Archive for July, 2007
Today we attended a James family reunion, organized by my mom’s cousin John and his wife, Maryann. It was mostly for their family, but we joined in for a few hours. Before lunch, we visited the John James (my great-grandfather) homestead in Fayette, Utah (pictures below). My mom’s brother Gary is in the process of slowly fixing the place up - it’s not livable at the moment. Then we had lunch with the family at a park in nearby Gunnison, catered by my cousin Daniel and his wife. Rees had fun playing on the playground, wrestling with Dad, and sitting on the “big gun”.
July 28th, 2007
First, a little history. Part one:
When Jamie was about five months old, I decided it was time to bust out the ol’ solid food. So I mixed up some Enfamil with some rice cereal and water, and started feeding it to him. He was new to solid food AND formula (he was exclusively nursed, not on purpose, totally my fault, but that is another story). He was not particularly interested in the food and so he didn’t really ingest much of it, but of course it got all over his face. I didn’t force it, just cleaned him up and took him to bed. I noticed some redness and puffiness around his mouth, anywhere it seemed like the food touched his skin. I thought I was probably imagining, since he was a bit of a red and puffy kid anyway. He went to sleep and his face seemed normal after the nap was over.
Part two:
When Jamie was about six or seven months old, nursing was winding down, and it was clear that we needed to get Jamie on formula. I was procrastinating due to past experience with Rees (he refused the bottle and took forever to get the hang of a sippy cup). So my mom decided to give it a try one day while she was watching Jamie. To be clear, she did nothing wrong - I had given her the formula and told her to try to give it to him whenever she wanted. It just so happened that she gave him a bottle of formula about thirty seconds before I walked in the door during a work break. Again, he didn’t appear to drink any, but the formula was on his lips and around his mouth a bit. By the time I reached the kitchen, his lips were HUGE, probably swollen three times their normal size. We didn’t detect any other symptoms, breathing problems or discomfort. My health insurance has a Call-A-Nurse service, so I called, and the nurse suggested that I didn’t need to rush him anywhere as long as he was breathing and the swelling was not getting worse. His lips began to deflate within 30-45 minutes and he never had trouble breathing. We went to Dr P the next day, who set up an appt with Dr Muggleberg, an allergist in Sandy. He also told me to keep cows’ milk away from Jamie and use soy formula (which we have been doing for a couple of months now). Dr P also prescribed some Epipens, which I totally did not take seriously, so I never had the prescription filled.
Okay, now we’re all caught up. Today was the appointment with Dr Muggleberg. She gave Jamie a skin test for cows’ milk allergy, and his reaction was pretty serious. They put a negative control on his right shoulder, a positive control on his left shoulder, and the cows’ milk on the lower right back. The reaction to the milk was 2-3 times the size of the positive control (I took a picture with my phone because I forgot my camera, I might try to post the picture later). The doc said that with this level of allergic reaction, she did not expect it to resolve itself within six months. She also said that Jamie is more likely to grow out of the allergy if we prevent him from eating any and all cows’ milk products. ALL. For a year (they will re-test next summer). She also made me watch a video about kids and food allergies, which was clearly meant to totally freak me out. Next, we went to the in-clinic pharmacy to pick up his Epipens (which we are supposed to carry at all times). Then off to the lab for the taking of blood for more tests. The phlebotomist told me she was going to take his blood right out of his arm, like an adult. Um….. right. “Just hold his arms and legs.” Um….. right. A second phlebotomist then came in to hold his arm. He was so cute, just watching them curiously, thinking, “Whatcha doin’?” She tied the thingie around his arm and patted for a while to find a vein. She couldn’t find one on the left, so decided to try his right instead. He was just sitting calmly, watching them. The phlebotomist finally said, “Well, I’m just going to go for it!” I was thinking that this whole thing was going to be a huge disaster, picturing him freaking out and the needle ripping out, and braced myself the best I could to hold his entire body still (not really possible!). She got the needle right in, and he literally did not flinch or even act like anything was happening. I am not exaggerating - he didn’t even care. The phlebotomist was not instilling much trust in me with her demeanor, but apparently she knew what she was doing! That was a gigantic relief. Everyone around was going nuts about how tough he was, but I have to give that chick props - she must have done it just perfectly.
