plan

Our afternoon plan - start on baby's duct tape dress.

Sister and I combined have zero experience with textiles or reading patterns and precious little combined experience with duct tape.

Sounds like an adventure in the making. More to come-

lions and tigers and bears, oh my

We're going to the zoo this morning.

Sister is sad that there are no elephants at the OKC zoo. I told her they were in Tulsa being woo'd by some man-elephants. She's pouting.

Baby has no idea where we're going, but we're pretending like she's excited, too.

I think they're supposed to have a new butterfly exhibit today. We'll see.

making friends

I am spitting nails right now.

Approximately five minutes ago the house phone rang.

What was that? House phone??

Yes, we have a land line. We're paranoid and think it's important to have. It rarely rings, unless it's a political call or a survey or the firefighters wanting money.

It was a political survey.

They asked to speak with The Hater, who happened to be on his cell phone talking to someone else, which is what I told the girl on the phone... *

She immediately started telling me that she was with a political polling place and wanted to get my opinion on abortion.

Oh good, I thought, I know exactly how The Hater would have responded!

The question was basic. They wanted to know if I considered myself "pro life", "pro choice" or "undecided".

I told her we were very decidedly "pro adoption".

She laughed and said, "Yes, that's a great solution. And we encourage domestic adoption 90% of the time." She went on about how it was important "to be conservative" and "take care of unborn babies".

Then she asked the question again. I told her we were still pro adoption.

She said, "It sounds to me that we have many of the same values in common."

I agreed, "Certainly we do." (what I was about to say was that we both want people to make their own decisions, but I didn't get that far)

She laughed again. Followed by a, "I admire your attitude."

And before I could give her the direct answer she wanted she said, "I'm just doing my job, you BITCH" and hung up the phone.

Oh no she didn't.

Oh yes she did.

I picked up my cell phone and called them back. There was a really long message about how political calls weren't part of the national no-call list, but if we wanted to leave a message we could and they would get back with us. Oh, yes, I would like to leave a message.

And that's exactly what I did. I told them the time and the time zone I was calling from. I told them The Hater's name and my name. I told them they could remove our number from their calling list, and then told them exactly what their person called me on the phone. I also shared with them my concerns about how it was unacceptable to be called a bitch over a phone call I did not choose to receive. I told them that name-calling was not going to help their cause.

The Hater was oblivious to all of this until he heard me leave the message as I paced across the room.

(Really? You paced? Like in the movies? Yes, I paced. I paced hard. I pace when I'm over a nine on my ten-point anger or frustration scale, when I'm writing and trying to figure out how to word a sentence that's tripping me up, or when I'm an eight and a half on my ten-point sad scale.)

I was really struggling to not be an ass on the phone. I really wanted to get across my disgust and displeasure without living up to my bitchy reputation.

When I hung up the phone I glared at The Hater and told him what happened (while he was on hold with his phone call). Seriously? He was as shocked as I was. He agreed that was OTT. And then he told me it was a blog post.

And I must admit I'm not seeing as much red as when I started typing this out, I'm still quite angry and more than gagged.

I've never.

If they call back they better hope it's The Hater who answers the phone.

* Aside: Last week I the phone rang and it was a survey group, too. I answered the phone and they asked to speak with the man of the house. I told them I was the man of the house and wore the pants in this family. (I figured that if he didn't have enough sense to ask for The Hater by name, he could talk to me.) He laughed, but went on to talk about the car - and then was surprised that I knew the answers. But he wasn't rude or tacky.

hack hack?

It took several weeks, but it seems like The Hater's allergies (and asthma) are finally under control.

I changed allergy medicines about a month ago. He changed me from one 24 hour OTC coverage to another. And he changed my prescription allergy medicine. It's all been okay for me up until this week. I'm back to lots of snot, lots of sneezes and lots of coughs.

There's a place online where you can go to see what the day's pollen counts are (grass, trees, weeds, and mold). I thought I'd go see what's been high the past few days to see if that's the reason I coughed more than I slept last night. Looks like it's been mold and grass.

I was planning on going to the nursery and getting annuals to put out this weekend, but now I'm seriously considering house arrest until the bars are back down to a comfortable level, or at least until I stop hacking my head off.

evolution, ourselves

When I was in college I bought this book for $1 at a used book sale on campus:

The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women was published in 1996. Apparently it was a newer version of a similar book from the 60s, which at that time was a huge deal to empower women with information about their bodies and their health.

