Peanut Poison

My son is allergic to peanuts.  This has been a hard, slow, gradual process of understanding and accepting.   It sounds so trivial yet it has really impacted our life .  . . learning to navigate childhood without peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? No bag of peanuts at the ballgame? No Drumsticks? No CrackerJacks? No Reese's on Halloween? What? We've been lucky to have very few issues with reactions until now, but recently he received something edible that had been tainted with peanuts at school. (Still not sure exactly what it was.)   But whatever.  Little guy ate it.  Body broke out in hives.  Throat started to close up.  Henry got to take an ambulance ride by himself to the ER. 

Finding him at the ER looking like this was . . . terrifying. But the doctors were so great. They immediately epi-penned him twice, Benadryl, steroids, the works.

So now I am the mom at the birthday party who says, "I'm so sorry, but   . . . what is in this cupcake?" And I'm the mom who tells Lucy she can't have a peanut butter sandwich in the same house as Henry anymore.  And now I carry a peanut allergy kit.  I had this brilliant woman on ETSY make a peanut allergy bag for me to leave with babysitters, church, etc.  Here's what's inside. 

Clorox wipes for wiping down surfaces  Wal-Dryl single serving allergy meds (Benadryl won't make it anymore . . for some reason) And . . .the Epi Pen, obviously PS- The woman who made the pouch did awesome work: www.elliemarshallsews.etsy.com Just taking it one peanut-free day at a time.  *sigh*   *Have you had a similar experience? *Any advice? *Thoughts?

Cousin Collection

We had quite the cousin collection here  at the house a while back.  Ron and Heather fled to Sonoma for some R & R   and we got to have Rosie and Sadie for the weekend.
What do you do when you have 4 kids under the age of 6 at your house? I'm so glad you asked.  Because I have several ideas. Go ahead and grab a pen.
I'll wait here.  Ok. 
First, you quickly buy a pretend swimming pool.

Next, you get lots of popsicles, and have the kids go ahead and eat those popsicles. 

Then, take them on a hike, and if possible, add goats.

Then come back home and force persuade you husband to dress up as a jovial and lovable Popsicle salesman who travels door to door selling Popsicles to good little boys and girls. 

And when all else fails?  Watermelon.

 

Excuse me, Miss? Your life is showing . . . .

Blogging. 

Ok.

Here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to start where I am now.

I've got some nice stories to tell you from the past few months, but I'm going to start here and now. 

And I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

And I bought my blog a pretty new dress to wear to jazz her up! 

Easter was wonderful! Sharon and Terry came
 to spread some Easter cheer!

Sharon, Lucy, and I went to the Pantages theater to see
"Beauty and the Beast" for Sharon's birthday.

 Dyeing Easter eggs has always been a tradition at our house so  I was surprised to find out that it is not a tradition in the UK- in fact Terry and Sharon had never done it before. So we boiled up some eggs and took our time coloring them just right. We felt generally pleased with ourselves and congratulated each other on our color choices and went inside and left them on the table to dry and cool. . . .

and the dog ate every. single. egg. 

Oh, and also? I don't really want to go into details, but in a moment of Easter delirium, this happened:

We decided to head to Palm Desert. The allure of swimming pools, sunshine, fruity drinks, and barbecue by the golf course was too much to resist. Lucy has really started to be obsessed with love swimming, so we thought this would be be a perfect opportunity for her to swim her adorable face off. 

Thanks for indulging my "flash back" to Easter. 
We had so much fun!

New blog awesomeness is coming . . . .

Here's my goal.
I want to blog.
Deliberatley.
Honestly.
Regularly.
And I'm working on it.

This little guy is looking forward to a lot more exposure . . . .


Stay tuned.