Ella's prayer

This morning's family prayer is one of those moments I want to hold on forever. Ella gave the prayer. It was beautiful, heartfelt and compassionate. I am so very thankful to her for being such a wonderful person and spirit, with so much love, charity and faith to infuse the little world around her, her family and friends, as well as the bigger world out there.

So this morning, dear sweetheart, you gave thanks for your family, naming each of the family members. You gave thanks for having your dearest grandparents here with us, and prayed that grandma/mamaie doesn't get a cold when she walks to school to pick you up.

You gave thanks for mommy and daddy and prayed for each of our well-being and safety today.

You gave thanks for the beautiful world we live in.

You found all these wonderful thoughts and yearnings in your heart early in the morning when you're barely awake. You are so special to us and to Heavenly Father. You are His daugther and I'm grateful to tears that you are my daughter too.

 May your journey in this life be filled with love, joy, and much happiness.

Oral Immuno Therapy (OIT): the beginning of our hopefully milk allergy-free life!!

Last Thursday was a very BIG day for Ella and for us all. She started her oral immuno therapy treatment for milk. Ella Bella Portabella was able to take in progressively 1 mg of milk with no issues!!! This is quite a victory for us.

It was also a terribly long day in the Infusion room (the room where kids take their doses and wait to see if any reaction occurs. Kind of a cool/scary name for that room, if you ask me.) We got there at 8:30 in the morning and didn't leave until 5 pm.

The beginning: she was not so sure about this whole thing... Daddy was also not too happy about me taking pictures...!

The first dose:

Starting at 9:10 am, Ella was given 10 doses of 0.1 ml concentration milk every 15 minutes. If everything would go well and no reaction would occur, she would be given the next dose, and the next dose, and so on. We took it all one very small step at a time, every 15 minutes that is. Once she passed her 10 0.1 ml concentration doses, they started giving her 1.0 ml concentration milk diluted in various quantities of water, from 0.5 ml up to 8 ml. Her very last dose was at 3:45 pm, 0.3 ml whole milk dilluted in some water. After she took it, we waited and watched for over an hour. Our little girl was blessed and lucky to pass all her doses just fine and so we went home on a 0.3 ml milk dose twice daily, morning and night for the next week. From here on, we'll be going to the allergist office every week for slight dose increases to the treshhold her body can handle. She will be progressing up until she can drink 8 oz. of whole milk with no reaction. So welcome to Horizon Organic Whole Milk Enhanced with Vitamin D milk into our fridge!!! :)
Daddy drawing a visual of what was going to happen and making her smile.

(I was also dealing with a major sinus cold, and still am...)

Those long eight hours were filled with watching movies, snacking, coloring, drawing, and a lot of anxiety. Ella was very nervous the whole time, as I expected. Of course, both Hrishi and I were anxious and nervous as well. It helped her though to have a little buddy in there, a little five year old boy who was doing his first OIT for peanuts. While they didn't interract much, they would peak at each other from across the room and watch the same movies. :)

Her beautiful smile coming back along with her confidence that everything was going to be okay:

(She was enjoying a delicious cupcake made by mamaie.)

Writing and drawing "MILK":

At the end of the day: tired but happy and pleased:

What a day...!

This is really such a wonderful thing for us and I'm so so very grateful to the advances in the immunology field for food allergies. There are very few clinics in U.S. who do these treatments for food allergies. The Dallas Allergy and Asthma clinic is one of them. They've been doing OIT for over eight years. They have this big "OIT Graduates" poster of a large group of lucky children who went through the treatment and are now cleared to safely consume, to which I hope and pray our little one can join them at the end of her 26 + weeks course of treatment.

I know there's no easy road ahead of us but I pray with all my heart that all will go well and she will be able to overcome all there is to overcome.

We have some other news but I'll post on that later once things are finalized. I just love my life, crazy and funky, scary, blessed and wonderful, all at the same time. :)

And I can't help but add this beautiful picture Ella drew during one of our drawing lessons.. she is teaching me portrait drawing techniques. :-) The one of the right is hers. I think it's so original and artistic and so different from mine.

