Anna's 1 Year Well Check

Anna had her 1yr well check-up on Thursday. First of all I think we finally found a doctor we really like. We are on our third practice and our 6th doctor since Ben was born! Our new doctor, "Dr. Michael", was totally delightful, extraordinarily personable with the kids (even my very shy/fearful Benjamin was willing to give him a high five and I think Anna is waiting for a propsal!), listened and explained things clearly, nice office, great office staff. I can't praise them enough.

So overall Anna is a beautiful, happy, healthy, little girl who is right on target developmentally. She is a smiley, lovely, joy. We have been blessed with two of the lovliest children!!

Anna's weight was 16lbs2oz (exactly one pound gained since her 9M check) and 28.5inches tall. Her height puts her in the small, but respectable 25th percentile and her weight has fallen even further below anything measurable on their scale. At 9M she was 3rd percentile...so I guess now she is...0? I don't know he basically just said it was significantly below the lowest curve. So my tiny pixie will be having a little bloodwork done to test some basic things like thyroid, liver function, blood count, and a full metabolic panel, and celiac. Because she is developmentally right on target we are hoping to find nothing wrong and to be told that we simply have tiny kids!

In the mean time I was told to fatten her up! Butter everything, full fat dairy, extra syrup, extra oil. All of the things they tell us adults to cut down on! Same with Ben, who has been stable at the 5th% for weight for the last year or so is also very small and could use a few extra pounds. So I am hoping to have two butterballs by Christmas! We take Anna back in 6 weeks for a weight check and Ben in 3 months for a weight check.

At home Anna is very very busy exploring whatever she can get her hands on. She loves climbing stairs and couches (and potty seats), she loves unrolling toilet paper and ripping it to shreds, and most of all she loves driving her poor brother batty!!! She cruises along like a pro and has taken a few unassisted steps here and there. She finally got a third tooth as of this morning!! Totally out of order, but a third tooth none the less! She got her ears pierced the week before her birthday (and so did I) and she is just more radiantly beautiful everyday!!! Her hair is starting to come in and get some curls an we are thinking it is a nice strawberry blonde. Not as red as Ben, but just red enough to add to her sweetness!!

There is my little cutie!!!

Caterpillars and Tomatos

I saw this fuzzy little character on our screened porch this morning. Benjamin was very excited to see a real caterpillar since his only experience with them comes from various Leap Frog toys!


So Claudio decided to see if we could put him in a tank and watch him make a cocoon and then a moth (Cla looked it up and found it is one of those big ugly gray moths.....not some beautiful butterfly).

Hi little fellow!


There he is in his new home

So he is sitting on a table in our living room. He is just sitting there....very lethargic. I keep thinking he is dead, but he isn't LOL! He doesn't seem to be eating any of the leaves (perhaps the ones Cla picked are not to its liking??). We have a depressed caterpillar!

In brighter news...here are two jars of tomatos from our garden! Yum!!

Anna has really been enjoying the tomatos. She likes them sliced up or whole and she just munches away at them. Here she is with the leftover skin of a tomato stuck to her head after lunch LOL!! The funny thing is I took it off and put it on the high chair tray and she picked it up and put it back on her head!! She is such a little character!

Happy Birthday Sweet Baby Girl!!

My Little Einstein

I keep finding this at the bottom of the fridge....

Longest Lashes Ever!!

Ben's Last Doughnut (for now?)

Many Many months ago Benjamin was helping Daddy cook something. He was playing with a raw egg in a bowl and got the egg all over his hands and then wiped the hands on his face. His face broke out in hives. After some benedryl it quickly cleared up. I mentioned it to a friend with has some experience with food allergies and she said that some kids can get a contact allergy and that most likely it was nothing to worry about. So we just sort of wrote it off and went on with life.

Fastforward to a month or so ago when we visited Virginia. Ben never liked eggs very much so I never made them, but when we were in Virginia my dad made Ben some scrambled eggs and he scarfed them down! I am always thrilled to find something that Ben will eat, so when we got home I made him some eggs with dinner one night.

About a half hour after dinner I noticed that Ben had bright red welts all over his arms and legs. So red that I thought he must have been playing with a red marker. When I looked closer I saw that it was all of the spots that Ben gets eczema generally. It looked like they had all flared up. Soon after this he started coughing and clearing his throat and holding his throat with his hands. Again, we ran for the Benedryl and things quickly calmed down. Ben fell to sleep from the meds and we put him to bed.

A few days later I took him to an allergist to see if we could get to the bottom of this. After a battery of skin scratch tests including everything from egg to dust it was discovered that Ben does indeed have an egg allergy (as well as a cat allergy!).

So he is currently allowed to eat no eggs, nothing that contains eggs, and not allowed any contact with eggs. We were sent home with a Rx for an epi-pen and an appt for one mont later.