Quick Update!

Caroline, from this afternoon.

Caroline is definitely doing better. I'm afraid of speaking too soon, but her poop is actually looking normal again after weeks of not. This is very exciting for me. I'm on my 7th full day of the elimination diet. The first few days were really rough because the food is so bland but I started getting creative with spices recently (since they don't seem to cause problems) and I'm not miserable anymore! Maybe I'll even be a better cook walking away from this experience because I've had to be so creative. All of the research I have done shows that two weeks is plenty of time for the elimination diet, so maybe going three weeks like I originally planned is overkill. We'll see how things are a week from now. Since Caroline seems mostly back to normal, another week of this diet probably would be sufficient. It's a bit nerve-wracking though because I've had to introduce new foods for this diet - like avocados and rice milk - that I may have eaten before, but not since Caroline's birth. So even though these foods are considered pretty "safe," there are no guarantees and I'm so worried about eating something that isn't going to agree with her. But so far, so good, so I'll keep up my end and hopefully I'll get this allergy figured out soon. I'm still completely convinced that she's allergic to peanuts and I probably won't even test that one. But there is definitely another big allergy she has and I suspect it's either raspberries or dairy. Time will tell!

Caroline has started giving me the BIGGEST smiles lately, usually first thing in the morning. She'll wake up and start moving around which wakes me up, so I'll lean over her and start talking to her. She gets really excited and starts smiling for me. Usually it will start with a little grin, which gets bigger and bigger until it's turned into a big gum-showing grin. I just love it. It's definitely the best way to start the day and makes all of the hard parts of single parenthood totally worth it! The picture above was taken this afternoon and it's not the super-big goofy grin she does, but I'll try to get a picture of that soon.

The pregnancy weight is coming off quite well. I can wear pre-pregnancy clothes again and while I still have a little ways to go to be back to my pre-pregnancy body, I'm very close. It may be vain, but I was so afraid of what my post-pregnancy body would look like. All in all, I'm quite pleased but even if I wasn't, Caroline was TOTALLY worth it! :)

It's the mommy chic look... ponytail, no make-up, bags under eyes, etc.