From what I remember it wasn't necessarily a groundbreaking read for me, but it was well worth a $1 investment. I think I referred to it a couple of times before I gave it away at another free book drive.

Last week I walked across a stash of free books and picked up this one:

Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent was published in 1999. I've just started it, but so far it's a really interesting read that takes in an anthropological approach to why people parent they way they parent. Definitely worth saving it from the burn pile.

When I saw the title I thought, wait, I've read this book before. But then I thought I remembered the cover of the book being blue and not much anything about babies. Turns out I was both way wrong and way right.

I also can't help but wonder what the next Our (something), Ourselves book published in the 90s that I happen to trip over in ten years.

aw, hail

This afternoon baby and I were taking a lovely nap while The Hater went grocery shopping. I woke up to hear what I thought was him rustling through the pantry. I decided to close my eyes and wait until I hear him bringing things into the kitchen before I was going to get out of bed. I must have dozed off again and awoke to a dark, dark sky and what I first thought was rain. Turns out I was only halfway right. It was hail.

(looking out the front door in the middle of the storm)

I immediately woke up baby. Fortunately this was while we were still getting the plink-plink hail and not the klunk-klunk hail we got later... Once I had her I turned on the news to see what Gary England had to say about it. Turns out it was just hail, not part of a tornado.

Next, I called The Hater to tell him not to come home yet. He was packing groceries into his car. He drove over to the gas station at Sam's to wait it out.

By this time we were getting golf ball-sized hail. It was really loud in the house.

(mid-storm hail)

(hail on the back porch about an hour after it finally stopped)

(The Hater showing off some of the hail. They were actually bigger than this when they fell - this was a little over an hour after it had stopped.)

The Hater came home after the storm passed the grocery store. In all we figure it hailed for about 20-30 minutes. We had golf ball and shooter-marble sized hail, but other parts of the city had baseball and softball-sized pieces.

(what's left of my pretty roses)

We were very fortunate.

I have a friend who lives about three miles from us whose home lost windows from the hail. The Hater's work has already cancelled work for tomorrow because of the hail (turns out hail and skylights aren't the best combination).

The Hater says on facebook he's seen that a ton of people have hail damage to their cars. When he heard that he'd be out of work tomorrow he was worried that he might need to go check on his office. Turns out the windows in his room were okay. (Which is good because we're expecting more rain tonight...)

Both of our trees have lost limbs, but not major limbs. The Spanish Sabre has lost limbs, too, as did most of our shrubbery. We're going to need more mulch for our beds. (I'm glad right now that I'd not put out new flowers yet for the summer.)

(This isn't snow, it's hail. The Hater took this picture from his phone while waiting under the gas pumps at Sam's during the storm.)

It's taken me over an hour to get baby down for the night. I hope the next wave of rain coming this way isn't saturated with thunder.

home from the circus

Baby is getting harder and harder to control and entertain during church.

We got to the "early church" service with all of the old people. She loves the attention that all of her assumed grandparents dote on her, and they seem to really enjoy seeing her, too.

It seems like at every little developmental stage I've had to come up with a new trick to keep her happy during the service. Special teething rings that only go to church. Special books that only go to church. Special toys that only go to church. Special cereal bowl with silicone reach-through top that only goes to church. Special things to try to make the hour and a half we're there a little bit easier.

Easter morning I wore a cute little purple dress to church. I'd not worn a dress to church since before I was pregnant. Well, after about ten minutes I realized that was a terrible idea. It's just too hard to juggle baby and try to keep your knees together. Not to mention that she has a new fascination with pulling down my blouse and trying to get my bra.

To further complicate things the nursery isn't open during this service, so I can't just take her to the nursery to play. Furthermore, several of the little old ladies always brag on me for bringing her to big church and say things like: "This is how it was when I had children. They belong in church with their parents.", "I am so proud of you for bringing her with you to worship in the chapel. I was the head of christian education for years and I worked really hard to get parents to bring their children to church with them.", "It means so much to me to see her every Sunday in church. This is the highlight of my week."

If there are huffers, naysayers and eye rollers they have been a silent minority at this point. But I'm very sensitive to her commotion during church and often get up and walk her to the back of the sanctuary so that she can get out her wiggles without bothering others. Honestly, it would probably take one naysaying comment to keep her at home with me until she's five.

