Moving out

We found a place!! Our lease starts the 13th. It's as cheap a place you can get, but in an ok neighborhood. It's TINY, the bathroom is just big enough for a toilet, sink, and bath (the bathmat will take up all the floor space). There is a kitchen... no living room. And two of the tiniest bedrooms I've ever seen. One will be our "office" where I will teach violin lessons. It's half a duplex so it's one long skinny rectangle (a stupid design, really, but the walls are a cheery lilac/grey with white trim, so it looks bigger than it is).

Luca started this super cute thing on Dec. 23rd... we were at Rachel's getting instructions for petsitting over the holidays, so we were all talking and Luca was looking at us and copying by making as much noise as he could! He cracked up too, it was the cutest laugh. Now he does it about 50% of the time adults are talking... making "aaahh" noises as if he is part of the conversation.

He has also started sleeping on 50% of car trips, rather than just screaming. Hurrah!

He still isn't sleeping too well at night, but he throws me a 6 hour night every 2-3 weeks (I think this has been keeping me alive). He is starting to itch himself more deliberately with his fingernails... he made his face bleed a little yesterday. I can't wait until we are in our gluten free house, I hope all his eczema will go away after that.

two steps forward, one step back

He seems to be super sensitive to gluten, since he has random grumpy days and night even when I eat the same things every day. It's amazing what has gluten in it or on it.. basically everything that comes in a package. After talking with the ladies at Foodlab, I'll be starting over in the new year, eliminating only the things that make sense to me (gluten, dairy, soy, coconut, tomatoes) and then going from there, eliminating only one food at a time. Much less maddening. I had eggs and bacon for breakfast and it felt so good!! I think eating rice cereal every morning was stupid, there wasn't enough fat or protein and I spent the rest of the morning in extreme low blood sugar mode, frustrated that I had to eat every 30 minutes.

Yesterday he had such a great day, all day. He was so happy. In the morning, I got bold and took his diaper off and never put it back on, so we're back in the game when it comes to ECing. I got peed on a few times, but he started a predictable pattern of peeing once every hour so we started catching them. We caught the daily poop at the end of the day, which is really the most important catch to make :) He would always cry when we put his diaper on, which made me feel so guilty for giving up on ECing right when he needed it most. His chronic diaper rash disappeared, his whining stopped... he just loves to be naked!

Everyone is visiting for the holidays, so mom and dad (us) are getting to enjoy the occasional nap, or free hands to eat a meal, or spare second to run to the bathroom. Aunt Alyssa is sitting with him outside (his favorite place in the world) while I type this. Two-handed typing, what a luxury!!

We're apartment hunting. Everything affordable seems to be in a terrible neighborhood! And the nice places disappear so quickly (we viewed one place and it was unavailable the next day).