It will be a week or so before we find out the results of that test, but it doesn’t really matter all that much anyway, I don’t think. It appears that Jamie is trying to make up for being such a happy, go-lucky, easy-care baby with all this fuss. If he wasn’t the sweetest, cutest, happiest baby ever, I might be more annoyed. 
July 23rd, 2007
I was sitting with Rees and Jamie in the foyer at church today, when Rees suddenly announced, “I want to go to the bathroom.” Wow, okay. So we got up and went to the nearest ladies’ room, which has just one (handicapped accessible) stall. One of our service missionary sisters, an older lady, followed us in and waited. I was feeling some pressure. I had no idea what was going to happen here.
Rees acted like this was no big deal, something he does all the time. Actually, he has never used a public toilet before. He also rarely tells us before he needs to go. First he tried to lift the seat up, since he has to lift the lid at home (no lid on this toilet). When it fell back down, it made a nice loud noise. He lifted and dropped the seat a few more times before I got him to stop. Next, he took down his own pants and undies (pull-up diaper), which I noted were dry. This was pretty impressive, since he had been wearing them for a few hours (all through nursery). He started to take off his shoes, but I convinced him to keep all his clothes on. I helped him sit on the seat and he balanced just fine with his hands. He didn’t seem nervous or upset at all. Within a few seconds, he started to pee. We were pretty excited. “I did it Mommy! I did it!” We were only in the stall for a few minutes. He tried to exit by climbing under the side of the stall, but I explained that the stall door was the preferred exit.
The missionary was very kindly waiting for us. She smiled at me knowingly and went in the stall while we washed our hands. While we were drying our hands, we had this exchange:
Rees: What’s that noise, Mommy?
Me: The nice missionary lady is using the toilet now.
Rees: (crouches down to look under the side wall of the stall)
Me: Don’t look please. She wants to be alone while she uses the toilet.
Sister Missionary: (laughing from inside the stall)
Rees: Mommy, I want to look!
Me: No buddy. Let’s go. Think about what sticker you want when we get home.
I love that kid.
Later at home, I noticed that Jamie has a new tooth poking through. This is his third tooth, and the first on top (middle left). I took the picture below, where you can clearly see the two bottom teeth, but not really the new one.
More pictures of Jamie here.
July 15th, 2007
Tonight as Bryan and I were putting away some garden implements (I had been working on the front flowerbed) at around 9:00, we heard some rustling in the apricot tree. We have known for a long time that raccoons enjoy that tree. As soon as the fruit starts to ripen each summer, there is quite a mess on the grass back there every morning. Not just fruit. Half-eaten fruit, bare pits, leaf clusters, sometimes entire broken branches. Bryan spotted a raccoon in the crook of the tree a week or so ago at about 11:00 (pm). However, we never expected to see them out this early in the evening. We also didn’t expect to see a whole raccoon family. There were at least four babies, plus a mother somewhere (we didn’t spot her but there was plenty of rustling up there). At one point, all four babies were perched one one branch next to each other. I didn’t capture that photo op, but you can see two siblings in the pictures below. They were about the size of a small cat, and not the least bit concerned about us.
Of course I had to go get Camillia to check them out. Two of our YW, Nicole and Julie, were visiting her, so they came to see them too - then they wanted to keep the raccoon babies as pets.
Oh, and special thanks to my mom for letting me borrow her new Bissell carpet cleaner today. Rees and Jamie thank you for their nice clean carpet.
July 10th, 2007
Today I upgraded my Wordpress blog to version 2.2.1. And I didn’t break it. I freaking rock.
And I should be well on my way to posting pictures regularly now (thanks to Rus helping me tonight for several hours).
July 9th, 2007
Michael, Sarah, and Ally invited is to a Bees game with them tonight at Franklin Covey field. Bryan was busy at work and couldn’t come, so just Rees and I went. Camillia and Thayne watched Jamie for us.
Rees was not too interested in the game itself, but there were other things to keep him occupied, like the small playground and bouncy castle/slide. Luckily, Michael and Sarah were patient and wandered around with us as well. We had a fun time.
July 7th, 2007
