Spring has Sprung?

We woke up to heaps of snow again this morning! What happened to March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb? Or, the groundhog's prediction of an early spring?

After shoveling the driveway, Claire and I made a little snowman in the flower pot between our garages. We even used our snowman kit (Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!). Claire named the snowman Jessie. It's a "girl snowman." She looks really cute, but I'm not sure how long she will last before she melts away. By late afternoon I had already noticed a slight change in her girlish figure.

The First Day of Spring?

Today is officially the first day of spring. All last week spring was in the air -- sunny days, warm weather, greenish grass, jackets optional. But, today, when we woke up, everything was covered by a white blanket of snow! Some snow showers were predicted, but we did not expect this at all! Even Claire was bewildered. When she woke up and looked out the window this morning, I overheard her say (via the baby monitor), "Wow! It's snowing!! Wow! Wow! It's snowing!!"

St. Patrick's Day

We had a lovely St. Patrick's Day! Claire celebrated by having a Green Party at school. We made shamrock cookies together for the party. It is still a long process, but my technique is getting a little better! According to Claire, everyone at school loved the cookies.

Since it was such a beautiful, warm, sunny day, we met up with some friends at Camp Jefferson in the afternoon. I always love these impromptu playdates that occur when we have nice weather.

My husband met us at the playground and we went out to Fatburger for dinner. It was a nice way to end such a fun day!

Sick of Being Sick

A week's worth of paper towels in our powder room. We followed doctor's orders and did not use hand towels during the pinkeye epidemic.

Claire has been very healthy for most of her life. We rarely have but one or two visits to the pediatrician between yearly well visits. In the past three weeks, Claire has made two visits to the pediatrician for sick visits. First she had a cough/cold with a fever that would come and go. Then, last week, she had her first experience with pinkeye. Coincidentally, we had just gone to the play area at McDonald's for the first time earlier that week, so I'm convinced that's where she got it. Now, when we pass McDonald's, Claire says that she doesn't want to go back because they have pinkeye there. I should also note that the pinkeye experience almost gave me a heart attack. Putting eyedrops into Claire's eyes was an excruciating experience for me! I could not take all of the yelling, screaming and crying. I hope she NEVER gets it again otherwise we'll hire a private nurse to come and stay with us for a week and administer eyedrops three times a day.

Children's Museum of the Arts

Almost every day Claire says, "I want to do something fun today." By "fun" she does not mean something in our house. That's not fun in her opinion. So, today, we decided to do something fun and went into Manhattan to the Children's Museum of the Arts. It is a small museum with lots of hands-on art activities.

Claire loved using colored pencils, chalk and watercolor paints to create masterpieces. She also sculpted some playdough and made a mobile out of recycled paper and pipe cleaners (When I held up a pipe cleaner and asked her what it was called, at first she said "windshield wipers" then said "clean pipers.").

She also enjoyed playing with a big glob of Flubber and was careful not to get it in her hair or on her clothes.

When asked what her favorite part of the museum was, she said, "The whole thing!!" Personally, I think it was the ball pond, an enclosed area filled with lots of giant yoga balls. She spent quite a lot of time swimming around in the ball pond.

After two hours of "fun," we left the city to beat the rush hour traffic and went straight to Fornos for a delicious, fancy lunch.

A Visit to the Allergist

This afternoon, we had a (long overdue) appointment with Claire's pediatric allergist. Shortly after her first birthday, Claire was diagnosed with allergies to milk, eggs and tree nuts. We mourned that news, but then got on with our lives and found ways to work around said allergies. We learned that Claire could tolerate milk and eggs if they were baked in something (Think: muffins, cookies, cakes.). Claire's allergist was fine with me experimenting in this way because often times children are allergic to eggs or milk in one form, but once the allergen is cooked or baked at a high temperature, the chain of amino acids (the structure of the allergen) is changed and the child might not be allergic to it in that altered form. He also said that some preliminary studies have shown that exposing kids to an allergen in very, very small doses can help to develop a tolerance or immunity to them.

When we met with the nurse, I explained how Claire had had a reaction to a few spoonfuls of seafood soup containing shrimp, scallops and imitation crabmeat. I said I would like to have her tested for shellfish since it was the worst reaction she had ever had. Claire was tested for eggs, milk, tree nuts, fish and shellfish using the scratch method on her back. Claire did not enjoy this at all. In fact, she cried and cried for a while saying her back hurt. Then she started asking if she could scratch it. It was heartbreaking. : (

The good news is that she has outgrown her milk allergy and her allergy to eggs isn't as bad as it was (She only had a "slight reaction" to egg.). She is still allergic to tree nuts which I wasn't that suprised about since it is not an allergy that kids outgrow like milk and eggs. The bad news is that Claire is allergic to fish AND shellfish. I was actually sort of surprised by this since she has had some fish and shrimp with no adverse reaction. Now we will just make sure her diet does not include eggs, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. Hopefully some scientists or researchers will develop some type of food allergy exposure therapy like seasonal allergy shots and one day Claire will be able to feast on the things she can't currently have. After our visit, I took her to Toys R Us so she could pick out something special as a reward for being so brave at the doctor's office. She chose a Barbie and Ken bride and groom set and was absolutely thrilled!

Results of the scratch test 

Real Bowling

This morning we met some moms and kids from our moms group and went bowling. "Real bowling" as Claire calls it, not Wii bowling. Claire was really looking forward to it since she had never been "real bowling" before. After donning some spiffy bowling shoes, finding some light bowling balls and setting up the scoring computer, the kids were ready to bowl.

All of the mommies helped the young bowling stars get the balls down the lane, although a few lost momentum and sat frozen before even reaching the pins. Claire's personal technique was to drop the ball on the floor, then we'd count to three and push the ball toward the pins. While she never got a spare or a strike during this outing, I have faith that her skills will improve!

In between turns, the kids cheered for their friends and Zach, Ollie and Claire played their own version of musical chairs.

The MATL Bowling Team

Claire had a really good time even though she said the balls were a little heavy.