Julius is (almost) three!!!

I told the guy I want to take a picture of him as a three year old.. This is the pose he decided would suitable. I think the guy wants to be a model or something. Where on earth does he come up with this stuff, is beyond me.. 

He is the kindest, most loving little boy that I know. He is 99cm tall and weighs just under 15 kg. tall and thin like his baba. While we struggle with his health, he still enjoys life. At the moment he is missing his baba a lot, and this comes out as a lot of äiti hold me, don't leave me etc. but in general he is a happy little boy.

At three years (well almost) his absolute favorite person is uncle Miikka. Whenever he visits is like a Christmas and birthday put together. Julius still love music and really enjoys dancing and acting. We often get to witness elaborate scenes from Risto Räppääjä or Fireman Sam, costumes and all. He gets too much tv time, but I justify it to myself with the fact that unless he is sick, he never sits and stares, he is always too busy to act it out himself.

Julius, my little angel, have a happy birthday! Äiti and baba love you very very much. You express the purest joy whenever you see something that you like. Your face lights up and makes the whole world shine a bit brighter... Never let that go!

Sunday burgers

I refuse this new "diet" to let us miss Sweet Sunday burgers, so today on the list were mini-burgers... Not the best buns but Julius-safe and the kids devoured them..

 

    Before the oven

    The end result with some sweet potato french-fries

I seriously need some help with the breads and buns, but until then this will keep us alive. On a positive note J is not itchy at all, can the diet really help so fast???

It's new day, it's a new world...

    Second trip to the shop

New products to play with, I'm all excited.. And I'm happy I got most of the products organic too.. And from the s-market close by. Convenience makes life easier...

Boys just wanna have FUN

Last night Julius and Max's friend Diego came over for an impromptu sleep over. Bath time was the fave...

The photo does not do any justice because they were too busy to pose for me, but fun was had. <3

Going gluten, egg and milk free...

I've always loved the saying "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Well we've gotten some lemons recently. Julius has some severe allergies, well at the moment officially only birch and horse but last Monday the buys were a bit fluish still from the previous weekend's flu attack so they stayed home from daycare for an extra day. Julius woke up from his nap screaming "äiti, there is blood everywhere!" The few seconds it took me to run upstairs were torture, with all the scenarios in my head I was relieved to find both kids in one piece. The relief was short lived when I saw Julius' neck. I was bleeding and had no skin at all. While I was able to get the neck healing now his whole body reacted, and badly. Tuesday the situation looked like this

So I thanked God for insurance and got him a private doctor since the public side would just take too long. Thursday we went for loads of blood tests and while we are still waiting for results the doc put him (but in reality the whole family) on a strict diet. No dairy, no wheat, oat, rye, barley or egg. The trip got the shop was a bit of a disaster, but we're adjusting. The good news is that after two days on this diet he look like this:

The improvement is amazing. I'm just praying it lasts and that we would finally find a reason for it. I'm sick of hearing the words atopic eczema because I firmly believe (I know I'm not a doctor) that there has to be a trigger and a reason for this. While I never wish for my little man to have allergies or have gluten issues, it would be a huge relief to find a reason. Luckily we have so many options nowadays and Finland is well supplied in gluten free products. After a while, I think it will be easy enough to deal with. Thanks to facebook I got so many comforting comments that now I feel like it is not a big deal, and that it seems that almost every family has to deal with something like this...

Never ending project: me

There's been very few moments in my life that I have actually felt good about my body. First too small, then bad skin, too big, too something else. My high school graduation is actually the ONLY moment I can remember (if you don't count early childhood when you don't even think of these things) And that was quite a while ago already. I've spent most of my life feeling ugly. Thinking when I hear people laughing, they're laughing at me. When people pass me by, they must think I'm disgusting. A waste of space. I could Never say no to anyone, because they might not want to be my friend anymore. In my life I have had some people, Tonny especially, who have made me feel I'm ok, and that they find me beautiful. But I've felt it as how they see me, never how I see myself. 

When I turned thirty last year I decided enough is enough. This endless feeling of sadness when I look into the mirror. But I didn't want a quick fix, because I have tried those before, I wanted a change, a total mind, body and soul transformation. And it took time. For the first couple of months I didn't even do anything about my body. I was looking for HOW to do it in a way that would finally lead to success. I finally found an exercise program that made me push hard, so I could feed the competitive side of myself, and yet it couldn't take up too much time or money so that I would and could stick to it no matter what. Chris Powell's book choose to lose helped me a lot. It simplified it, gave me basic ground to start from. I started 31.12.. Weighing 73 kilos on that day. The progress was good and while I was still struggling it made sense, and gave me hope. Unfortunately pneumonia, influenza, and an ear infection made me sick for two months... After that there was a long way to bounce back. Moments when i just wanted to give up. So I took it slow and decided to work on my mind and soul for a while. Reading books that shaped my life and how I saw food. I think that this was actually the fact that finally made me bounce back and gain confidence I lost at the age of 9 by bullies at school. I know who I am now and all of a sudden my weight started falling off again.

I still have five kilos to drop to reach my original goal of 57 kg, but surprisingly yesterday before my evening workout I looked into the mirror and actually liked what I saw. I smiled. I know I will drop the weight, but even if I wouldn't I know now I don't have to to like myself anymore. I feel sad that the little girl that was called too skinny, white and small, had friends one day and then no one would speak to her the next day, got so lost that I took me all this time to find her and learn that it's ok to love her again. I don't know why they decided it was ok to kill my confidence, I guess they didn't know how deeply they hurt me back then. I'm finally free. I'm finally me again.

    Happy me before a workout

Maiju