Our Little Trooper

Monday Julia had an allergist appointment with Colorado Allergy and Asthma Center to determine to what she’s allergic.  We were told ahead of time that the appointment would take 2.5 – 3 hours because they reviewed your history, performed the test, reviewed the results, and put together an action plan with you.

I’m very proud of Julia – she’s been handling these recent doctor visits really, really well.  No whining, no complaining, no tears – occasionally she’ll ask if she can go home now – but really, she’s been awesome.

Monday was no exception.  She hung out while I chatted with the doctor and clinician, and she was very good for her skin test – she allowed the clinician to draw on and number her back, poke her approximately 60 times with little pins, and then laid quietly and without issue on her stomach during the test while watching a movie (thank goodness for TV and DVD player in each room!).

The first test showed that Julia is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, dogs, and soy (mildly).  Because of the result of the dog for the first test, they had to do a second test with a needle to determine if she was also allergic to cats (which she is).  Again, she was awesome during that test too and did not even flinch when they stuck a needle in her arm – like, stuck it in there.

As a result of the day, Julia was given two suckers and we were told she was the best 4 year old patient they had ever had there.  I was so proud of her!

Because of the severity of the peanut and tree nut allergies (with tree nut being something we weren’t expecting which is why she reacted SO badly to the walnuts in the carrot cake a few weeks ago), we now will carry EpiPens with us for her and daycare has them too.  Here is hoping we never have to use them, but I am so thankful for this child of mine who is SO understanding.  Her new mantra is “No More Nuts!” over and over again, she asks after nuts in most every food that is foreign to her, and when we discussed the EpiPen, she understands that if she gets nuts, we have to use it, and while it might hurt, it will make her better – and she is fine with that.

It’s hard when your young kids start having to learn lessons like this.  It doesn’t seem so bad, but to have to explain things like this to your child and how she could get really, really sick without taking these precautions – it’s hard, and yet, at the same time, it’s amazing to see her level of comprehension – I simply don’t think of a 4 year old as being able to understand things like that, but yet, here she is, understanding what the EpiPen is, why we would have to use it, and being totally okay with that.

We’re also very thankful that Julia doesn’t have any fear of going to the doctor – what a Godsend.  Adam and I talked about it and really think that we have our chiropractor to thank for that – he is SO good with kids and Julia and Raven both love going to see him.  We think that because of that, Julia understands that we go to the doctor for good reasons and not for bad.  That makes dealing with this sort of thing so much easier.

erin

A picture for today…

Anna is 8 weeks old (yesterday)!

Anna was eight weeks old yesterday.  I didn’t take any pictures of her yesterday and didn’t weigh her either – mainly, we just went through the day as if it was any other day.

There is one point of significance from this week, though – I had to break out the 6 month clothes for her.  I’m really really glad that I set up her closet with all the clothes through 9 months when I first dug everything out – otherwise I would have been digging out tubs left and right.  She has gotten so long and the 3 month one-piece outfits simply are too short for her.  Crazy to think she is wearing clothes at 8 weeks that Julia didn’t wear until she was 5 months old.

Anna has her two month appointment next Monday.  Developmentally she seems to be doing well and is falling into a bit of a groove with napping and sleeping.  We need to work more with the bottle – we’re just lazy like that – so that when she starts daycare in less than three weeks, she’s ready for it.

In other news, I started back to work on intermittent FMLA yesterday – working a few hours a day.  I can’t say that I missed it.  A lot of people ask if I want to go back to work – well, there isn’t much point in answering that question or even dwelling on it because there isn’t a choice in the matter.  We already made our choice about it when we moved here – without some drastic changes, there won’t be a change.  So, it’s a question I try to avoid answering – mostly because thinking about the alternative too much is too painful.  It is what it is.

Off to start our day… but wanted to say a happy 8 weeks to my baby!

Another dress from days of yore…

This is Anna again… another dress from my box from when I was a baby.

Anna is 7 weeks old!

This is Anna today:

This is me in the same dress many, many moons ago (hard to see!):

Anna sure is a trooper.  I think this is the third time we’ve taken pictures in the last few weeks when it started to sprinkle on us when we went outside.

Here is one more picture from today – it is cute to me because she is smiling.  (Or in the process of…)

If the “Three Bears” had a picnic table…

…it would have been just the right size for Goldielocks.   Last year I took the girls to the Urban Farm in Denver and snapped a pic of a picnic table.   I forgot to have size dimensions, so I just took them from one of the girls play tables and chairs.   I went to the store with a friend to pick out treated lumber (Home Depot doesn’t sell “green” C2 anymore, just this reddish treated lumber that makes a great faux-cedar look!

Then one evening I cut and drilled all the pieces so all we needed to do was final assembly.  Thought I’d teach the oldest girl how to turn wrenches…literally.   I got the carriage bolts inserted, and Julia put washers on and screwed each nut on with a socket wrench.   Then I finished it up by screwing on the seats and table top slats.   Fin!

You can tell Julia is proud and happy to have her own “just the right sized” picnic table.  Now I just need to put a coat of watersealer and we’re done.

Prost!

ADAM

It’s not always peaches and cream

I’ve noticed that lately my posts have been towards the upbeat – I don’t talk much anymore about the negative in our lives, as if I’ve completely wiped that part out of my mind and figure you don’t need or want to know about it.  But last night was significant and I feel compelled to share.  It also reminds me that this blog is about our lives and not just about all of the happy things that happen.

