10,000+ Views!

I just noticed that I have passed the 10,000 views mark.  Wow!  I am humbled that anyone would read my blog at all, but particularly that some of you would return time and again to check in with me.

Thank you so much.

Olivia

My daughter and I love the Olivia books by Ian Falconer.  My dear, dear friend gifted the first three books to my daughter about three years ago, and we have read them time and again since then.  I think the books are hilarious (as does my daughter), and Olivia's personality reminds me so much of my daughter.  Apparently there is a TV show about Olivia now and I've seen toys in the stores.  There is a good chance that birthday number five will be Olivia themed.

Last summer, we purchased some Level 1 Reader books for our daughter.  One of them is an adaption of an Olivia cartoon episode.  The other day, my daughter sounded out a word on her own, so it was clear to me that is is ready to read.  We sat down today to take a stab at the book.  Much to my amazement, my daughter was able to read many of the words on her own.  When we came upon a word that I had read to her before, she was able to remember it and read it on her own.  Before bedtime tonight, we read the book again.  This time, she was able to read entire pages on her own.

As a mother and English education major, my heart is soaring right now.  I am absolutely thrilled that my daughter is grasping reading concepts at 4.5 years old.  Even better, she is just as excited about her new skill and is hungry to learn more.

More Gluten

Yesterday, I took my daughter for a treat of frozen yogurt.  I was hyper-vigilant about keeping her away from peanuts (she is severely allergic to them), but didn't think too much about gluten for me other than the obvious toppings.  When we got home, I decided to look up the company's website on the internet and noticed they had nutritional information listed.  They have many flavors of frozen yogurt, but two contain gluten--including the one I chose.  I hoped that I would be okay, but of course that is not the case.  This morning, my rash had returned.  I haven't had a bad outbreak of it since I went off gluten a year ago.

I got in to see my doctor today to see if he wanted to do a skin biopsy.  He said that my symptoms were enough for him to give me an official diagnosis: Celiac Disease.  That may not seem like much, but I feel victorious.  To have a confirmed named for my issues is helpful to me as well as my family, as it is hereditary.

I know you were wondering just what this dermatitis herpetiformis looks like.  I took a picture to document what happened in case I couldn't get in to see the doctor before it cleared.  Keep in mind that this developed overnight and is very mild compared to what I had a year ago.  I have it on both legs and it is a raised, horribly itchy rash.  You're welcome.  LOL.