Monthly Archives: October 2009

A visit with the allergist

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Here is how my day went.  Dropped Lex off at school, dropped Eve off at daycare, went to work for 2hrs.  Picked Lex up from school and dropped him off at daycare (sneakily so Eve wouldn’t see me!).  Back to work for 1hr.  Picked Eve up from daycare (sneakily so Lex wouldn’t see me!) and took her to her allergist appointment.  Ran a few errands and headed back.  Eve insisted on picking up Lex early (“I miss my brother!”), but fell asleep in the car on the way there, so instead we went home where I did some lawn chores for 45 minutes while she slept in the car.  Back to daycare to pick up Lex.  I felt like a taxi service today!

Eve in dress-up clothesThe good news, however, is that Eve is a superstar at doctors appointments. We met with the allergist for a checkup.  Height/weight/heart/lungs, you know, the usual.  He also sent us down for blood work to test Eve for tree nut allergies.  Last year they did a skin test just for peanuts, and now that she’s a bit older he was ready to do a blood test for tree nuts (and peanuts).  I am looking forward to the results next week!  If she comes back negative for tree nuts then we can start, carefully!, feeding her almonds and walnuts and other tasty things.  That would be nice.  At the lab the doctor asked how Eve was with getting her blood drawn and I could honestly say I had no idea, we’ve never done that before.  Turns out she is awesome!!  She sat on my lap, clutching doggie, and let the doctor and nurse hold her hand/arm, feel for a vein, and draw two vials of blood!  He said they prefer two but take whatever they can get with the little kids.  He was amazed at how calm she was.  She didn’t even cry or flinch!  I think that’s pretty cool, but…

Eve has this tendency that at first was cute and now it weird me out a bit.  Whenever she’s in a situation that’s uncomfortable she seems to “checkout.”  Her eyes get distant and she stares off over your shoulder.  It’s weird.  It’s mostly weird when she does it when people are hugging or touching her.  She draws attention from everyone she meets and normally she loves it, but several times I’ve seen small kids try to touch or hug her and she just stands there and glazes over.  Totally weirds me out!  One day last winter at a friends house her and a 1yr old boy were playing and suddenly got quiet.  His mom and I found them in a corner, he was leaning his hand on her and sucking on her necklace, she was leaning against the all and looked trapped, but totally “checked out.”  In the waiting room today a 3yr old boy was fascinated with her and kept following her around, trying to hug her.  She made small efforts to get away and then just checked out.  I’m trying to teach her to use words and tell people she doesn’t want hugs.  I tell her (even right as the situation is happening) that she can always say “stop, I don’t want a hug.”  I’m sure it’s just weird toddler behavior, but I can’t help feeling like I need to teach her to speak up if she doesn’t like the situation.  Girl power!  Anyway, I’m tired and rambling.

We got a fun box of dress-up clothes in the mail yesterday from Aunt Betty.  We’ve all been having fun with the hats and grass skirts :)

Sweet Lex

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Lex is so sweet.  Here are a few things that make me smile.

At bedtime tonight I was laying with him and he started rubbing my eyebrows, back and forth.  Weird.  I asked what he was doing and he said, “Rubbing your eyebrows.  Mom, they are so soft!”

After crossing off a few days on his calendar, Lex walked into the kitchen and said, “Mom, I’m sorry my writing is so wobbly.”  So cute.  Alan says that is from a Winnie the Pooh book.  Lex has told me several times that his writing is too wobbly.  I keep telling him to just keep practicing.

Also at bedtime tonight I was laying with him and after a few minutes he asked if I wanted to get under the covers.  I said no thank you.  Several minutes, and much coughing (we both have serious coughs lately!), Lex said “Mom, you really should get under the covers to keep your chest warm.”  I tell him regularly to zip up his sweatshirt to keep his chest warm to help his cough get better.  So cute to hear him echoing back, and being so concerned.

I love him!!

