While I was adding a video Alan took to the “Beautiful Bedtime” post he made earlier this week (Lex reading to Eve, adorable, scroll down to see it) I came across this little blast from the past. Lex was almost 3yrs, Eve was 1yr.
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Monthly Archives: November 2009
Fun with friends
We had a fun day today with a visit from Jim and Julie, and Molly, of course. It rained and poured but we managed a trip to King Arthur Flour. Sooo much to see there… and so very crowded on a rainy day in November. The kids had fun playing together. Julie’s birthday is this weekend so we had a little birthday celebration with angel food cake (yum!!!)
Fun in the playhouse
Hugs!
Going on a trip
Eve has become such a gatherer. She cracks me up. Everwhere she goes she gathers things and carries them with her. She’s had several potty accidents even because she’s trying to carry to many things to the bathroom with her. Silly girl. Last night she gathered up all this stuff and announced that she was going on a trip. To where? The office! (she frequently goes “to a meeting” too, with all her stuff.)
Eve, all packed for a trip
Happy Birthday to me!!
Real quick, before bed, just a quick happy birthday to me post :) We had a usual Thursday with school, work, daycare (H1N1 shot for Eve, a champ, remind me later to tell that story). Then we had a surprise visit from the neighbors. I was making the kids pancakes for dinner (with every intention of eating a WW friendly salad myself) when the neighbors stopped by with a birthday card from Parrish and chocolate chip cookies with sprinkles on top. We invited them to stay for dinner and we all enjoyed pancakes (maple and blueberry), wine (a gift from Alan), and cookies for dessert. How’s that for a birthday dinner!!! Another year older, a few (ok, a lot!) more gray hairs, and more love than I know what to do with! I’m a lucky lady!
Beautiful Bedtime
As I write this, Tessa is out at a school board meeting and Lex is upstairs reading bedtime stories to Eve. Now, I have to to break it up for bed time. =) These kids just melt me and astound me.
Kill and Guns (what are words I’m not ready to deal with yet?!)
Lex went back to school today after being out sick for most of last week. He probably could have gone back Friday, but I decided to keep him home and let him fully recover before going back. He’s mostly recovered now, still has a runny nose, though that will probably last all winter :(
Over the weekend he made a K’Nex car (he makes LOTS of them!) and told me that the wheels of this particular car could kill any bad guys that got too close to it. I was a little surprised by this since he’s never made a killing machine before. I asked him if he knew what “kill” meant and he said no. He also said he got the idea for the car from a book we borrowed from the library (bad mommy for not better vetting the library books!) The book talks about robbers who steal from carriages. They carry a pepper sprayer to stop the horses, an ax to break the carriage wheels, and a blunderbuss to frighten the passengers. The book doesn’t talk about killing, but apparently he deduced that. As much as I hate that he’s thinking about such things I know it’s bound to happen sometime and I tried to take the opportunity to talk about killing and death. Yuck. Then he changed the car to have wheels that “capture bad guys and bring them to the police.” :) He’s still such a baby! Or not.
Tonight he made a K’Nex gun! Eeek!! It was a “fire sprayer gun” and he started shooting it at Eve. Needless to say I put a halt to that!! We had another conversation about death and killing and I told him that he can make guns, but he may not point them at people. Ever. Ever. He argued that it’s just a K’Nex toy really and I held my ground. I told him that he can make guns and not point them at people, or he can choose to not make guns. He threw his toy at me. We had a rough night. Sigh. I think back to school took it out of him! Fortunately bedtime was smooth and quick. Maybe he’ll wake up a little boy again and not be interested in guns for another million years! Or not.
A budding artist
Check out the artwork Lex did this morning! He got sent home from school with a fever so Alan stayed with him while I took Eve to the allergist. Alan said he was working at the table while Lex colored and Lex made these drawings all on his own, unprompted or anything. The bouncing ball (and the path it took) is cool, but the beach scene just floored me! I have never seen him do anything so involved! I asked him tonight who the person was and he said “Umm… the person doesn’t have a name. Unless I give it one. But I don’t want to give it a name.” So that’s that. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen him draw a person. And look at the face on the sun! He was even showing Alan that the orange and blue together looked like purple. I know kids develop in bursts, but it’s fun to watch and sometimes catches me totally off guard. I’m really enjoying this artistic burst.
Bouncing balls and beach scenes
Peanuts, peanuts everywhere…
Me & Eve (and doggie)
… and not an ounce will kill her!! Yay! I’m excited. Can you tell? You should be too! I don’t think Eve really understands the significance of this morning’s appointment (and by appointment I mean three hours watching TV and eating peanut butter crackers on the floor of the doctor’s office.) Everyone around her is excited too, for personal reasons. Mine include, in no particular order, peanut butter cookies for Christmas, no more epi-pens, and no more worrying about Eve going into anaphylactic shock (which, to be honest, Alan and I never fully believed to be a problem in the first place… so I’ll add no more guilt about doubting her medical condition to the list of things to be happy about!) Yay! That’s all I can say. Yay!
