What have we been up to for the past month?

Well, it has been quite a lot. Evie started at OSU daycare two weeks ago and things are going well so far. They are being really responsible about her milk allergy and we hope to have no further problems. The other little kids in the room seem really nice too.

Mommy is teaching a class at Newark Thursday evenings, so that keeps life extra busy. Grandma V just had surgery on her neck to fuse it together and remove some bone spurs and she is recovering pretty well.

The last weekend in September, we went to Hocking Hills with Nana and Grandpa. We had a great time hiking, pumpkin picking and letter-boxing. It was a perfect weekend for being out in the country.
The first weekend in October, mommy and Beth and Carrie (plus Mo and her sister Christina), went to Berlin Oh/Amish Country for their annual shop, eat and relax weekend. We had a lot of fun and ate a ton of good food!

This weekend, we went to Randy and Heather's wedding--it was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. Heather looked fantastic--just like a princess. Evie kept running around just so she could stare at her in her pretty dress. She also had fun with Abby, Katie and Allison.

Evie and Abby.

Evie now has four molars (her first on both sides and top and bottom). We went today for her 18 month pictures. She was super crabby but they actually turned out pretty good in spite of that. You'll see in two weeks:)

Potty Time

Evie has been very curious about the potty recently and wanting to be held sitting on it so we got her one for her very own today. We took her to the store and she selected the 1-2-3 Elmo Potty. It was the only one she couldn't completely disassemble within seconds because the 'catch' basin is under the seat. While it is convenient for that basin to be on top for cleaning, Evie just wanted to rip the seats apart and look inside.

We brought it home and she wanted to sit on it and kept saying poopie, so we sat her on it with no pants on and lo and behold--she peed in it! So yipee for first potty attempt. She still doesn't quite get warning us about getting on the potty before she goes, but we thought that was pretty awesome that she's done her business in it already!

We're not trying to 'train' her too much, just making it available when she asks.

Did someone say busy?

It's that time of year right before school starts when things go from crazy to ultra crazy. I finished my 3 week class at Newark this week. I am teaching the same class one evening a week during fall quarter (assigned to a room with 21 chairs and there are 25 students, and they said it would work?) so we'll see if that makes for a calmer experience.

We have all had a cold this week running from missing a whole to a part day of work which is terrible timing. I think we're mostly recovered from the missed time though.

Evie has a ton of teeth coming in, including several molars. She has one that is sooo swollen and painful looking and has been hovering there in swollen awfulness for weeks but she seems to be taking it like a champ. Fingers crossed that it comes out and makes an appearance soon!

We met with daycare to discuss the bad happenings and got things pretty much worked out there for now. We also met with OSU and talked to the teachers in the actual room Evie would be in and it does make a difference knowing who would be caring for her. Their plan for working with Evie and willingness to jump in with new ideas was really good to see. All things considered, we plan to start her there in two weeks. It was still a hard decision to make, and I hate the idea of Evie not seeing her current friends again (and her 'boyfriends') but I know she won't remember a few months from now. I just hope she has a decent transition because she can definitely be a diva and (don't tell her: brat) when she isn't happy about something. The other nice thing is all the full-time teachers are CPR/1st Aid trained as are most of the teaching assistants and they also do epi pen training with everyone. The ratios are 2 teachers for every ten kids plus they seem to have lots of extra coverage so keeping an eye on meal time will hopefully go ok. OSU also just turned into a nut-free facility, so I know food allergy awareness is at the forefront right now, which is where we need it to be. Too bad you can't make a child care center dairy free, right.

They also do care plans before your child starts which is cool, so we will actually meet and sit down to talk about our expectations and come up with a kind of contract it sounds like. The room seems really diverse and Evie will be one of the younger ones, but I bet she won't be behind with her sassy mouth and motor skills!

Funny Evie moment of the week: at grandma's house, Evie took her doll into the bathroom (toilet seat was down), put the baby on the toilet, said "baby potty" and then tried to flush. Her other funny moment was when she discovered the spots on her chest and started calling them boobies and tried to pull my shirt up for comparison purposes. Kids just don't know about naked time being taboo, do they?

Awesome Evie moment of the week: she said 'I love you' to me on the phone while I was driving home from class. Evie has also started to tell us when she needs her diaper changed so no more parental investigations needed!

Keep your fingers crossed for us in two weeks!

Busy as always

This past week was busy, per usual. Evie seems fully recovered from allergy stuff, daddy had a good birthday and visit from his friend Mike F and the buckeyes won their first game handily while U Mich lost badly! I was also really proud of Evie because she shared her toys well with everyone. The girls look so cute in their outfits, and now we have a boy in our midst--William Robert who is such a cutie! Congrats again to Mike and Mo--fastest labor with no drugs and still a great big smile on her face--you rock! He is going to be mother-henned to death by the girls, poor kid!
We did a day trip to Indiana to visit family last Sunday. Evie had fun with her cousins and in their pool. Mommy and Evie had to borrow swimsuits for the pool so we look a little silly but she LOVED it. I had to pry her out of there.Otherwise, I am teaching a class at Newark right now that lasts 3 weeks and we're both working hard before school starts up in 1.5 weeks! After the allergy scares last week I called OSU daycare and asked if we could have that spot we turned down back, and they do have a space for Evie if we want it. We are checking it out on Thursday. I don't want to move her to somewhere that won't be any better than where we are now, and accidents can happen any place, but overall I would feel much better if she is closer to us (OSU is 5 minutes away, instead of 20 like she is now) and closer to a hospital if that should ever be necessary. OSU also requires all staff to complete first aid, which could work in our favor too. I want to check it out first, but if the room they can put her in isn't full of morons, we may go for it.

