Is It Naptime Yet

The hives have gotten worse so I went and picked up the steroid the nurse prescribed. Lilah will also be sleeping with me tonight so I can monitor her breathing. She’s had no problems thus far, but since she was progressively getting worse as the day went on I don’t want to take any chances.
Her face is even more covered with hives and her legs are mostly red with white welt middles. It’s so sad.

With the first picture she was more, ‘Mom why are you taking pictures of my bumps and why must I hold the shirt up?’ it wasn’t until the evening came on that she started acting more like how that picture feels.
She’s my sad little girl.
So I think I’m gonna skip the birthday party we were invited to and the temple session with the RS sisters that I was thinking of going to instead of the birthday party because I was looking forward to that before the girls were invited to the party. I just need some me time and since I’m assisting Lilah’s class on Thursday, if I feel like I still can with all her skin problems, I wanted part of a day without craziness which interprets to time away from kids. Life is just crazy!
I may still go to the temple if the night goes smoothly, just because Judy is a very capable person, she does have 6 kids, and like I said, I need some me time to relax in this sea of craziness. Jon told me that this is probably what life will be like for the next few years and I say, why can’t I have it easy?
So we’ll see how the night goes. I’m praying Lilah doesn’t start wheezing, which is the reaction I had as a girl and would be cause for another expensive ER visit.

Nine days after starting Lilah on amoxicillin she is now having a reaction of hives. We had only one day left of the medicine, or two doses.

Damn allergic reaction.

Jon woke me up at 5:53 am to tell me Lilah had hives and I of course called my mom to see what I should do and he went to the Mayo Clinic family health book. She’s not wheezing and they’re just getting a worse, now looking better since I put some anti-itch cream on her, but no wheezing which would make it more of an emergency.

I’m just waiting for it to be 8 am so I can call the doctor and see if I need to take her in.
Poor baby, I hate hives.
………..

Well, I called at 8 am on the dot. The nurse said there was no way to tell what the rash is from unless they see it, though she thought it would probably be form the amoxicillin, so I brought her into see the nurse practitioner.
It was an allergic reaction and I’m to give her Benedryl. If it looks as though it’s not clearing up I have a steroid prescription to get filled that should help.
I feel like they are getting worse, but I’ll wait a little bit to see if they affect Lilah. She’s been pretty much her regular Lilah self, just spotted.

I have some pictures so you can feel some sympathy for my poor little girl.

She’s a dalmatian.

her back.

Lilah’s leg after lunch. The others were before lunch.

I think the hives started being more defined in their borders.

I had Judy watch Eden for me so she could have some fun while Lilah got taken care of and I picked Naia up from Julie’s work after the appointment, since it’s right by my doctor’s office and I wasn’t positive that Lilah didn’t have something contagious.
Before I picked Naia up we stopped at Smith’s to get the Benedryl and I got us a couple doughnuts as a treat. The baker there thought Lilah was cute and she felt bad that she had some sort of allergic reaction. We got a couple of free bite sized cookies, though she was just giving them out.
Lilah’s become shy around everyone, grandparents included. I think she may be doing it for attention. ‘If I act like a baby I’ll get more attention’, though Jon will say she’s just shy. There are times she acts shy and doesn’t speak and then there are times she acts shy and doesn’t speak, but she makes baby type motions or sounds. I don’t know what to do with her.

So my worry about my girls having the same allergy as me has manifested itself in Lilah. I guess time will tell if Eden has it also.

We were going to have family pictures taken today, but I forgot about Lilah’s gymnastics’s class that goes from 5:30-6:00 pm. So I rescheduled it for next Wednesday.

It’s not like we can do gymnastics or pictures tonight though. Even if she’s not contagious I don’t want the other parents worrying about her or the other kids shunning her, since it would be the first class and we know no one in it. I also don’t want to worry the teacher with a new student that has a full body rash.

I hope she gets better soon.

This past week we had two Enrichment activities. One was the regular get together, it was on personal and property crime prevention, and then we did a graffiti clean-up in our ward boundaries that was more of a ward activity. It all went smoothly and I think I sleep off any stress this weekend, not to mention that I had to wake up at 6:08 am on Saturday and I don’t get up until 7:30am, if you’re lucky.
Our main obstacle was getting the priesthood to give us names of volunteers. The committee members over getting the names bothered them a lot, but if they had them earlier, they wouldn’t have been bothered so much.
I think we need to help the priesthood in figuring out a method that would help them get names to make is go smoother because it’s no fun to get names for the nursery the night before and names for a major project two days before. No fun at all.
We’ve had enrichment’s where we were scrambling for nursery volunteers the night of, and that is definitely not fun, especially for the men asked to do it so last minute.