As she grows up and discovers her own ability to walk where she wants to go and pitch a fit when she doesn't get her way, juggling chaos on the front pew at church is getting to be quite the challenge for Mommy.

We had a substitute pianist at church today. He's very good, but tends to play everything with a slow tempo. (It made me want to snap my fingers and bob my head faster like my high school band director used to do.) Generally, baby likes the singing, but today what should have been an upbeat song was more of a slow, deliberate march. I had the wiggles, too, but she wasn't able to contain herself.

One of her new tricks is to try to swan dive out of your arms if she doesn't want to be held anymore. Usually the only time she does it to me at home is if I'm taking her away from something she'd rather be doing or if I'm leaving daycare and the other kids are about to go outside. This morning during the first hymn I spent the entire song swapping her from one hip to the other as she tried to swandive over and over out of my arms, only to stop occasionally to wave to the people behind us and say 'HI!'.

I've about got it timed so that when the scripture is read is when I get out her sippy cup. Usually we can make it through that without her accompaniment. Immediately after that is over we go between the cereal and books and toys and the Grace of God to get through the sermon without a meltdown. About the time they start the intercessory prayer I usually take her to the back of the sanctuary so that the little old people can hear each other talk. After that is communion, and after the responsive reading I usually take her back to where we sit up front.

(Up front?, you ask. Why juggle the baby up front? Because the pews are entirely too close together and I really can't imagine trying to juggle her where she can't sit down in the floor in front of me.)

It was especially trying today. Every time I take her I think this will be the last time until she's seven.

After church was over the usual doters came to brag on her squeaky shoes (that we took off during the service to keep my late grandfather, a Church of Christ preacher, from turning over in his grave) and her raincoat. She told them that a cow says, "Moo", and danced for them and went through her repertoire of other words and pointing of body parts on command.

It's raining today and The Hater went to get Geronimo so that baby and I didn't have to hike through the parking lot in the rain. As he was leaving another lady who doesn't usually come up and talk to us came up to say, "I just can't get over how well behaved she is in church."

I laughed at her, certain she was being sarcastic. It wasn't. She continued to talk about how well behaved and quiet she was.

In the car I asked The Hater if he'd heard her comment as he was leaving to get the car. He had. We both mused, "Are you sure you're talking about this baby?" (Did you forget your hearing aids this morning, honey?)

For now we persevere. Like everything else, sometimes it's the best we can do.

Inglourious Bastards: NOT a glorious movie

Deep from the recesses of the blogosphere, The Hater returns again for a long-lost post of Haterade:

Inglourious Bastards (IB): NOT a glorious movie

We just finished watching IB by Quentin Tarantino. This movie received a lot of critical acclaim this year and is Tarantino's most critically acclaimed movie since Pulp Fiction. Being a HUGE Tarantino fan, I was very excited to watch this movie.

I feel like I just wasted two and a half hours. It was not very good. Out of five stars, I would give it two.

The thing that I love about Tarantino is that he creates unique characters and puts them in unique situations. His movies are full of incredible dialogue between these characters in these situations. In IB he succeeded in creating interesting characters, but failed at developing them. But there was not much meaningful dialog between these characters, with the exception of two scenes.

The movie just seemed like it was a rough draft. It was the beginning of something that could have been good, but ended up being below average.

I will rank Tarantino's movies in order of my critical preference:

1. Pulp Fiction (*****)
2. Kill Bill 1 & 2 (*****)
3. Jackie Brown (****)
4. Reservoir Dogs (****)
5. Grindhouse - Deathproof (***.5)
6. Four Rooms (***.5)
7. Inglorious Bastards (**.5)

According to me, this was not his second best movie like some critics claimed. It was actually his worst. If any of you are Tarantino fans I wonder if you actually liked IB.

Furthermore, we've been on a wait list to get this movie from Netflix for six months.

Even the best directors throw in a clunker now and then. Academy Award winning directors, Joel and Ethan Cohen, also some of my favorites, once directed a movie called, "The Man Who Wasn't There," starring Billy Bob Thorton. It was in b&w and completely horrible. But they rebounded to win an Oscar a few years later. I hope Tarantino can do that, too.

I dont' know what else to say about it. I'm shocked that it wasn't better.

I'm just a little sad.

The Hater refuses to rate IB on his Hate-Meter like from his previous posts. He says he's just disappointed that it wasn't better, but that he can't actually hate on his Tarantino.

I, on the other hand, have no problem hating on Tarantino films. My take on IB was that it was poorly written and poorly edited. The acting, makeup/costuming, and cinematography were all very good. I know my hate scale is nothing compared to my husband's, but I'd give the whole evening a 9.2 on a scale of 10 for hate. Mind you, some of that hate is directed to the fact that we had to wait so long on a piss poor disappointment... so for the film itself I'll hate on it a 7.6 out of 10 and give it one and one-half stars.

decaffeination documentation

I have been consciously caffeine free for a little over two years.

This just dawned on me today when through bleary blood-shot tired and teary eyes I was trying to tell someone at work about my night between my coughing-crying baby and my coughing-asthmatic husband. When I think in my head, yeah, I quit caffeine before we started trying to get pregnant, and then I realize the baby is 13 months old, I do the math and then I think, damn, I never thought I'd go this long without it.

I still drink decaf tea that technically has caffeine, and I'm not about to quit eating chocolate... but I have made the effort to avoid overtly caffeinated cokes, teas, coffees, and the like.

On a completely different topic, my mother-in-law visited this weekend. This is the run-down of one of the conversations we had:

(Setting: The kitchen. Getting ready to go to the zoo. MIL can't decide what shoes to wear. Decides against flip-flops. MIL wanted to borrow my socks to wear with her work shoes. She asked specifically for black or brown socks, but my sock collection is much more colorful than that. She ended up taking black and red striped socks. The following conversation took place while she was putting on her shoes and getting stuff together for the day trip.)

MIL: I've never worn red striped socks before.

me: Tell me again why you packed shoes without socks. Do we need to stop and get you socks? Do you need to borrow socks? I've got plenty of socks-

MIL: Oh, no. I brought hose.

me: Hose? So do we need to stop and get some socks?

MIL: No. I usually wear hose with the pants I brought with me because I hate panty lines.

me: Panty lines?

MIL: (shudders) I hate panty lines. They just gross me out. I can't handle them.

me: Other people's panty lines?

MIL: (shudders, again) Yeah.

me: So you wear hose with those shoes because of other people's panty lines?

MIL: No, The pants I brought are tighter, so I wear hose with them.

me: So your panty lines don't show?

MIL: Exactly. That way I just wear hose and nothing shows.

me: Are you sure? Because we can stop on the way and get you some socks...

Fast-forward to The Hater and I talking the afternoon after she left:

me: I could have done with not knowing that your Mom goes commando under her panty hose.

TH: WHAT!? What are you talking about?

me: You know, what she was talking about panty lines before we went to the zoo.

TH: She didn't say that. You're making that up.

me: Not only did she say it, but you were sitting at the kitchen table when she did!

TH: That's something I never needed to know.

I'm totally shocked by this, too. I thought everybody wore panties under their panty hose. I've taken an unofficial poll at work and all of the women I work with say they wear panties with their panty hose. (I have to assume they'd tell me the truth, but with the honest laughter I get with "why'd you ask me that question?", they're on the level...) Most of them looked at me funny and I got comments like, "Panties are part of a lady's wardrobe, hose or not."; "Didn't your Mama tell you that you always wear clean underwear?"; "Ew. You mean some people don't?"; "Hose is hot. You need panties under hose." A quick google search of "do you wear panties under panty hose" turned up both groups of people who wear panties and people who don't, with more people commenting who do wear them together.

It's never even dawned on me to go commando under hose. I thought I was pushing the envelope by not wearing a slip under skirts or dresses the last few years. I thought you just wore a thong if you were worried about panty lines. In fact, panty lines are one of the things that very rarely crosses my mind.

This is exactly why I'm telling you that I'm noncaffeinated.

Not so you can throw a party, not for a woo-hoo, not so that you'll even care-- Just so you'll know I'm at least noncaffeinated with panties on under my scrubs.

TKO TKO

I have three double knock-out rose bushes in my front yard, and they're absolutely going nuts right now. They are chock-full of blooms and they're really showing off.

Baby played Kodak moments with me this afternoon with the roses. She mostly liked pulling the petals off the blooms, but I managed to get a couple of good shots where she was actually looking at the camera and the wind wasn't about to blow her or the bushes away.

Yep, wind. Uglyhoma has a ton of wind. Compared to home, it's always windy. Always. Most of the time when it rains here it falls down sideways, due to the wind. After the storm this afternoon there were parts of the fence in the back yard that were bone dry, presumably because the rain fell sideways.

It was especially windy this afternoon because we had two fronts that tried to get into a fist fight. We were fortunate, but there were parts of the city that had worse luck. One place had winds up to 100 mph, and several tornadoes touched down in other areas. Some parts of town had hail between the size of a baseball and a softball. We saw on the news that some neighborhoods East of us were taken out, reduced to sticks.

Most days we have no idea how fortunate we are.

milk: it doesn't necessarily do the body good

The day is finally here. Baby’s highly anticipated trip to the allergist’s office was this morning.

I’ve had her paperwork finished for weeks. I’ve had directions to the office printed for that long, too. This week I started quizzing the people with whom I work to see what time they thought I should leave this side of town to get to their downtown office. The average guess was about an hour. I thought that was probably too long, but knowing I would be driving through morning traffic to get there, decided to err on the side of caution and leave an hour before I was supposed to be there. We found it without problem and spent 30 minutes playing in the back seat before we went up early to our appointment.

Today was an exercise in patience. We waited in the car. We waited in the lobby. We waited in our little jail cell waiting room. Wait, wait, wait – possibly the most difficult task while trying to entertain a 13-month old. The one thing I figured out is that I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to waiting.

They showed us into an interview room that was about 7.5’x7.5’. It contained a desk, two roller chairs, and two stationary chairs. There was hardly any room to turn around, much less give baby room to play and wiggle. But we managed. I imagined that was what it’s like to be in prison.

I liked the doctor that we saw. She was knowledgeable, approachable, and good with the baby. We had a long interview to talk about the timeline of things and what we (the PCP) thought was the problem. I showed her the pictures and baby’s RAST scores. (RAST was the blood test we did that tested for an immune response to several common childhood allergens – all of which came back with a reaction less than zero, in other words negative for everything.) I asked several questions and we played show and tell with baby’s skin.

We’ve been tapering off of her antihistamines since last week. Tuesday of this week (almost exactly 24 hours after her last Benadryl) baby started breaking out into welts again. They weren’t as prominent or ugly as last time, but they were red and menacing. But between then and this morning they had almost completely subsided – all that was left were a few pink places.

Baby did not like anybody else to come in the room with us. She was fine with the doctor, as long as she was just talking and taking the history. She did not like the doctor looking into her ears or mouth (screamed bloody murder), or listening to her breathe (she held her breath, then screamed bloody murder). Needless to say, she was also not happy with the nurse who cleaned her arms with alcohol and then screamed enough to make the little girl next door cry in anticipation when they pricked her to test the 21 allergens on her arms.

They tested for Bermuda grass, two different types of dust, cat dander, dog dander, four different types of molds, almond, cashew, egg, cow milk, oat, peanut, pecan, soy, walnut, whole wheat, and a “histamine” control and a dilute solution control.

The process was that they first cleaned her arms with alcohol. Next, they wrote out three columns of numbers on both forearms to label where they were going to test. Next, they pricked each allergen where it was labeled. (I’d just like to say how much I hate having to hold her down when nasty things are happening to her. From what I’d read I expected each little spot to be like a mini TB-skin test, but it wasn’t like that at all. There was hardly any allergen, and the needle was smaller than a diabetic testing needle – very, very, very tiny. I think she was mostly upset that the stranger was holding her arm and she quit screaming immediately after the nurse let go of her arm.) Next, they set a timer for 15 minutes and left us alone to wait.

The doctor came back in and measured each of the areas to determine if baby had any type of allergic reaction to them. First she looked at the “histamine” spot. It had reacted, which was good because that was the control to see what a reaction would look like. It made a little welt. Likewise, the dilute solution did what it was supposed to do – nothing. Each of the other allergens was tested to these to determine if there was a reaction.

Although some of them had minor raised areas, none of them were positive, which means she tested negative for allergies at this time. (Now there is a lot of hullabaloo about prick testing in toddlers at this time. Some people say you shouldn’t do it because it doesn’t really tell you anything. What this told us is that she’s probably not allergic to the things we tested. Not extremely definitive, but more definitive than what we knew before today, which was nothing.)

They gave us a few handouts on hives and another handout about how they wanted us to document things if she broke out again. She told us we could stop the Singulair and Zyrtec daily, but we could give Benadryl or Zyrtec if we needed to do so. She told us we could slowly reintroduce cow’s milk again. She made us a 6 month follow-up appointment; although she said that she doesn’t really want to see us unless we have problems.