For days now I’ve been planning to take the girls to the bakery in Arvada to buy them marshmallows on a stick – it’s a silly story, but anytime we go through Starbucks they always ask for cake balls on a stick and I’ve learned not to buy them those – very messy.  But the girls always thought they were marshmallows on a stick and I knew the local bakery had them and considering how many times I said, “Next time”, I figured I owed them.

So after picking up the girls yesterday we went to the bakery and I let them pick out marshmallows on a stick.  I also decided to pick up a few other treats considering my father- and brother-in-law were in town.

Being a mom who experiences guilt, I guess that’s where the mistake was.  I bought treats with nuts on them – what was I thinking?  Julia has had a peanut allergy that has gotten progressively worse since we first found out about it since she was 15 months old, but never bad enough to the point that we needed to consider removing peanuts from our house altogether.  And I’m not saying we need to do that now, but we do need to be more careful.

Julia, who normally is very cautious about all nuts (and jelly – she won’t eat jelly because it goes with peanut butter and peanut butter “makes [her] sick”), but she couldn’t pass up a bite of carrot cake last night.  The carrot cake seemed to only have crushed walnuts so it didn’t trigger a red flag.  Unfortunately within minutes of eating it, her lips started to swell up.  Within 15 minutes, she was having a hard time breathing and hives were breaking out.

I decided we needed to go to urgent care so my father-in-law (who graciously offered to come with me) and I headed to the one about three miles north of where we lives.  The mention of nut allergy immediately brought out a nurse and doctor who, after checking Julia over for about five minutes, said she needed to go to the emergency room.  Back in the van and now we were driving to three miles south of where we live to the nearest hospital.  The urgent care doctor said he would call ahead, and thanks to our quick thoughts to give her children’s allergy medicine before we left, he decided she didn’t need an ambulance.  And thankfully that allergy medicine was starting to lessen Julia’s difficulty breathing.

After we arrived at the emergency room, we were quickly escorted to a room after Julia’s vitals were taken and she was assessed and given Prednisone (steroid).  Then it was a lesson in patience as we waited for the swelling and hives to go down. After discussion with the doctor, it was determined that most likely Julia is allergic to more than just peanuts, and so our new mantra is, “No nuts, PERIOD”.

Unfortunately two hours after she had the Prednisone, Julia threw it up, and so we had to wait longer to see if all of the swelling and hives would get worse again.  Thankfully they didn’t, so about 4.5 hours after we started our adventure last night, we were finally home and I tucked Julia in bed at 10:45 pm.

My father-in-law was a super big help in keeping both Julia and I entertained (he is a RIOT!) and also in helping me clean up the puke (thank you, Ron!).  Julia was such a trooper and only shed a few tears after her blanket was “dirty” (puked on) and she was tired and wanted to go home.  She didn’t like having to trade her dress for a super big-for-her t-shirt, and she really wanted to go home.  But, you know, we started talking about poop, and she cheered right up.

I’m not even kidding a little bit.

The doctor sent us home with prescriptions for Prednisone and an Epipen.  (Yay, as Adam had told me not to bother coming home without one!)  We now have Epipens for both home and school and tomorrow we go back to the doctor for a checkup and also to get a note for Julia’s school about the allergy and the need for the Epipen.  Our daycare isn’t peanut-free, so we have to  be mindful even more so than before.

When Julia’s allergy first presented itself, it was very mild.  Our doctor then said that it would either go away as she grew or it would get worse – I guess we know now for sure which way it is headed.  It was really scary to listen to her breathe and to act and be super quiet as she struggled to breathe, and at the same time that Mom Mode took over and I kept fairly calm as we drove for what seemed like miles (which was only 12 total for the whole night).  We’re so very very thankful for the urgent care doctor who assessed her so quickly and called ahead, and so thankful for the great nurse and doctor at the emergency room.  We have so much to be thankful for, but really, we are just so thankful that Julia is okay and that the reaction happened at home and not when she was at school or somewhere else.

So sometimes bad things happen.  It’s not always peaches and cream around here.  But, that doesn’t leave us any less blessed… you just have a more rounded view of our life here.

erin

Girls

I’m lacking for words tonight but I can make up for that in pictures.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Never. Again.

Anna is 6 weeks old!

What’s new with Anna in the last week?

- She smiles.  A lot.  We can make her smile.  That’s REALLY cool.  And sometimes I can make her laugh too.

- She loosely weighs 12.2 lbs.  She’s growing like a weed!  (Anna, please slow down, as we have approximately 160 Size 1 diapers left that we were unable to return to the store.)

- She sleeps about a 6 – 7 hour stretch at night – I feel like I can admit that now as it’s been consistent for about a two weeks now.  The other night I put her down at midnight and she slept until 6 AM and that was pure heaven right there.

- She has developed some baby acne ish something or other after her last bath – maybe I need to use a different soap or no soap or lotion, who knows.  We’ll figure it out.  We already use “free” laundry detergent and she doesn’t seem bothered by it at all.

- She still loves mama best but daddy is growing on her.  She also REALLY likes Kevin in our church small group – I think his voice is like that of angels for how quick she is to calm down when he holds her.

A few pictures – “why, yes, mom, I will pose for you!”  (Last time until she is an adult – ha!)

erin