Yesterday, Simi and I jumped some rope to benefit the American Heart Association. It was quite the fun event! Sponsors, thank you VERY much for your support. Together, we raised $100 to benefit the American Heart Association.

The event was done during Simi's gym class. The gym teacher had five stations set up within the gym. The stations were: traditional jump rope, hippity hops, individual trampolines, hop scotch pads, and "new-fangled" jump ropes. The children did the activity in each station for five minutes while the teacher played some fun music. The music stopped, then the children stopped, returned the item to its proper location, then did some gross motor skill (skip, roll, crab crawl, etc.) over to the next station. The music played and off they went. In this particular classroom, about five mums showed up to participate (me included) and all of us children and mums got our heart rates up for the half hour class. It was really fun!

Making Pizza

In Asher's gymnastics class, the teacher plays different games with the children to warm them up. One of the games is "making pizza". They sit on the floor with their legs spread apart and they go around the circle taking turns to add ingredients to the pizza. One child will add a make-believe ingredient, then they add it to their pretend pizza which is in front of them, and they mix it up and stir it around -- all the while stretching their arms, legs and torsos to warm up.

Asher's never eaten pizza. It's a concept he doesn't have.

During Asher's turn, he adds things like "chocolate" to his pizza. Some children follow his lead and then add other things, like cotton candy to the pizza. Other children add mushrooms and black olives; they've obviously eaten that kind of pizza. So, when the pizza is all put together, it becomes a very interesting mix of ingredients. Good thing it's all make-believe.

Bison - Day Six

If Asher has a reaction to a food, we usually see it on day five. I hate day five of a food trial. The days leading up to it are nerve-wracking because I tear myself apart with worry that I'm giving my child something which hurts him. On day five, I'm super-sensitive all day, looking for any and all signs of food failure.

Today is day six of the bison food trial. And the verdict is.......the jury is still out. There are some signs of food failure, but the evidence is not enough to pull the food just yet. Sometimes it is very difficult to tell if he is having a food failure.

Yesterday, Asher couldn't wake himself up in the morning. He needed help waking up and getting started in the day. When he's feeling good, he gets up and out of bed by himself. Thing is, Leila kept all of us up the night before, so perhaps he was tired because he didn't get enough sleep.

When he's feeling good, he is a medium to high-energy kid. Yesterday, he was a medium energy kid. He had a lot of fun and worked really hard in gymnastics. If he was having a food failure, he would not be able to work as hard in gymnastics class.

This morning, even with a good nine hours of sleep (with a three hour nap on Wednesday), he couldn't get himself out of bed. Although he needed help getting up, he had medium energy while getting ready.

Have I mentioned how much I hate food trials? I can't begin to tell you just how much I'd like to stop these food trials and just let Asher feel good for a long while. But stopping the food trials means that Asher can only eat four foods and drink his nasty-tasting elemental formula. Either way, it's a mean thing to do to the kid.

Bison

Asher continues to be healthy. I can't believe what I'm about to say: for the first time EVER, all children are HEALTHY! Woo hoo!!!

Asher has had a nine-day stretch of feeling good...well, except for Thursday and Friday when he battled strep throat. But I don't really count that as sick because...it's treatable! Now he's back to feeling great again.

With three healthy children, I'm on cloud nine.

I can't believe that I may possibly, willingly, mess things up now. It's time to try a new food. Asher wants a bit of variety in his diet. Eating the same four foods three times a day, every day, gets a bit boring. But what's a good, safe food? BISON!

Beginning today, Asher and Leila are eating Bison. They both love it. Leila just can't get enough of it; she easily eats more than double what Asher eats. Needless to say, they're very happily enjoying their new food.

I tried to find rabbit, because rabbit is the least allergenic meat. Unfortunately, Whole Foods doesn't have a rabbit supplier who meets their rigorous standards. They tell me it'll take some time to find one. Lamb is next on the bottom of the allergenic list. Thing is, I just can't bring myself to buy that. Thankfully, the chap at Whole Foods talked me out of buying lamb and into buying bison when he told me that people either love or hate lamb and that the taste isn't one children generally like. Which led us to bison.

Which leads me to a different topic:

People who don't eat meat shouldn't cook it. I really have no clue how to cook any of this stuff and I don't taste it to see if it's cooked enough, so I think I overcook things quite a bit. Asher and Leila get rubberized pork burgers all the time. Luckily, they don't seem to mind. And although I'll do ANYTHING for my children, cooking this bison is kinda gross to me. I think it's because the meat is so RED. Or maybe it's the texture. Whatever the reason, I struggle not to lose my lunch while cooking theirs. Thankfully, they really seem to enjoy it and are blissfully ignorant that I have such a difficult time with it.

Let's hope that Bison is good to Asher. And next time we go to the zoo, we can show him what he's been eating.

The Monsters

Asher is four years old. It's the prime age when children are afraid that monsters will come out from under the bed or from inside the closets at night.

When Simi was four and afraid of the monsters, we put a "monster key" on the wall, which wards off monsters. It worked. Simi slept fitfully. The key remains on the wall.

Before Asher felt well, he slept too deeply to care about any monsters. But now that he's feeling fine, he wakes in the middle of the night, scared that the monsters will come out from the side of the bookcase and eat him. The monster key, which helped Simi, doesn't help Asher feel more safe.

So now Asher goes to bed with a sword, so that he can beat off any monster who comes near him.

I'm relieved to have a "common" problem to solve!

Leila's T&A

As Raj mentioned, Leila had her tonsils and adenoids removed. She had her adenoids removed last year, but they grew back. Her tonsils were HUGE. She couldn't breathe and was constantly getting sick. While she was under anesthesia, the ENT also inserted ear tubes since her first pair was such a godsend.

For recuperation period, the ENT prepared us for 7-10 days of absolute misery. Having tonsils removed is quite painful. Then, on day 7, the scabs fall off and the bleeding begins, which could be a problem.

So far, Leila's recovery is congruent with the description. It's painful, so she cries and cries. She says, "hurt hurt hurt" and "ouch ouch ouch" and just cried. I give her tylenol with codeine, which takes the edge off her pain but makes her nauseas. On Saturday and Sunday, she was sick. She laid around like a sack of potatoes - feeling terrible and dry heaving all day Saturday. In the middle of the night (why do these things ALWAYS happen in the middle of the night???) she vomited and vomited and vomited - and spent all day Sunday laying around nearly lifeless. The ENT doctor on call says she must have gotten a virus because vomiting isn't a complication of a tonsilectomy. Luckily, she's over it and we're moving on, happy to be this far past the surgery.

Poor Leila, she learned to talk with HUGE tonsils, which were like having marbles in her mouth. So now that they're gone, she can't talk. She squeeks a lot and makes lots of nasal sounds. I can't understand a word she says. I'm sure she'll adapt in due time.