Happy Birthday Grandma!!

Sorry I didn't get your card in the mail in time. I figured this was the next best thing :)

Happy Birthday! Hope you have a wonderful day.

She Can Have Cats and Chocolate

And that's about it. Actually, only dark chocolate, because apparently she's allergic to milk.

My child is allergic to everything. I have no idea how she consumes anything if she's truly allergic to everything that stupid test says she's allergic to. We're supposed to get her in to see an allergist, but we're just not convinced we need to.

The pediatrician called with the test results, but wasn't able to answer a lot of questions, so I'm not quite sure what it all means, but here are the results:

Category 3, 4 or 5 (moderately to severely allergic):
banana
pecans
chicken
milk
soy
codfish
egg whites
wheat
peanut
walnut
mesquite

Category 1 or 2 (mildly allergic):
tomatos
oranges
strawberries
egg yolk
dog
cockroaches
shrimp
salmon

No allergy:
cats (too bad we hate cats)
cocoa (every 3 year old I know loves dark chocolate)

These are only the things we tested for, too! So, I haven't changed what she eats, because that list pretty much includes her daily diet, but I will continue to stay away from peanuts and tree nuts. We probably will get her into the allergist just to gain a better perspective on what the test results mean. I really am only concerned about the ones that typically cause an anaphalaxic reaction and how severe they may be because I don't know which food fell into which category.

I decided to conduct an allergy test of my own. I asked Clara today after eating chicken nuggets if chicken nuggets make her tummy hurt. She smiled and said, "Nahhh". Then I asked her if they gave her owies in her mouth. She said, "Nope!" So there you have it; no chicken allergy here :)

Blood Test

I thought I'd get on here and give the latest on Clara's allergy situation.

I took her to the doctor last week. Her pediatrician took some of her history and Chris' allergy history and sent us home with a prescription for an epipen and paperwork to get bloodwork done to test for allergies. I think she decided on bloodwork instead of the skin scratch test because of Clara's ezcema.

Well, I finally got around to getting it done this morning. I wasn't looking forward to having her blood drawn because she's never had it done and I wasn't sure if she would go completely nuts or not. We explained to her last night exactly what was going to happen and got out her doctor kit to practice. We told her it would hurt just a little, but that she needed to be brave and very still. We promised her a new toy if she was brave. (I still remember getting a Charmkins carrying case when I was brave while getting stitches in my eyebrow when I was in kindergarten.)

When I made the appointment, I didn't know that I would have all of Jessica's kids today. They had off today for a teacher workday. I had Chris meet me at the place and take her in, while I stayed in the car with the kids and turned on a movie for them. Worked great!

I cannot tell you how proud I am of my little girl. Chris said she did awesome. She was great until they took her into the little room and then she said "I need Mommy. Let's go get Mommy." Awwww, it makes a Mommy feel good to hear that. Chris said she was obviously agitated, but wasn't doing too bad. She put her arm up and let them tie the strap around her arm. When the needle was millimeters away from her arm, she said "I need to go.", so Chris was ready to pin her down tight, but never had to. She cried a little when it went in, but held still and actually watched the whole time. She had 3 vials drawn. Poor thing. She immediately stopped crying when the needle came out.

So, the kids and I headed to Toys R Us afterwards and Clara picked out a My Little Pony as her reward for being so good and brave. She was zapped though. I had to carry her through the store half the time. I had her take a nap today because I figured she needed it after her morning ordeal.

We're testing for a few things, including peanuts, walnuts, cashews, bananas, pineapple, shellfish and several environmental allergens. She decided to include some of the foods that have caused redness and bumps on her face before, as well as some of Chris' allergies. I'll be sure and update whenever we get the results.

Clara Conversations

I need to start writing down some of the stuff Clara's been coming up with lately. I'm always left shaking my head, wondering what the heck she's talking about. I usually figure out some strange connection she's made in her head, but sometimes she just leaves me baffled.

Here's one from today:

Clara: "I'm two."
Me: "No, you're three. Remember, you had a birthday."
Clara: "I gon't want to be three. I have a birthday and I be two."
Me: "Sweetie, you can't go back to being two. You'll be four on your next birthday. You'll never be one or two again." (this kinda stung me when I said it.)
Clara: "No, I'm two. I gon't want to eat peanut butter jelly sandwich. It gives me owies."

And now for the backstory. In an effort to hold off giving her pb&j's, I told her awhile back that she could have peanut butter when she was three. On her birthday, when she first woke I told her happy birthday. She responded with "I get to have peanut butter jelly sandwiches!!" So anyway, I guess going back to two gets her out of consuming the poison I promised she could have when she was three.

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We were playing with her wooden blocks in Carlsbad. You know the rectangular ones with a semi circle cut out of one side? Well, we stacked two together and it made an "O" in the center. She said something about the rooster sitting on it. We were all scratching our heads on that one.

I figured out what she might be talking about and had to go check to make sure. She loves the Robin Hood movie right now. The beginning of Robin Hood is the old fashioned Disney beginning where the narrator is talking and you see the pages of the storybook turning. The rooster, who is the narrator, is sitting inside an ornate "O" from the first line of the story which reads "Once upon a time."

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Last month when we first started working on saying "excuse me" instead of "HEY!", Clara had a few funny moments. On one car ride, she wanted to get our attention while we were talking.

Us: No doubt carrying on some intelligent conversation.
Clara: "Excuse me."
Us: Continuing to expound on stuff.
Clara: "Excuse me."
Us: Ok, now we're probably ignoring her. But c'mon. She's not even giving us time to finish the sentence we started.
Clara: "Excuse me!"
Us: "Yes Clara?"
Clara: "Look at me!!"

Repeat that same scenario not two minutes later, but when we finally ask her what she needs, she's quiet for a few seconds and then says "Uhhhhhh" followed by a good 5 seconds of jibberish.

Happy New Year!

We went to Brandon and Erin's New Year's party last night and had a lovely time. There's never a shortage of food at one of their parties. I look a little tipsy in this picture, but in fact, I had nothing to drink last night. Just tired. I mean, hello, it was midnight! Way past my bedtime.

Clara had curled up on an ottoman with a blanket and fallen asleep before midnight. Too bad because the girl loves a good "cheers!" right now. For a picture, see my new blog. There's a link to the right. I'm going to try and post a picture a day, so we'll see how that goes.

Here are just a couple of funny pics from this week.

And Clara had one bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich today. Not the outcome I was hoping for :(

I found out before Christmas that Chris had already given her a pb&j about a month ago. Turns out he didn't even think about it and just gave her half of his. He didn't even remember doing it until I mentioned that I'd like to go ahead and give her her first one.

So, the one today was actually her second one and she immediately got these hives. It could still be the acidity in the jelly, but we don't think so. She said she had an owie in her mouth. We could've easily put the idea in her head though because we asked her if she had an owie. We gave her some Benadryl and the redness went away immediately. I guess we're off to the doctor next week to see about allergy testing. Ugh. I think she also has another infection, so we'll kill two birds with one stone I suppose.

Would you please just say a prayer for her (and me)? Chris reminds me that a food allergy isn't the end of the world, but it just makes me sick to think she may have to deal with a life-threatening allergy for the rest of her life.