One of those scary mommy moments

     This morning, Jaye got in bed with me around 5. I noticed her eyes looked puffy, I assumed it was from her spill yesterday. When we all got up around 7, I saw that not only was she puffy but there was a weird welty rash on her face. Upon inspection, I found the rash covered her entire body. I called the Doctor to see if I could fit her in earlier (we had a regular check up at 10:30) but they said no, mornings were for “healthy patients”.

(Took this on my cell in the morning)

     Her face kept getting more red, so I decided to take a shower so I would be ready to go to the doc. By the time I got out of the shower, her arms and legs were beet red, and her fingers and toes were dark blue. I was terrified, called the doctor again, and asked if I should take her to the emergency room. The receptionist told me to bring her in right away, so still dripping wet I packed my kids in the car and rushed over to the doc. I couldn't even get Jaye's shoes on her feet were so swollen!

     When I walked into the office, the receptionist shouted out (edited), “OH MY GOSH!” and kept apologizing that she didn’t tell me to come in sooner. Her reaction was a little ominous, I was starting to freak out thinking I would have to rush her to the emergency room and the news was going to be horrific. But the doctor checked her out, and basically said he had no idea what had set her off, but it was definitely an allergic reaction to... something. So vague. I hadn’t given her anything unusual to eat, so he told me to watch for another reaction (as if I could miss it!) and try to remember what I fed her. She got a steroid shot to bring down the swelling, and some liquid steroid stuff for the next few days.


    So now what am I supposed to do? Feed her peanuts to see if it happens again? I feel stuck not knowing what caused it. But even though it is frustrating, I am soooo grateful she is alright.


And grateful we didn’t have to fork out a million bucks in emergency room costs.

(Here she is a few hours after the steroid shot and the swelling is all gone. She still looks terrible, poor girl.)
 

There is beauty all around...

    So remember that awesome family home evening lesson I gave yesterday?



    Well today my kids were playing on my bed and Grayson pushed Jaye. She flew ever so perfectly right into the corner of my dresser drawer. Now, she has a nice little slice under her eye and it looks like it’s going to be a black eye. I’m so glad the concept of Love at home sunk in for my son! But I have to give him a break… he wasn’t doing it to be mean. He was “being a ninja”.


    Jaye was wailing so I lost it and started crying, and Grayson tried to calm me down until he saw the blood then he started crying. So we all sat on the couch holding each other and cried for about ten minutes. I guess that counts as love at home, right?

FHE idea

I don’t know about you but I have a difficult time doing a lesson for little kids for Family Home Evening. My kids are difficult to entertain, but I found an idea online that sounded fun, tried it out tonight, and it was a success!


Here it is if you want to use it!

Beforehand, do some research for pictures. Find clipart pictures or regular pics of showing love (such as cleaning the house, picking up toys, giving hugs, etc) and pictures that don’t show love (pushing, whining, making bad messes, etc). Cut them out. You will also need a poster of some sort (I just used an 11x14 poster board, and either glue sticks and/or tape.

THE LESSON:

Start off by singing “Love at Home”. Explain what “Love at Home” means and discuss ways we can show love. Then, show pictures of Jesus performing different acts of love, and explain how by showing love at home, we are being like Jesus.

Have your family take turns drawing the pictures you cut out from a bag, and have them decide if it shows love at home or not. If it does, have them glue it on to the “Love at Home” poster. Grayson had a ton of fun looking at the pictures and telling me all about them, and he got all of them right too! (I’m a proud mama!) And although Jaye can’t talk, she still (with help) managed the glue stick well and had fun putting them on the poster.

When we were through, I had them point to different pictures and tell me what about it was showing Love. Then I asked them to try and remember to show love at home, and had them hang it on the fridge.



*SIMPLE!* And now if they are bad, I can take them to the poster and talk about it with a visual! YAY!



If any of you mothers of young children have FHE ideas, PLEASE share them with me! I’m still a work in progress!

Dialogue

Scene: Grayson is sitting on Mommy's lap. Mommy is relaxing and wearing a hoodie.

GRAYSON: Mommy, is there a baby in your tummy?
ME: Yes, there is!
GRAYSON: (lifting up my shirt) where is it?
ME: In my tummy.
GRAYSON: (still investigating) Is it hiding? Is it in your pocket? (He shoves his hand all the way through my pocket until his hand is poking out of the other side and gives me a concerned look) Where is it?
ME: You won't get to see it for a loooong time.
GRAYSON: (thinks about it for a while) Is there a baby in my tummy?
ME: No
GRAYSON: Why?
ME: Because boys can't have babies, only mommies can
GRAYSON: Why?
ME: Because that's how Heavenly Father made us

loooong pause.

GRAYSON: I think my tummy is a boy.



I can already tell I'm going to be HORRIBLE at giving "the talk".

I can't think of a good title :S

     In December, we had Grayson’s speech tested. As a therapist once told us, this kid is unnaturally gifted cognitively (we’re pretty sure he is going to be a sporting legend), but it was really difficult to understand him. He failed the speech test, which sounds like it should be bad but it is a huge blessing! He got into this amazing free preschool that offers weekly speech therapy. When I was registering him in December, I had to sit and talk with his soon-to-be teacher and tell her my concerns and describe my child. I told her I was worried that he was very hyper and had a difficult time focusing. The teacher set a written goal that by the end of the year, Grayson would be able to focus at least 70% of the time in class.



    Parent-Teacher conference was a few days ago. I sat down with his teacher and she pulled out her goal sheet and literally laughed at me. She informed me that not only was Grayson the best behaved child in her class, but he was a role model to the other kids, and she had no idea why I was concerned! I thought she was joking!


     Well now I’m just plain jealous. Why can’t he be the best behaved kid at home? There are no well-behaved role models in this household! Sometimes, motherhood just isn’t fair.






On a side note:


     Usually, I take a shower while Barry is available to watch the kids, but yesterday I was in dire need of a shower and Barry was sleeping (for night shift). I chanced taking a shower by getting the kids set up with a movie. When I was finished and opened the door, Jaye was waiting for me with a huge grin. I noticed that her face was unusually glisten-y, and her hair was sticking straight up with some kind of weird goo. Upon investigation, I discovered half a stick of butter was missing from the table. BUTTER!!!


What could have possibly run through her mind, to inspire her to open the butter dish and put that nasty junk in her hair!?!?


The world will never know.