Turkey sliders and "chec"

Mom is a great chef, no doubt.  Recently she's been spoiling us with some really nice dishes...! Some of them, although absolutely delicious, are not helping my fat loss plans but I will not worry about that right now.
So last night it was turkey sliders with lots of garlic, spring onion, and ginger. We served them on whole wheat rolls and along side grilled zuchinni, my all-time favorite grilled veggie.

And "chec", which became Hrishi's favorite sweet bread. This is my grandmother's recipe and we all love it so much! Mom added some sophistication by creating the "marble cake" effect. :)

Deviled eggs:

Piftie!!!!!!!

The topping was meringue with crushed brown sugar sunflower seeds. To die for! (well, not really but you get the idea!) :-)

Thank you Momma, you are the best! We love you so much!!!!

A Taste of Texas

The Texan (or at least North Texan) experience is not complete without a visit to the Forth Worth Stockyards. So on Sunday after chuch, we drove up there to give mom and dad another taste of Texas. We have a lot of fond memories there from past summers. The highlights this time were the carriage ride and the petting zoo that had the cutest variety of goats (and a couple of llamas.)

It was fun and relaxing to walk on the cobblestone paved streets in a very western movie-like atmosphere. Some of the passer-bys were hard-core bikers with heavy leather gear, bear bottles or ciggarettes in hand, moustaches; some where loners or couples, other with families and kids, all out and about exploring the little town. The weather was perfect.

Ella was super excited to learn all that she could about this horse in the 10-15 minute ride, plus at the end she got to sit up in the front and hold the reins.

Beautiful horses, especially the black one.

Petting zoo paradise:

Ella did the mechanical bull but this time, she kind of chickened out a bit once she sat on the thing. I don't blame her, I wouldn't do it if you paid me. :) She was very fun to watch though!!

It started like this:

Then went to this:

And naturally ended like this:

Some fun shots:
 

Playback to Saturday when we went to dinner to our friends' house. The girls had a great time riding their scooters in the backyard, drawing, and making their own dessert, s'mores.

We had fun catching up and eating some really good kebobs. Even my parents liked them inspite of the strong flavor.

All in all it was a good weekend. Oh and I got to teach Ella's CTR 6 class and will do it again next Sunday. (I giggle at the thought that if anybody gets wind of my excitement, they may put me back in Primary!!! Ha-ha!!) Oh, and mom and I were sang to in Primary as we were visitors that day. Everybody sang the "Hello" song using its Romanian counterpart, "Buna!" It was a hoot!! And there is something very special in that Primary room. Can you guess what??

Now on to a confession: blogging has not come easy lately... a lot has been going on in my mind, in my heart but it has got to get done because life needs to be captured and recorded somehow. And I know that sunny and less worry-filled days will come.

Thursday is a big day for us. Ella is starting her oral immune-therapy for her milk allergies. I'm scared and hopeful, but more on this later.

Valentines

With Valentine's Day classroom party planning fever going on, I've already started dreaming up Valentine's cards ideas for Ella to make for her classroom. I found some really cute ones out there in the blogosphere thanks for some really wonderfully creative minds, and came up with my own design too. I will present them to the boss and let her pick which one(s) she'd like to make.

(this one is one of my favorites)

(I have a feeling that Ella will be enamored with this one!!)

(If we decide to do this, my own creation,  we'd mount it on white paper, the heart in the middle would be a sticker on top of which I would have her put her fingerprint (as in "touching" one's heart. Any maybe we take the "wording" out and just leave the YOU... and the sticker with the fingerprint. We'll see!) And maybe for a little treat, stick a valentine's day themed pencil on the other side?! Pretty cool, I think.)

