The Nest Half Full: House Projects

I've had two other moms describe their daughters as "sassy", and it seems to be too fitting for this age. Apparently, she has decided that she shall be doing the bossing from here on out. We've had several talks, time out sittings and practices with being polite. I'm well aware that it's my own tone that also needs to be tweaked, after all, who else tells her what to do for most of the day? I can probably only speak for myself when I say "we" have been trying hard to use a nice voice more often. It's funny, you have grand plans of raising a gracious and polite child and when it backfires, you realise that it's yourself you are seeing in this tiny little person!

She had a big day. We've been trialing quinoa (keen-wah) for four days now with no immediate (IgE mediated) reaction, but she's a slow fail when it comes to non-IgE mediated and eosinophilic reactions. We have not seen anything bad on the bathroom front, but her behavior has certainly changed today. I added an eighth of a teaspoon of flax seed oil to each serving, perhaps that should stop. She actually refused to finish her bowl tonight, which is very out of character since she cries and badgers me for more!

Daddy and our newly appointed handyman have spent the day replacing our front door with a new one, so that our renters will be happy with the heating bills! The old one was probably the original and needed to come out. We know that too much heat was escaping through it over the winter. Mia and I blew bubbles for a while on the lawn, where she suddenly decided that she was tired and would "lay down on mommy" for...oh half a second. After the work began on the door, we loaded up our fifty million pounds of library books and headed to the library to get another half ton!
Mia absolutely LOVES the library. They have a great little hidey hole cushioned area and she makes a beeline for it every time. She'll sit with a book and "read" while I fill the bag with books. She helps sometimes, mostly trusting my judgment. On occasion I have enough patience left on the Mia Card to grab a book for myself (not that I'll ever get to finish one for the next 23 years!)

After stuffing the book bag into the car we walked next door to the thrift shop run by the local catholic church. I have been on a mission to find My First Leap Pad books and cartridges since we just got one of the pads for the trip. I bid on a lot of 4 books on Ebay, thinking surely they had their cartridges, but after the auction ended, I got four books without them. I went back to the listing and it appears that it was not mentioned until someone asked the seller AFTER I bid. Shame on me for not asking myself, but now I have four useless books. ANYWAY, I walk in and there on the shelf are three sets! We were pretty excited (well, I was, she was more impressed with the ziplock bags they were in) and thought we'd see if our luck extended to the Salvation Army a couple of blocks down. It didn't, but I did finally find an ipod cover and a belt to hold up my pants that have somehow become too big. She was very well behaved in the stores.

Perhaps that is why we had a little squirmy worm on our hands for the potato bake that the church held for the new library. They are moving and the youth at church wanted to help with funds, so they baked potatoes and set up bowls and bowls of yummy toppings. Mia had her quinoa but didn't eat very much of it. She was unusually whiny (okay, toddlers are whiny but she was VERY whiny) and when we went home to read Babar before bed, she fell asleep before I even finished! We didn't even do our goodnight song and prayers because she was sawing logs as I lay her down.

I wish I were as tired. I'm antsy and wired, but not in a productive way. It's the run-in-circles bat-crazy kind of wired. I should start on that car seat cover, because they certainly aren't getting cheaper on ebay!

We have been bogged down with a slow computer, so this is our photographic catchup! Mia's last IVIG infusion was on Thursday. Of course we had to go out with a bang, so it was the only infusion to which she reacted. Her heart rate went up and she developed hives, but she didn't seem to notice because Dora the Explorer was on the tv. After a dose of IV benedryl she was as good as new.
Much of our weekend was spent on home improvement projects, which I'm sure are for the birds. One project leads to another! Gary was going to lay the rest of the bathroom flooring but found that he'd have to either do a half-hearted job or pull the cabinets away to do it right. The cabinets are old and will not go in the same way again, so we picked out new cabinets and sinks. We also discovered that we'd have to remove the wallpaper, re-plaster and re-paint. Hmm...if we are repainting the bathroom, we may as well re-paint the rest of the house since it has to be done in a year anyway. Off we trot with half of Home Depot. We also decided after much debate that we'll just re-carpet the stairs. It's safer for the toddler and the clumsy mommy. Luckily we've been stashing away some "moving money" for such projects in anticipation of selling/renting. The painting will be the most annoying, having to move things around, cover and deal with the fumes. It will be all off white and beige, that way it will be more appealing to more people. As obnoxious as the projects can be, it's nothing like what our friends Ben and Sierra are doing. The entire lower level of their house flooded, ruining the kitchen and all the flooring. I do not envy their kitchen endeavor! We are going to leave the kitchen as someone else's problem! We'll replace the garbage disposal that we managed to fry, but the cabinets are on someone else's tab.
Easter was pretty Easter-like. We helped flower the cross that they erect in memory of a young boy who died of cancer when he was 8. Unfortunately I think we got too friendly with the flowers because one of Mia's eyes puffed up and started to ooze a bit, but calmed down after getting away from them. She knew exactly what to do with those Easter eggs! Those colourful things go into your basket and you have to hunt for them. I think every kid must come hardwired for some traditions. She did get bowled over by a very excited young guy but got some effort-less consolation eggs out of it! The nice thing about that particular hunt was that a lot of the prizes weren't food items but things like mini spyglasses and bubbles. We attempted to go to a hunt on post with some friends but there were bright orange warning signs saying that their eggs only had three kinds of candy and all were peanut related. I appreciated that they put the signs up and was very glad that Mia didn't really get what we were there for. As far as she knew, we were just walking around with a pretty basket.
Our big adventure for today was a trip to the ER that turned out to be totally unnecessary. You know how your car will make the most awful noise forever, then the moment the mechanic starts the engine it purrs? Toddlers are like cars in that respect. She woke up looking very peaked, wasn't interested in a cup and just wanted to lay on my chest. She got sick suddenly but seemed to feel a little better afterwards, so I tubed some formula into her since she wasn't taking it by mouth. It was coming out of her mouth before I even had her feeding line disconnected. This happened a couple more times before I called her health nurse and said that I was going to take her to the ER because she can't get dehydrated. Once we were back into a room with the nurse, she started to perk up and get chatty (she got sick one more time in the car on the way, mind you) and was interacting with the doctor. They tried to contact her GI in Arizona with no luck. Meanwhile, the kid is be-bopping around the room talking about all the tubeys and buttons and blah blah blah. I got the doc in and said that the anti nausea medication seemed a moot point and that I'm afraid we're dealing with reflux. She has done random vomiting a lot lately, but this was the first time in a while that she wasn't able to hold her fluids down. Luckily they understood and said to come back if we needed to.
Seriously. Toddlers and cars.
And now about Denver! We received the referral papers in record time! Tricare can't make anything easy though. The paper simply said that it was for Children's Hospital and it gave the codes for the types of visits and a phone number. The number was for the hospital operator, so I had to transfer a few times before I got to the Eosinophilic program. The person I spoke with was very friendly and said they usually have the patients start the coverage with National Jewish and get the allergy testing etc before coming to Childrens. We also have to work out the new referral because it's a multidisciplinary program requiring an actual team. Mia's docs up here "work together" for her care, but as separate entities that just consult one another before doing X drug and so on. This program has the GI, allergist, dietitian and feeding therapists literally working together with patients. So, I called her health nurse (amazing woman, I'm going to insist that she come with us when we have to move!) who said she and the case manager would work it out. Fingers crossed!

She loves this hat and wears it with everything, kind of like the pink cowgirl boots.