update - looking good!

well, almost five days in, and things are looking good. amelia seems able to hold it together more easily - where she used to melt down and totally lose it, she is now getting a little cranky but pulling herself out of the tailspin before she crashes and burns! yay.

she is sleeping better: as in, no nightmares, no night terrors (were common, also with chelsea!), she is lying very still in her bead, not thrashing and tossing and generally migrating around the bed five times. she is going BACK to sleep easily when disturbed. this has NEVER HAPPENED before. normally, once her sleep is disturbed, she is up and at it - regardless of what anyone else might want. twice now during afternoon sleeps, she has been fully woken, and just decided to drift back off - the first time for an hour, the second for half an hour. she is also NOT CRANKY if woken in the morning - usually she takes quite some time to get over early morning grumps.

if i had to put these results on a graph, i would say way less highs, way less lows, and more of a balanced but flexible line around the middle of the page.

physical symptoms, as in asthma, we have to wait and see. we expect her to get worse before getting better, but she is on steroids, so once she comes off those we will hopefully see what is happening.

i now have a mean recipe for a french yoghurt cake, serve with cream, that is allowed, and also a rich rice custard pudding - and as mentioned, the home made icecream. andrew is in pig heaven, because i have never been much of a pudding or cake baker (was when the others were little though - how times change!) . . . add to that buttermilk pancakes with fresh maybe syrup, and you get the picture. he is also rejoicing that i am not trying to get him to eat fruit in any form (except with brown sugar on the yogurt cake, baked to caramelising). he would be happy if i never brought any fruit into the house again. humph. the kid is also drinking a mango juice cordial made with a heavy syrup (i make it myself mind you). i dole out the sugary liquid and wonder how the heck this can be ok - mind you, it is only for a month, and then we start challenging with salicylates and amines and the like. my money is on salicylates, given the family history, they are strongest when fruit is fresh - i.e. a crisp tart apple is chokka with them, whereas a sweet very ripe golden delicious has less. amines come when fruit is more ripe, and other foods too - i have an aversion to ripe bananas, so they are on the suspect list for now.

in the meantime - we will be baking caramel coconut slice this arvo, so amelia has some soggy sweet stuff to put in her lunchbox!!! a river ditchy!!!!