For my family

I thought my family might get a kick out of this photo for two reasons- because Anna is sitting the way I used to sit as a kid and because Anna is wearing the shoes that Mom and Kathryn picked out for her in New York :).

Doing much better!

I am happy to report that Anna's health is much improved. She has not needed her throat numbing stuff for a couple of days and she has slept through the night two nights in a row! Her tonsils still look swollen (at least to my untrained eye) and she's still a little irritable, but on the whole she's doing lots better.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Anna sure has changed a lot since last year!

The gardens again

Stickers!

Ouch! My throat hurts!

On Wednesday of this week Anna started developing a fever. It got to 103 that night, so I brought Anna to the pediatrician's office on Thursday. The doctor we saw (not her regular pediatrician) said that her tonsils looked terrible and that she had tonsillitis and possibly strep throat. He said that it is unusual for a child as young as Anna to have strep but b/c her throat and tonsils looked pretty bad he wanted to start her on antibiotics while we waited 48 hours for the strep culture to come back.

On Friday Anna had her 15 month check up (she's in the 60th percentile for height and the 30th for weight, for those who are interested) with her regular doc. She was skeptical that it might be strep but agreed that she had tonsillitis.

By Saturday Anna had had three nights where she had slept very little and had fevers of 103. She also had several long bouts of hysterical crying that day. She hadn't been eating or drinking well. The previous night her breathing had started to sound whistely and when she slept she snored (something she's never done before). I called the ped's office Saturday afternoon and because of all these things the nurse on call recommended we take Anna to the ER.

We spent three hours at the ER. The doctors said that she had blisters and ulcers on her tonsils and throat that looked viral. They gave us the okay to stop the antibiotics. They also gave us some short acting medicine to give Anna prior to eating and sleeping that would numb her throat a little. We tried it out while we were there and Anna drank more than she had all day long. They also recommended that we alternate Tylenol and Motrin every three hours and follow up with her pediatrician on Monday.

Nana...

When Anna is doing something she is not supposed to she sometimes scolds herself with a stern "nana" (how she pronounces her name). I was videotaping Anna at 2:00 in the morning today trying to take a video of how raspy her breathing was sounding (proof for the doctor) and I accidentally caught the "nana" routine instead. She's not making the stern face and shaking her head like she usually does, but if you listen closely she says "nana" twice in this clip. She's scolding herself because she's not supposed to touch the camera.

She's baaaack

Bravery in the kitchen

I have finally done it. I summoned up the courage to pull out the crock pot that we received as a wedding gift. For some reason this particular piece of kitchen gadgetry has always intimidated me. Tonight I made a hearty potato soup- it tasted better than it looks :). Next, the blender...

Peanut allergy update

Yesterday morning Anna and I went to see an allergist. Anna had a skin prick test on her back for many different allergens. Her results confirmed an allergy to cats but did not confirm a peanut allergy. She had little or no reaction to the peanut. The doctor said that her previous blood test was positive for peanut allergies, but she had quite a low score, so she wanted to give Anna a taste of peanut butter in the office to see how she tolerated it. Anna had no visible reaction and kept signing for "more." Although a peanut allergy is usually a pretty black and white issue, her allergist feels that it may be safe to let Anna have peanut butter as part of her diet as long as we monitor her closely and always have her Epi-pen on hand.

The trouble is, we're not sure we're too comfortable with the approach of continuing to give her peanut butter unless something bad happens. According to a book about peanut allergies I read over the weekend and some research I have done online, reactions are difficult to predict and can vary greatly from one peanut exposure to the next. A child can be fine for the first five exposures and go into anaphylactic shock on the sixth exposure. I don't want to be an alarmist and I don't want to limit Anna unnecessarily, but I also am not confident that continuing to feed her peanuts is the best course of action. I think for the time being we may not directly give her any food with peanuts in it, but not worry too much about trace amounts of peanuts (for example, when a product label says "this product was manufactured in a facility which also processes peanuts"). And of course, we'll keep her Epi-pen handy.

Anna's first trip to the allergist

We had a loooong appointment at the allergist's office today but Anna was a real trooper.
p.s. Note that Anna is playing with an ankylosaurus in this photo- Daddy's favorite dinosaur.

The butterflies are back at Frederick Meijer Gardens!

A playdate with McKeiley

Hold the peanuts, please

Last week Anna had a little peanut butter for the first time. A couple of days later she had a flare up in her eczema and a mild rash on her cheeks and neck. To be on the safe side I took her to the pediatrician. Her doctor thought the rash was probably just more of Anna's eczema, but she ordered a blood test to check for allergies to be careful.

Yesterday I got a call from the pediatrician's office and it's official- Anna is allergic to peanuts :(. I spoke to her pediatrician on the phone last night to get some more information. The good news is that Anna's initial reaction was quite mild. The bad news is that each subsequent exposure to peanuts can make her reactions worse over time. We're going to meet with a pediatric allergist, but in the meantime we are to remove all peanuts from our home (including foods which have labels indicating that they were made in a plant that processes peanuts) and start carrying benadryl and an epi-pen just in case.

We'll let you know more when we've met with the allerist. Ahhh... the wonderful world of food allergies.

Open wide, dolly!

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa Dutra

This weekend Anna's Grandma and Grandpa Dutra visited from St. Louis. Anna had lots of fun playing with them!

We took Anna to a fun new place called Playworld.

I was amused by the warning label I found on one of the inflatable bounce houses.

Anna had a good time snuggling with Grandma and Grandpa...

... and taking a walk.

Playing with the heater in Grandma and Grandpa's hotel room was pretty fun, too.