Time for the month of transitions! Last year my motto was, "Wake me up when September ends," because that was my month of being 9 months pregnant and having to go through childbirth and recovery. This year I'm really excited about September! The leaves are already starting to change, Jack starts kindergarten this week, and then football next week, so he should be a very happy little boy soon. And hopefully those things will do a better job of tiring him out than I've been doing. Jack continues to seem to be one of those people who just needs less sleep than everyone else. We have always prioritized nap/rest times and reasonable bedtimes. But lately it doesn't matter when we get him to bed for the night (usually around 8:00); he just isn't tired AT ALL until around 10:00. And it's not like he sleeps in late. He's almost always up for the day by 7:30 in the morning. So he sits in his bed for 2 hours, quite bored, talking to his stuffed animals, and requiring frequent check-ins from us. I feel bad for him. I've considered letting him stay up later doing a quiet play time, but with school starting this week it'll just be easier to keep that 8:00 bedtime. With more activities and the sun starting to set sooner I think he'll have an easier time falling asleep in these next few months.
We started this month with another fun transition: Bringing back the dairy! I'm so happy I could cry. I celebrated with a Little Caesar's pizza. Alice had an allergist appointment this last week. We had them test for 6 foods we were suspicious of that they didn't test last time: Dairy, soy, beef, tomato, and sunflower. (He also retested for egg to see if that allergy has improved since last time.) The bad news is that 5 of those came back positive for legitimate allergies. Sunflower was the worst. Almost as bad as peanut. And egg had gotten worse since last time too, ughhh. But I walked away from the appointment feeling lighter because if I could choose just one of those foods for her not to have to be allergic to it would be dairy, and she tested negative for dairy allergy! The last time we trialed dairy was 3 months ago and she broke out in intense hives. But dairy is one of the allergies that is most frequently outgrown in babies by the time they reach a year old, and it appears she has outgrown it so we immediately added it back into my diet and hers. She has responded just fine to dairy baked into things--even short bakes like waffles and pancakes. She had intestinal trouble after yogurt so we're going to back off yogurt/milk for a bit but try cheese next week and see how that goes. And I'm back to eating all dairy (in moderation for my own stomach's sake). I did not expect to come away from that doctor visit with dairy back in our lives so that was a very happy surprise.
More new transitions--Alice's top 2 teeth are ready to rumble, and she turns one this month. September marks the month Jared begins year 3 of his 3-year work contract, so if and when we feel ready we can start putting out feelers for Utah jobs (spoiler: Jared's already started poking around just to see if there's anything interesting there). I'm not necessarily ready for 8 months of clouds, rain, longer nights, and our children getting sick twice a month (yesterday a girl in our primary class announced, "I'm sick!" and then halfway through my lesson I looked down and saw her sticking her fingers in Alice's mouth--sure enough Alice woke up with a runny nose and a cough this morning. GOODBYE.) But fall in Washington is so cozy. I'm lighting up all my fall candles and leaning into this next season. Here are some pictures from our week:
