Thanksgiving point

On Saturday we got tired of boredly staring at each other and decided to leave the house. Our destination: Thanksgiving Point Gardens. None of us had gone before and as I tend to geek out with plants and gardens in general it sounded like a good fit. (Is it silly to say that one of my favorite parts was the demonstration tomato garden? I was feeling slightly smug that none of their full sized tomatoes were ripe yet either). The Blue Prince just kept sighing with pleasure about how calm and peaceful everything was. (I think we have been working him too hard)Anyway, on to the pictures:



Bella and myself on the bridge of the Monet Garden. Bella is peeved that I wouldn't let her play in the lake.

Bella inside the Caterpillar slide in the Children's Garden.

The Blue Prince in the Wisteria tunnel leading to the Secret Garden.

I told him to pose like a Greek God statue and this is what he came up with. I won't lie, I kinda like it.

We were standing on a pier in the middle of the fish pond covertly throwing Cheerios to the Koi fish to make them come to the surface when Bella decided to join in the game and threw in her bottle. The fish proceeded to happily drink the milk out of the nipple. Through ten minutes of precise Cheerio throwing skills we were able to get the fish to move the bottle towards the shore where a valiant Blue Prince was able to pluck it out of the water.

Here is Bella riding on Papi's shoulders and of course pulling his hair. She has recently developed a bit of a troubling violent streak. If anyone knows the best way to deal with screaming, hitting, face slapping, and head butting tantrums (I think she nearly broke my nose this morning, when it got in the way of a flailing head butt) I am all ears.


A family picture self-portrait by the Blue prince. He is generally very good at these.

The Artist

On Wednesday the Blue Prince was sick with the most recent plague making its way through our home and decided to stay home from work. As Wed is my big work day, he decided that we would save the babysitter fee and he would watch Bella all afternoon. Blue Prince has an odd habit of filling Bella's crib with toys when putting her down for a nap. Wed. he apparently decided to put her down with a coloring book and a pencil. When he went to get her out of bed a couple hours latter he discovered this lovely example of budding talent. He said that she pointed it out to him with the biggest smile imaginable on her face, so proud of what she had done.

Allergy testing

As many of you know Bella ended up at PCMC at the end of June for an overnight stay due to an allergic reaction to an unknown source. Today we had our visit with an Allergist for skin testing and we are a lot closer to an answer. The three main allergens are:

• Eggs:
  

Which basically we knew. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a little girls face shouldn't look like this after eating a scrambled egg Christmas breakfast.

Luckily so far, the facial swelling has been the extent of the effect from eggs, and it goes away after about an hour. We just have be careful of less obvious sources such as the "ah-ha" moment in the Buenos Aires food court when we remembered too late that Chinese fried rice is made with scrambled eggs. Dr. Allergist also said that raw egg is often more allergically potent than the cooked stuff, so we will be avoiding cookie dough for the time being.

• Shellfish:
  

Also not a huge surprise as it is the familial allergy group. The weird thing about it is that each member of my family with a seafood allergy is allergic to different things. My grandmother is allergic to Trout. My father gets deathly ill with Scallops and I have a mild allergy to Shrimp that I have mostly grown out of. One of my earliest memories is of being rushed into the bathroom by my dad to wash the hives I had developed after eating a shrimp dinner. I think I was about 5. Now I just get itchy hands if I have to peel shrimp. Dr. Allergist seemed somewhat surprised when I was asking in depth questions about what is defined as a shellfish. His comment of "most kids foods are fairly safe" in the tone of "what are you feeding your 18 month old" made me realize that most families eating habits are somewhat different from my own. We don't really go for Kid foods vs. Adult foods around here. My cousin Conner's favorite food as a toddler was Crab Legs. I'm sure that Bella has probably had Shrimp before without problem, but it will be interesting trying to figure out which Shellfish is her specific No No.

Number 3 and the real Kicker:

• Cats

Bella loves cats, Kitty was one of her first words. Thinking back, it makes sense and is probably the one that ended us up in the Hospital. She would always get a little congested when we would visit Grandma's and she would play with the Ancient One (i.e. Crystal), when she was still around. Two of the upstairs neighbors have cats but luckily they mostly run away from her before she can get too cuddly. For the time being I am just going to watch this one and try to prevent her from rolling around naked with felines. At least we have a good excuse now to turn down free kitten offers. We had a narrow escape from this the other weekend when we visited with Aunt Leanne. She tested borderline positive for dogs as well so no furry friends at all for us. Not news that will break either my or the Blue Prince's hearts. The down side is that this allergy leaves her at high risk of developing asthma, so another fun thing to look out for.

All in all I think it was a worthwhile visit and I appreciated my friend Kellie's referral to the Doctor in question. Anyone else have any fun allergy related comments to share?