Baby fell asleep before we could get out of the parking lot. I took her to day care and expect her to have a great nap this afternoon.

I've called and reported to the PCP. He was okay with her recommendations and wants to be kept in the loop if she breaks out again. I like that he wanted to hear from me and is taking a very active role in baby's care.

For now everything’s just coming up nonallergic roses. (With the exception that baby has had an incredibly long day. She's broken-hearted and clingy sporting red dots on her arms. Day care was quick to report that she was awful this afternoon; I told them that she earned her ability to be fussy today. We hope she does okay tonight, but we won't be surprised if she needs us several times during the night.)

I don’t think this chapter in our life is over, but I’m hopeful that reintroducing milk will be mundane and boring. No matter how it plays out, I’ll keep you abreast on our misadventures into parenthood.

pee pee

I'm really not phased by urine. Being a nurse I've examined and flushed gallons of other people's pee. I've seen pee of all kinds of colors and containing all kinds of gross things that aren't supposed to be in pee. And I've smelled the worst odors to pee that would make most people gag.

My past pee experience is usually paired with laytex gloves at work. Since I've been a Mommy I've had plenty of pee moments sans PPE. This is just part of raising a baby - you get to wear a lot of their pee. No big deal.

Tonight I was peed on again, except this one took it to a whole new level.

I think I've mentioned before that baby has a thing about peeing in the bathtub. If she doesn't pee as I put her in, she pees once she's sitting in the water. It's her thing. I've been peed on several times waiting for the tub.

Sometimes I sit next to her and help her to sit on the edge of the tub while we wait for it to fill. That way if she pees, it goes into the tub and not on me. Sometimes I let her stand outside of the tub - although we don't do that very often because it makes a worse mess to clean up when she pees in the floor...

As I've mentioned, she's now off of her Singulair and Zyrtec, and tonight at supper was the last Benadryl she gets until we're told otherwise by the allergist on Thursday. She's already a snotty mess. She's not the happiest baby when she's snotty and miserable, and quite frankly she's been extra clingy the last week, too.

So when I carried her into the bathroom she was clinging to me like a koala bear with a death grip of No-Mommy-I'm-Not-Letting-Go. I carried her into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub. I turned on the water, her stuck to me like whipped cream to cling wrap. About the time that I started to wonder if I could get her to sit next to me it happened.

She peed on me.

No big deal, I thought. It's warm and wet and that's about it.

And then it hit me. She was straddling my lap when she relieved herself. I called for The Hater's assistance. I stood up and it looked like I'd peed my own pants.

I can't really describe the feeling of someone else's pee running down your leg, although I'd argue that it's not quite as strange as knowing that someone else's pee is causing the dampness in your underwear. It was at that moment, when I figured out my underwear was wet, too, that I went from oh-no-big-deal-I-got-peed-on-again to my-underwear-is-wet-with-pee-that's-not-my-own.

I couldn't strip fast enough. The Hater was amused. Baby was oblivious. I was wearing her pee in a more intimate way than I ever imagined wearing someone else's urine.

Up until this point in time I imagined the worst encounter with someone else's pee as forgetting to close your mouth when you empty a urinal and it splashes as you dump it into the toilet. Although that may be one of the worst possible scenarios for my work environment -- I'm thinking we met a new one at home tonight when she peed in my lap and it dribbled down my leg, but only after it saturated my underwear and the maxi pad I was wearing.

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart.

recalled

The Hater and I are in the process of throwing out a ton of our medicine cabinet. Turns out all of our Tylenol and Motrin supply are on the recall list.

This is a link to the article about the voluntary recall of Children's Tylenol, Children's Motrin and Children's Zyrtec. This is a webpage if you'd like to check your supply to see if you're safe.

Scary stuff... and now I have to wonder if this could have led to the welts from earlier this month. I'll certainly mention this to the allergist (whom we see on Thursday), who will most likely tell me that was certainly not the cause.

Last night was our first night without Singulair. Tonight is the first night without the Zyrtec.

We went to the zoo in the drizzle this morning with some friends. Baby had a ball. Since we've been home she's been snot city, so we have to wonder if this snot is allergy-related or just a cold that's lingering.

Time for someone to get her benadryl. More on this story as it develops. Go check your supplies to make sure your stock wasn't recalled.