Noah's new disease

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of babysitting Noah, you may not know that he has power poop. The kind that drives away people, animals and small bugs that may be in a 50 foot area. My brother claimed that it stunk up their like (put in huge number here) sq foot home...you get the idea. So immediately potty training was commenced but after a year, I'm still changing diapers. Not only that, but they became diarrhea about every 10 time and he poops about 4-6 times a day. Now you might be wondering why I choose to enlighten all with this particularly gross info. Well, also over the last year he's lost weight and there wasn't much to lose, grown only 1 inch in 2 years, has stomach pains on a regular basis, and tells me he is hungry about every 15 minutes.

We finally saw a specialist and after some sticking and prodding and oh yeah, tubes going down his throat, he was diagnosed with celiacs. What is celiacs? Well, if it happened to me, it would be life over as I know it. But since I have this love affair with food that might be tad more that the average person, its probably not quite that dramatic. Noah is allergic to gluten aka the protein found in wheat, barley, rye and most oats. It means that his body sees gluten and sends out the troops to destroy it. But in doing so, it destroyed his stomach and intestinal wall so that food, not just gluten, couldn't be absorbed hence the tiny boy I love to see every day.

So he's been started on a gluten free diet. Which means no more grandma sycamore bread, gold fish, birthday cake, donuts, crackers, kikkoman soy sauce and cream of anything soup (those seem important for some reason) and about 60 percent of the food out there. I will no longer be shopping with my children since I have to read every label to see if it contains gluten,modified food starch, natural flavors, and any number of things that can be places for gluten to hide. And believe it or not, I liked shopping with my kids, because my husband is always there and it feels like a family outing. I know, I'm crazy. I'm a tad sad that I'll be shopping alone, most of the time. So there you have it. The Lord knew that I was unorganized and somewhat not caring about it and so blessed me with a child that will force me to be the most prepared (every time we leave the house, outing, vacation, etc must be thought through and planned for), the most organized women I can possibly be.

By the way, when I told Noah that he was not going to have diarrhea anymore he said, "Oh thank you mommy!" Adorable!