School stuff

Lately, we've been getting a lot "I don't want to go to school" statements, complaints, and even tears from someone who always LOVED going to school. We got to the bottom of it (or so we think): apparently, the amount of school work that needs to be completed every day in the classroom, the darn software program on the computer, the bubble maps arrows, etc. are overwhelming my sweetheart. While we always encourage her to do her best, work her hardest, and complete assignments in class and at home, I have to admit that there is a lot of work involved... for a six year old. And unfortunately, being the creative, spunky, and non-conventional kid that she is, not paying attention entirely to all the teacher's directions or instructions leaves her wondering what needs to be done, asking more questions than the teacher would like, and getting in a little bit of a rough spot. I'm not overly concerned, just feeling bad to see her sad and discouraged. I'm a bit bothered by some of the teacher's remarks after I sent her a very innocent email asking for some pointers in helping Ella master the "bubble maps" so that she is not afraid to go to school because of them. She said amongst other things that "she was very concerned about how Ella would be able to handle her classroom responsibilities this semester..." Kind of big statement... this is a kid who scored almost perfectly on her prior report cards. Oh well...

And as it turns out, she had mastered the concept of bubble maps and did her very own yesterday after school on a piece of paper.  It was the software that was giving her a hard time. I just couldn't stand seeing my bright and confident child now feeling desperate because of this.  She told us the name of the program and it's now purchased and installed on the home laptop. You should have seen the joy on her face when she realized that she could do this at home too. Practice that is, so she can become more confident in her abilities to do it. I'm all about fixing problems, as I'm sure all parents are. If we lack somewhere, the only way to "fix" it is by working at it/practicing, right? While practicing at home is no substitute for paying attention in class when the teacher models or explains, I know from experience that it's not always easy to just watch someone do it once and then be ready to do it yourself right away. It takes time and practice. And since she's willing to work hard at it, that's what I want to give her: the opportunity to practice.

I most definitely want to raise a confident and hard working child, who likes school and feels comfortable there. I want her to know that is she has a problem, we can always work it out together and that she is never alone. She can always trust us adults to help her through it.

So anyway, this has been on my mind a lot and I'm finally starting to feel better about it, and hope and pray so hard that she is too. There're only a few things more heart-breaking than dropping your child off to school in tears...

The bubble map she made yesterday by hand all by herself:

Another weekend

As I sit here trying to gather up this weekend's comings and goings, I can hear my sweetheart playing with the grandparents upstairs to her heart's content, giggles and excitement on both sides. It's way past her bedtime  but it's all good. We're happy, together, and playing. Thank goodness tomorrow' is Martin Luther King Jr. and she gets to sleep in. I'm pleased with this weekend and with Sunday, especially. I was spiritually fed in all three church meetings to the extent that made my heart overflow. Aside from that doing so much good to the soul, it also helped the body to not need as much physical nourishment. Yes, I've been having a bit of hard time with self-control in the food department lately. Don't know why, maybe because there's so much tasty food from my "past life" around all day long and is darn hard to stay away from it all the time! :) Mom makes something yummy every day!! And now that I've put on some more muscle, it's become harder to notice fat loss.

Pretty much all Saturday morning after breakfast we cleaned and sorted toys. Boy, that was quite a task! It felt like they had invaded us...! Way way too many toys. We tossed the broken ones (unfortunately, or fortunately for Ella, there weren't that many), bagged the give-away ones, dressed the naked ones and by the end of the process, the playroom was looking  a lot better than before. There's still more to do but it's a start. Clutter almost gives me panick attacks. Seriously! Toys abandoned on the floor, especially, tend to make my blood pressure rise.

I made pizza for lunch. We served it with grilled eggplant. It was so good.

 The "before" adding the vegan cheese:
(I personally could have had it like this, but wanted to add the "melty" look and taste for Ella and mom and dad.)

(Yes, loads of peppers and my favorite, anchovies, sprinkled here and there. Doesn't that look so pretty??)

The "after", with added Daiya vegan cheese, uncured salami, chicken breast, and olives.

(The thin crust was store-bought but delicious nonetheless.)