I’m really happy that my first Enrichment meeting went so smoothly. Our next one is right around the corner in November, so I have one week to breathe before I attend a RS presidency meeting because the 4 meetings we do during the year are a matter of prayer and meeting the needs of the women in the ward.
One week off.

I had an eye doctor’s appointment today. Judy Lee watched my girls and I took Naia with me to the doctor. I figured one child that I can leave in a car seat would be much easier than 3 children with 2 that would move around at their own free will. I’m also responsible for Naia once Julie leaves her in my care, so I’d feel bad leaving her with another babysitter.

My eye prescription didn’t need to be changed and so this will make two consecutive years that my vision hasn’t changed.

I’m sad because I wanted new glasses.
We gorilla glued a nose piece that had fallen off about two weeks ago so I was hoping that I’d have a valid excuse and would need a new prescription since the gorilla glue is like super strong super glue and my glasses are bound to break in every other place besides my right nose piece now. I’ve never kept a prescription longer than a year, which means I’ve never had a pair of glasses for longer than 2 years because I think once we just had the lenses changed.
I am happy to have my eyes stabilized. I wear a -5.00 which is pretty blind, so had my eyes continued to change like they have in the past I’d probably be legally blind by 35. My doctor mentioned how at age 23-24 women’s eye sight stabilizes and that’s the age they suggest getting laser eye surgery. I would love to get laser eye surgery but it costs too much money to even consider when you have a house payment, a car payment and home improvements to pay for, not to mention other costs that “come” up. I’ll probably be forty or seventy by the time laser eye correction becomes a priority, or legally blind. Maybe they’ll have a magic pill I can take by then.

If you go here you can kinda experience how blind I am.
When I complete an eye exam I can’t even tell that the top letter is an “E”. All I see is a blur with no distinguishable shape.

On an up side whenever I have the Lee’s watch my kids they always tell me I need to bring them over more often because it takes them so long to warm up to the place. Judy had to take kids to school and so it wasn’t until about 20 minutes before I came to get the girls that they left the couch once the kids were dropped off. I guess that’s what I get for having shy children.

As a kid I remember field trips to the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum. Well, one field trip. There were all sorts of cool things and a room that was an optical illusion type room. It’s hard to describe because it was so long ago, but it’s also just hard to describe.

I took my girls there today and I saw a lot of the same things that were there about 15 years ago when I went.

Like a huge doll that had organs in it, and bubble stations and then these wheels you turn for optical illusions and the big ball with electricity lines that when you put your hand on it it attracts the electricity, I think that’s what it was anyways. I’m hoping that the doll had been replaced during this time but I’m sure the optical illusion wheels had not because they just weren’t working, or really turning.

They had exhibits that had changed or were newer. Like this survive a hurricane booth and a fake grocery store and bank with a broken atm, or the card was broken, I’m not sure which. They also had this train exhibit that was “visiting”. Lilah wanted me to cover her ears while she pulled the cord for the whistle, but she wasn’t strong enough on her own, something that replayed itself when the girls wanted me to lift them on this “lift yourself”  thing. I had a hard time pulling my own daughters let alone the thought of an eight year old doing it alone.

The girls had lots of fun. I forgot my camera, so I feel bad because there were some cute moments.

They  liked the bubble station. We got to be in a bubble a couple times. It wasn’t working when we first got there but a worker put more solution in it and describe the best way to get the bubble to work.
They also had this desert exploration area for kids five and under. The girls actually liked the ‘baby oasis’ and played in there so it became more like a ‘toddler oasis’ as I describe by a slightly disgruntled worker when she passed by a doorway I was sitting next to. There was only one baby in the whole area and 4 toddlers, and at least I made my girls follow the rules and take their shoes off, unlike the other toddlers.

This desert area had wheels to turn to pull some buckets along, and the wheels were also hard to turn for me as an adult. Lilah could do it, but it took forever and was not simple enough so she lost interest before any cause and affect could be seen. They still had fun, but I think certain teaching tools were lost within the ‘too difficult to handle by themselves’ exhibit for children.

Upstairs there were these air instruments that worked on whatever, where you put your hand in and it plays notes. Lilah thought they were too loud so she had her fingers in her ears for about 2/3rds of the time we were upstairs. It wasn’t that loud so I feel this is just a way for her to get attention at times.
We examined our hands under a microscope that used a computer monitor. Eden had gunk on her nails.