I went in this morning at 9am with Eve and an empty belly. I was told she could have no food before the appointment, just clear liquids. She was a champ and didn’t complain at all. She did see me packing the Saltine crackers though and asked, frequently, if it was time yet for her to eat them :) We got to the doctor’s office and they did the skin test, like last year, but this time she had no reaction! After 20 minutes the doctor came in and said let’s do the food challenge! I’m always up for a food challenge! He took the peanut butter we brought (yummy, yummy Jif!) and the Saltines and went away somewhere to prepare them. He started her with “a microscopic amount” on his finger, then after she had no reaction to that in 15 minutes they started bringing in crackers with increasing amounts of peanut butter. Eve caught on quickly that when the timer outside the door started beeping a nurse brought in another peanut butter cracker. She was very excited each time. In between food deliveries we read stories and watched DVDs on the hospital’s mini-DVD player. That was handy. Eve excitedly paused the DVD each time she heard the timer go off. I think she likes PB too :) The doctor was pleased to hear that and said it was a good indicator that her body is handling it well. I guess if the kid doesn’t like it they are more wary that perhaps the kid’s body is trying to protect itself. Anyway, she couldn’t get enough… I wonder where she gets that from? :)
Skin test. The P at the bottom is the peanut exposure. The other two marks are just controls.
Watching DVDs while waiting for more peanut butter crackers.
By the end of the visit she was pretty tired.
I promised her Panera Bread for lunch but it was 12:30 before we left the doctor's office and she was asleep about two minutes later. I think we'll do Panera for dinner instead.
Two hours and half a sleeve of crackers later the doctor told us that Eve is good to go. He said feed her nuts, as much as she wants, don’t be shy about it. He also said there’s no need for a follow up visit or annual check-ups or anything. And no increased risk that the allergy will return. Basically an “adios, nice to know ya” goodbye. :)
It feels like some weird little medical science experiment. We learned a lot, paid a lot, and now we are back to life as usual. No more epi-pens, no more inhalers (wasn’t helping the cough)… just plain old life as it should be :) Yay!
(There’s just one teeny tiny downside to this… I think keeping peanut butter in the house will NOT be good for my Weight Watchers efforts. I LOVE peanut butter… have I mentioned this… peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter cookies…. yummmm…..)
Just for fun, here's Eve at the allergist last June (2008). So adorable!
This was her first skin test, June 2008. The funny characters at the bottom are the peanut exposure. The top ones are controls.
More arts and crafts
Tell me if you get bored of these posts. They amuse me, but I’m a little biased. On second thought, I’m in charge here so if you’re bored feel free to click to the next link in your reader ;)
New piggy banks
Eve’s piggy bank sprang a leak last week (“Some of us are carrying over six dollars in change here!”) and so we finally got around to making new banks yesterday. I had visions of fancy drawings on each side, but they did their own thing. Lex decided to draw on the paper sideways (from what I had intended) and therefore lots of the underlying tissue box is showing. Eve decided that glue was her friend, so I snipped up lots of little shapes and she went to town. They both had a blast making the projects and moving the money from the sad old piggies to the fresh new boxes. Lex counted his change and proudly announced that he has 65 coins! That made me laugh because he lost is place several times and started over, so he really has way more than 65, but he was super proud of that number :)
New "piggy" banks (should I call them "tissue box banks"?)
Train
As I said in a previous post, Lex has been on a drawing mission lately. He spends lots of time at the table drawing colors. I started asking him if he could draw actual things, like trees and trains, and he went to work. Last night’s drawing was a train. Why I’m writing about it is because I’m impressed with the elements he starts with. The first picture here is his first attempt. He drew the track, then the smoke, then the wheels, and when he started to draw the train he decided there wasn’t enough room. So he flipped the page over and tried again, this time without the track, still drawing the smoke first, then the wheels, and then the train. Isn’t that an interesting way to draw? Always adding his name at the end :)
Train tracks, by Lex, minus the train
A train, by Lex, minus tracks
Gobble, gobble
November FINALLY arrived and I FINALLY let him do the foam turkey project that I bought at the store many months ago. He was very excited, but it turned out to be a pretty lame project. You have to glue all of those “feathers” to the back of the round ball (the body) and of course they didn’t stay there. The Elmer’s glue we have just smeared down and the feathers kept falling, as the ball slid in the glue underneath it and within moments we were all covered in glue. Mommy to the rescue though! I pulled out a box of sewing pins (which were fresh in my mind because I had only just yesterday wowed the kids with my amazing button-sewing-on skills!). We glued the pieces together and then I stuck a few pins in to hold everything in place. Eve LOVED the pins and was thrilled that I let her play with them. We’re living dangerously here! While Lex and I glued the feathers, she took the poor turkey’s head and filled it with sewing pins :)
Eve, putting sewing pins in a foam turkey head :)
Lex and the finished turkey. He was so happy :)
And then…
Then we moved on to painting…
A lovely fall painting
and beading…
Lex wrote me a message on his necklace. I was happy :)
with a little love note from mommy to finish off our crafty morning.
So I wrote him a (not so) secret love note and folded it up very small. He was happy. :)
A post Halloween scare
Take a look at the artwork the kids brought home recently. Lex made the green “Lex” at school and when it came home we hung it on the door. Apparently he laid on the floor, the teacher traced him on green paper, he colored it in. Cute, but a little scary to see out of the corner of your eye from the top of the stairs.
A week later Eve brought home her “Eve” tracing from daycare. This one is scary, I think. Her head is disproportionate to her body. I’m not sure if they traced her body or just did standard kid-shaped cutouts for all of the kids. The green hand prints are cute though. I suggested she hang it on the door next to “Lex” but she thought on top of would be better. I think the whole thing is a little weird… though I find myself debating between taking them down for the holidays or just putting construction paper Santa hats on them :)
Green Lex and photo-head Eve, weird... :)