Then took a quick nap before heading out to the movies. We saw "Beauty and the Beast", regular feature not 3-D. There's something about 3-D that doesn't sit well with me, or least not for one and a half hour movies. I'm glad that Ella didn't mind watching the "regular" digital version and is generally not interested in 3-D movies :)

And what's movie without dinner? Our next stop was Hard Eight BBQ where once again we ate at our hearts' content some real Texas barbecue. Mamaie and tataie absolutely loved it!

The selection of meats is really great, not to mention the taste

and the "fixings" :)

 

Silly little puppy girl!! She does love to eat her meat to the bone!!

Yesterday after church and lunch, we went to our favorite park, fed flocks of beautiful, hungry, and awfully friendly birds, walked around, and soaked in the lovely 60's temperatures.

More bird feeding pictures will go here...

(I cannot say enough of how happy it makes me to not have to deal with the dreary cold, freezing, or snowy days that I had to put up five to six months out of the year, for nine years when we lived in the midwest.) This is pure happiness and bliss to me! "Come to Texas, come to Texas"-my weather Zion!! :)

But we miss daddy, he's out of town this week for work. He had to split the week between Omaha and Florida. Can't wait to see him on Wednesday!!

Tried but not defeated

Ella had her milk challenge yesterday in the allergist's office.  After the first three increasingly larger doses, she was doing well with some very mild tongue and lower lip itching. After the fourth 3ml dose, she reacted with some serious vomitting and that's when she got the epi-pen shot for the first time in her life.  Due to His great love and mercy, she recovered very well and we were able to go home within two hours after the reaction.  The milk won. This time. And we were told that without any treatment, given her IgE numbers at her age, it is very unlikely that she would ever outgrow her milk allergy. And that's very hard to hear.

There is still hope that she could perhaps undergo an oral immunotherapy treatment over a period of time and be able to tolerate milk at the end of that 5-6 month long treatment. There are challenges with how or where we'll be able to get the treatment but we're hopeful that He will help us find a way to do it. I so badly want this for her. Especially after seeing her go through what she went through yesterday, and more importantly after the recent terrible news of children still dying from allergic reactions. It struck me that she is not safe out there. She is not. Yes, there are 504 plans in place, written procedures, supposedly trained staff, but children are still not safe out there. 

Amid yesterday's agony, it gave me comfort to hear her say that she wanted to go home because she knew she would never get a reaction at home. She knows she is completely safe at home.

She went in there not wanting to do it, being scared to death of what might happen to her if she tasted milk. And rightfully so. She had an IV in case of an emergency anaphylactic reaction which luckily did not occur. She had a couple of nurses in and out of the room for the entire 5 hours we were there, she had a doctor there, she had us. She had Him watching over her. She was hopeful that she could perhaps eat in the cafeteria, and pick her lunch just as the rest of her friends do. She was hopeful that she wouldn't have to be afraid of what some foods may contain. And so were we, but I guess we're prepared for a negative outcome too. So we're picking ourselves up and moving forward. Business as usual. Only knowing we have to continue to fight even harder and find ways to win this battle.

We came home physically and emotionally exhausted to my parents who had been praying galore. We had a delicious meal prepared by mom, topped with dessert and all. Yes, we had cake. We did have a reason to celebrate. Celebrate life, life with allergies, even as hard as it is, and might continue to be.

Yes, she wanted candles on her cake too. As you can see from the picture, this was a mighty beautiful cake. Not only beautiful but also extremely tasty: mom used "chec" batter, Hrishi's new most favorite torte/cake, and sunflower seeds crushed "bark" as garnish. It had three layers finely lined with frosting. Of course strawberries and dairy-free whip cream on top. It was heavenly.

This kid's got it in her, she is a winner. I love love love her so very much....and although my heart breaks over this, she is such an inspiration of courage and hope that somehow we'll overcome.

(Her sweet daddy firmly believes that she has been guided and prompted by the Holy Ghost in so many instances involving allergens, and that brings me comfort to know that he knows and he believes that too.)