We were there for 3 hours, so with the free passes and my $1 off the regular admission price with AAA I think it was overall worth it.
I don’t think I’d pay $7- but maybe just $6 with AAA- for one child, especially a young child, for the experience. Maybe $3 per child but then you have the cost of me as an adult too. Some things in Vegas are just to expensive to do regularly or are just too expensive for the overall experience.

The museum has a yearly pass that you can buy where you spend like $50 for an all year pass and then just $5 for each pass after that, but the overall exhibits don’t change often enough that I’d want to go there even once a month, well maybe I could do once a month, but that’s only while the girls are young and still find moving fake fruit around very amusing. (They did it for like 15 minutes and would have even longer I’m sure if other girls hadn’t invaded their territory.)

The girls also really enjoyed this tunnel area and played on it for the last half hour we were there. It just warmed them up for us going to the evil McDonald’s, which to Jon is evil but not so evil to me so I just go there by myself with the girls. (We both agree that Valde–Mart is evil. I can’t even say it’s real name. 🙂 )

The girls spilt chocolate milk, well Eden spilt her chocolate milk and Lilah ate all her apple slices and 3 1/2 nuggets, which is an accomplishment in its own, since they rarely eat even half of any fast food meal. They had fun in the play area and played with a boy around Lilah’s age, or that was 4. We shared an ice cream cone, which is one of the two reasons I like Mc Donald’s, the apple pies being the other reason.
We came home, put Eden to bed and Lilah entertained herself until she stubbornly did not want to go to bed.

I like doing free to cheap things with my girls. As the Fall comes we can go to parks but once winter hits we’ll be nearly completely inside bound, so I’ll need to find other things to do with them that cost little to nothing.
I wanted to use the free passes before field trips would be taken by classes. It got kinda busy, but nothing like it would have been with a third grade class running around.

This summer we participated in the local libraries reading program, well it was really Clark County’s reading program. Even though my girls don’t read, if I read to them or did different activities it would count. So for the prizes for reading 20 books were: a free book for each girl, a book bag to take to the library and a free pass to the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum for each girl, I think we got a free pencil also and put into drawing for a vacation type trip that we obviously didn’t win, dang it.
Yesterday Sam and I were going to go to the museum together so the girls could play and explore together, but after Labor day it’s closed Mondays except school holidays. So I may have to go by myself with the girls this Wednesday, the only other day I don’t have Naia this week.
Since the museum was closed Sam suggested we come over and have the girls swim with Britta in the kiddy pool they bought on clearance at Target. My girls had lots of fun, and so did Britta for the first 10 minutes. Sam said she’s not one to stay outside for long, even if she has been begging to go outside. Lilah and Eden were having lots fun sliding into the pool so they played until almost noon. Then we made my girls get out of the pool and we had lunch and then the girls played in Britta’s room. I was there for a very long time, so I’m thankful to Sam for letting us stay and play. She was doing cleaning while I was there, but I’m totally fine with that if I’m at someones house for a long period of time.
We left and on the way home stopped and registered Lilah for her gymnastics class at the community center. I’m seeing how well she likes the tumbling and whatever they’ll be doing because she enjoyed dance, but she likes to do more trick type stuff and balancing when she’s at home. I’ll probably have her do gymnastics in the fall and dance in the spring. Though if she’s continually excited about gymnastics I might keep her in it, because her excitement for dance weaned off, but that may have been because she just wanted to stay and play with Britta instead of go to class. I think she might like dance this year because they also get to do tap, but she’d have to try it at least.

So today I have Naia and too slightly ornery girls. Lilah wants us to go somewhere, she really wants to go to the park, but she always wants to go somewhere, and I’m just not ready to venture out where I’d be alone and responsible for 3 girls and have no help.

I’m a baby. I know it.

….especially the ones who stick rubber bands up their nose.

I got the medical statement showing us how much we owe the hospital.

I didn’t pay a co-payment that night because I didn’t know how much it would be. It was more than what I thought it would be anyways.

Anyone want to guess how much it’s costing us to have two doctors and some nurse type assistant see my child for 2 minutes and get a rubber band out of her nose? Don’t forget the obviously very expensive stickers that were given as a courtesy and intrigued my other daughter to want to go to the ER.

Anyone?

I will hint that it’s three months of our medical expenses for our budget. (We try to put away for sucky days like these even though I’m sure we haven’t been saving the money very well lately.)

Also we haven’t used any of our insurances deductible yet this year, so we have the full cost, minus whatever the insurance writes off. I am glad to have insurance because it would have been nearly $1,000 without it. I think I never want to go to the ER again. So if anything happens before 7:00pm I am definately hitting the quick care, and I might even go to the extra scary part of town for an open quick care next time, though I hope there isn’t a next time.