Fall leaves

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I like reading other people’s blogs and sometimes I discover “new” art projects that remind me of what we did growing up.  Tried and true art projects that seemed to have slipped my mind (like many things do!)  After reading about this leaf project on Simple Kids I decided to give it a go with the kids.  We have no shortage of leaves to work with!  They enjoyed it, especially the running around outside and hunting for “soft” (not dry, crinkly) leaves.  Lex excitedly taped the final results to the window and I tried to get them to pose for a picture, but this is the best I got.  At least he’s smiling :)  (The butterfly in the middle is an old project that Lex won’t let me take down.)

"Posing" with their art project

"Posing" with their art project

Sew cute

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Recipe from Parents magazine, but I can’t find it online at the moment.  Maybe I’ll add it here later.  Basic maple cookies with licorice “thread.”  Sew cute!  :)  Lex wants to take them to school for his show and tell tomorrow.  He did the rolling, measuring (make sure the dough is 1/4″ think) and cutting.

Button cookies

Button cookies

Doggie

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After one too many nights spent wandering the house looking for doggie, I made a new rule that Eve’s doggie stays in her bed.  She’s been having a really hard time with this.  She tends to tuck it places, like in the toy kitchen microwave, under pillows, in the bathroom, etc. and it takes me forever to find the toy each night.  Now doggie stays in bed and Eve stands down stairs (often!) crying that she loves her doggie and needs her doggie. Sweet, but sad.  She even goes upstairs sometimes just to hug the dog :)  On daycare days she gets super excited when I let her have doggie in the car (doggie goes to daycare for naptime), but then cries again when I put it  in the bag when we get there.  She’s so sweet.

She’s really an emotional mess lately.  Not sure why.  She cries a lot, for no good reason, and often comes over and asks for hugs.  I think she needs more attention and one-on-one time.  Tomorrow, while Lex is in school, we will be having some serious mommy and Eve time.  The daycare teacher even commented on how much she cries lately.  She used to love daycare and now I leave her in tears, often twice a day if I can’t sneak in and out while dropping Lex off after school.  Poor girl.  She is cutting all four of her 2yr molars, so maybe that’s the problem.  Or maybe just because she’s two?  Or do the female hormones kick in this young?  Whatever it is, she’s so sweet but the crying is draining!  For all of us!  Hope that passes soon!

Fall fun!

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We finally started raking the leaves today, upon Lex’s request.  He worked very hard to make a big pile, big enough to jump in!  He even tried to make it big enough for me to jump in!  How thoughtful!

Leaf collage

Workbook pages

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The daycare gave me a few of the workbook pages that Lex did there recently and this one caught my eye. What I first noticed is that he wrote his last name, something I hadn’t seen before. Then the note at the bottom made me laugh. I’m pretty sure Eve would have no trouble with this assignment.

Lex's daycare assignment

Lex's daycare assignment

Along those same lines, they are doing “color days” at preschool and we got a letter home asking that he wear specific colors on specific days. I presume this is to help them learn colors. Sounds like fun, right? I got down Lex’s calendar to write the colors on the days and he sat next to me and read the letter to me. This struck me as funny, I was writing down the days they will be learning “red” and he was reading the whole letter to me, days, dates, colors, etc.

I think we will be experiencing this for much of Lex’s academic career. :)

Make more cookies!

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My friend’s family owns Ann Clark, Ltd, the cookie cutter people of Vermont :)  Her mom is actually Ann Clark!  I bought some of their cookie cutters at King Arthur Flour the other day and we (me, Lex, Eve, Dylan and Caitlin) had fun making and decorating fall cookies.  The fun part though is that they let me post on their blog!!  Check it out:  www.makemorecookies.com

Roar!

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Roar!
A Halloween costume everyone can enjoy!  A roaring thanks to Joshua for passing along his lion costume to Lex.  Everyone played with it last night (Eve loves it!) and Lex even tried it on today.  He was talking about getting candy and trick-or-treating and I said, “Oh, are you going trick-or-treating?”  His plan until today has been to send Eve out trick-or-treating and then just share her candy!  I asked what he was going to wear (he also has a Spiderman costume) and he said “The lion costume from Joshua.”  I questioned whether or not it fit him and he decided to try it on to make sure it would be ok!  :)  It fits and all is good.  I took lots of photos in case he changes his mind and doesn’t put it on again.