Another Eventful Thanksgiving

So last year we ended up in Urgent Care in Joplin with Emily for an ear infection. This year we visited Urgent Care in Springfield because Emily was breaking out in hives all over her torso and it was spreading to her legs and arms--even after 2 doses of Benadryl. The doctor suspected it was caused by an allergic reaction to the Amoxicillian she had been taking for a sinus/ear infection. However he suggested it could also be food related because at Thanksgiving dinners we often eat foods that aren't normally in our diet on a regular day. We already know dairy is a problem, but now what? The doctor prescribed Prednosol--the baby version of Prednisone. Four days later and she's still having new episodes of hives. I've given her benadry at least twice a day. So far I'm suspicious of chicken, chicken broth, turkey, and cranberries. The strange part of all that is she's had those foods a dozen times or so and no reaction, so I'm not real sure what it is. I will ask our allergist tomorrow if he thinks we need to test her for all the foods they normally do allergy tests for. I just would like to know so that I can eliminate the food that's causing all this from her diet.

Among all the allergy chaos, Seth came down with a stomach virus and pretty much feels horrible. I'm just praying that Emily, Savannah, and I don't get it too--we were all just sick a few weeks ago. We need a break.

The fun parts of our Thanksgiving week all included visiting family. We went to my parents house first (Grammie and Pop as the girls refer to them). We had a good visit, the girls amused my parents with at various times--the two that stand out most are when Emily and Savavannah climbed onto the piano bench and began "playing" the piano, and singing in unison Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. My mom cried because she thought is was so precious. The second great event was decorating my parents' Christmas tree. The girls had so much fun hanging the ornaments on the tree and looking at all the old pictures on the ornaments my brother and I had made when we were kids.

We visited my grandparents (Great Grandma and Great Papa Howard). The girls have not seen them as much since my grandpa's health has been bad and my grandma has not been able to visit us much. So, upon arriving at their house I explained to the girls that Great Papa would probably been in his bed in the living room because he had been sick and so it made him very tired. I told them he needed to be in a special bed that could help him sit up since he could not do that on his own anymore. Savannah's response was "I will not be scar-ed of Great Papa". When we walked up the stair to the door, Emily would not go inside the house and said "I'm scared, I don't want to go in". This made me sad for the girls and for my grandparents. So, Emily clung to me with her face buried in my shoulder for about a half hour, then she wouldn't even look at my grandpa. Savannah was okay until my grandma raised the head of the bed up so my grandpa could sit up--I guess it was scary looking or something. Savannah just froze--facing the TV and would not move or look at anyone for a good 45 minutes. Poor girl. She must have been really stressed. Eventually she warmed up a little to my grandma, and Emily near the end of our visit let my grandma hold her.

We spent the end of the week visiting Seth's family. The girls were so excited to see their Grandma Terry and Pop-Pop. They enjoyed a big Thanksgiving dinner--thankfully everyone made an extra effort to avoid putting anything with dairy in it so that Emily could eat all of the foods that were served. I think her favorite were sweet potatoes and blueberry pie. After lunch we began to notice a few red spots on her stomach, but weren't convinced it was hives because they were small. From then on the rash just got worse...

On Saturday, Seth and his dad took the girls over to "Aunt" Jennifer's mom's house to see their horses and ride a pony named Smokey. I only saw pictures and heard the stories from Seth because his mom and I had gone to a fitness center to work off the extra calories from Thanksgiving. The girls seemed to have a lot of fun--especially Savannah. She had a huge smile on her face in most of the pictures and she looked liked she was having a blast!

Another cute thing that happened was when Savannah and Emily were playing on this little activity table at Grandma Terry's house--there's a 3 key piano on it and Savannah was pressing the keys and singing and Emily was pressing the buttons on the telephone pad and singing. Then Savannah breaks into her version of Oh Suzanna. As Savannah sings it :Oh Sue-Savannah don't you cry for me, I come from Al-bama weeth a banjo on my knee!"


Overall it was a good week, Seth and I even got to go on a date! We went ice skating at the Mediacom ice center in Springfield. There were only about 10 people on the ice...mostly teenagers/college kids, one elderly man and then then Seth and I. It took about 15 minutes for me to remember how to skate, then I was really having fun...Seth on the other hand was having a harder time. What a great husband to take on an activity he knew he might not be very good at just to make his wife happy. He earned some bonus points that night. It was so much fun! I even got brave enough to try out my spin move and I only fell once--ending up laying face down flat on the ice. No worries, nothing broke! After almost two hours of skating Seth and I began to feel really tired--and were reminded that we are getting closer to 30 and just don't have quite the endurance for that type of activity. We concluded your date with a walk throught the Festival of Lights in Jordan Valley Park.

I think it will be a bit of a rough adjustment back to normal. I really enjoyed all the extra family that helped take care of the girls and entertain them. Tomorrow it's back to being just me--and then I may also be taking care of a sick Seth too. Pray for us to get through it.