Evie has something like 5 teeth coming in right now. One of her molars is super swollen and causing her a lot of grief but she is mostly taking it in stride. She has also started telling on herself--when she does something she isn't supposed to do--like stand on a chair or toy, she yells 'sit down' and then laughs and keeps doing it anyway. She is a pip. Obviously, we're working on that.

I also forgot--Evie had a follow-up appointment with her doctor on Thursday. She didn't want to get weighed but since she has also been weighed recently at ER she is somewhere between 23 lbs 8 ounces and 23 lbs 14 ounces. She is a little over 33 inches tall. She's a monster:) Because Evie did indeed have the beginnings of an anaphylactic reaction at daycare, it is extremely unlikely that she will outgrow her milk allergy:(. Good thing she likes soy cheese, milk and yogurt!

Totally BAD

So for those of you who read about Wednesday's fiasco (see Oops below), get ready for the real horror of the week.

Daycare called again today. Apparently taking my advice they have Evie and one other child with a milk allergy sitting at a table by themselves. While eating lunch the teacher noticed that Evie's eyes were getting red and watery and then a few minutes later she broke out in hives and her other eye swelled up this time but it was worse than last time. This time she was having difficulty swallowing and was drooling on herself so her doctor's office said use the epi pen and take her to the ER, which we did. The epi pen was amazing and allowed her to get back to normal in seconds but did start to wear off as we waited at the ER.

Once we got to Children's ER they gave her steroids and some benadryl to try and continue to positive effects of the epi and prevent a replapse. We also had to stay there for several hours to make sure nothing more severe happened when the epi did wear off (usually wears off in 4 hours or less). She had a really rotten afternoon, as you can guess.

This time, daycare gave her a canned 'graduates' meal that we gave them that definitely does not contain milk/milk products. They also initially said they gave her mixed fruit and mixed veggies with margarine on them. For those of you who don't know margarine does have milk in it. When we first found out about Evie's allergy, I also thought margarine didn't have milk in it (although I read the ingredients BEFORE serving her anything with margarine) so I can kind of understand not knowing that. However, a little while later daycare called and said that Evie had not actually gotten her plate of veggies and fruit before this incident occurred which leaves us with only a few options:

1. Evie is allergic to something in the food she did eat that she has never had a reaction to before
2. Evie stole some food from the other little kid
3. Evie got some real milk in her soy-milk only sippy cup
4. margarine got on her plate or food off someone else's hands who touched the margarine and then her stuff (good gravy, I hope not because then she will never be 'safe' if it is a really severe contact allergy)
5. they got confused or fibbed in the chaos and Evie was given veggies with margarine

Evie has been eating their veggies for months now with no reaction but this was her first dose of them after having a serious reaction to that cheese pizza she got a hold of (and since she was wearing a white skirt that day and it has pizza sauce ALL over it, she probably ate more than just a bite--apparently the teacher was a sub/floater who didn't review the class allergens list?!?!!?). Anyway, her body probably hadn't cleansed that milk out letting even a little dab cause an even worse reaction.

So my friends, THIS is actually worse than my last post in which I said my worst fear was realized. When the allergist gave me the epi pens he was like 'you should never have to use these but I'll give them to you anyway just as a matter of procedure'. She had two bad reactions in 2 days resulting in one trip to the ER and lots of medication, not to mention chaos and missed work for mommy and daddy and stress on everyone.

I honestly don't know what to do. With a child who has a serious allergy like this I don't want to just start over somewhere new, because most likely any school that even has an opening right now for her is either ridiculously expensive or not great (otherwise other people would be using it). I also still mostly-trust most of the people where she is, so it's kind of better the devil you know than the one that you don't. HOWEVER, I can't handle this kind of stress and fear. What happened today was really serious, vastly more so than what happened Wednesday and I don't know what we'll do. I do believe in my heart that no one thought they were giving her milk/dairy, but if they aren't able to keep track of what has dairy in it, that won't be enough. It's just not very feasible to switch daycares with little or no notice. I'm so worn out from this I can't even be properly pissed off right now.

In other news, Evie still has two teeth coming in--they made an appearance about 2 weeks ago and haven't done much since. That will bring her grand total up to: 6 whole teeth. She also has her new mary jane styled crocs with OSU jibbits all ready for the game tomorrow.

Happy slightly (by one hour) early birthday daddy and Laurie!