ER’s are expensive.

We do a game where we pretend to snore and recently I’ve made it so you have to kiss the person to wake them up. I snore and Eden kisses me so I say “Thank you for waking me up”. She snores and I kiss Eden and then she tells me “Thank you for kisses and waking me up.” It’s too cute.
We’ve also taught Eden to kiss on demand of any puckering lips. I love getting kisses from my girls but I teased that we could be doing a bad thing to teach Eden to always give kisses.

Funny thing of the day.
The girls were fighting and Jon went back there.
Jon- “What are you doing?”
Eden- “We’re fighting.”
At least she was honest in which Lilah usually gives some excuse, Eden took this, or I want this. It was just a straight up answer from Eden.
I suppose this might be more amusing to us as parents because of the cute voice Eden used and it goes with my thought on Eden conversing more and giving correct answers. “We’re fighting.” te-he-he. She’s so cute.

I love this age.

So we found out that Lilah did not have protein in her urine, under closer testing, and she did have a UTI. So my question is how reliable are these dipsticks if they were both wrong!? Or did the nurse testing my daughters urine somehow mix them up?
So I have some amoxicillin to give to Lilah starting tomorrow.
I am like deathly allergic to the penicillin family so whenever I have to give my girls a medicine in this family I worry. This is only the second time though. I think Lilah took penicillin for her ruptured ear drum and now we’ll see if she has any reaction to this.
I had penicillin without any reactions and then one day I had a reaction to it that showed my allergy, so I will probably never consider my girls out of the woods for this allergy. Instead of giving Lilah the medicine tonight I’m waiting until the morning so I can watch for any reaction.
I wonder if my nervousness for a potential allergy will ever go away. I’m seriously nervous about giving her the medicine because I remember how bad my hives were and the itchiness that affected even my eyes and I never want my girls to go through that. In a way I don’t want to give her the medicine, but I know it will do her good and that just because I have the allergy doesn’t mean she will.

Other news about Lilah is she appears to be not sucking her thumb as often or really at all, mostly. This morning she complained about it hurting and I mentioned it might be sore because she sucks it. ( Jon mentioned to me how he’s noticed that she hasn’t been sucking it as often so he doesn’t want to have any negative attention due to sucking the thumb. I was just telling her how it is.) Once Jon mentioned not seeing Lilah suck her thumb as much I realized that I’ve noticed that she doesn’t suck her thumb at nap time and she’s not sucking it as much when we’re watching something or in the car, or when she’s bored. Instead she’ll eat her fingers or her blanket or the stuffed animal she has, which I totally don’t approve of, but this is mostly at nap time, when I think she’s most susceptible to wanting to suck her thumb. I am wondering if it’s a conscious decision or unconscious, but probably a little of both.
I am a little relieved to see her not sucking her thumb as often but that’s only because she’s getting older, though I didn’t mind except when she didn’t want to hold my hand in public because she was sucking her thumb, which is about the only time she’s ever let it get in the way.
We’ve never given her any grief for sucking it because often if a child is teased or discouraged in a negative way from sucking their thumb they will either react two ways, not sucking it anymore or the more common reaction is continuing to suck the thumb due to psychological trauma. As a psych major I know that most thumb sucking past the age of five is due to psychological trauma or emotional trauma, not always but often.
Since neither of our parents, and most of our family members, don’t approve of thumb sucking by toddlers we often had to remind them not to tease Lilah or give her the impression it’s wrong. I’m sure as Eden gets older we’ll have the same small battle.

We let out girls suck their thumbs so they could self sooth and there wasn’t any searching for a pacifier in the night because they lost it while sleeping, though we did have to help them learn to use their thumbs and find them when they were very little.

These are the pictures that were shot from Andrea’s baby shower. I took a few but Julie took pictures while Andrea was opening gifts.

Sorry I don’t have a better variety. I was just talking most of the time and I didn’t remember about the camera during the games.

The cake.

The table. I like to have fresh flowers at parties.

(There was more food, but it was on the counter.)

I just thought Eden was cute in this one.

She got lots of onsies.

Did I mention Julie was taking the pictures?

Cards! (Really money!)

The party gang.

Lilah liked the vegetable tray.

This was Andrea telling Brien about all the onsies she got, duplicates included, and him being like yeah, we’ll need a lot of onsies.

More gifts, but what is Julie smiling at?

Oh, Julie’s smiling at her cute baby Naia.

The end.