A swing for Anna

Mulch phones

Flowers from the market

This morning Anna and I went with some friends to the Farmer's Market to pick up some produce and some hanging baskets for our new deck. Anna looked very festive on the way h0me with the baskets hanging from her stroller.

I recently purchased an adorable little beach chair with an umbrella for Anna. This morning I put on a Baby Signing Time video for her and sat her in her little chair to watch while I did dishes. I peeked in a couple of minutes later to find Anna sitting not in her cute little chair, but on a... balloon. So much for fancy furniture.

Picnic time

Today Anna and I went to a garage sale and picked up a little plastic table and chair set for $5.00. It was a beautiful day so we decided to have a picnic dinner on the deck and let Anna try out her new table. She thought it was pretty neat. There are two chairs and every minute or two she'd get up and switch to the other chair. We remembered why we usually strap Anna in for meals- she had a great time walking around but ate very little dinner :).

Look, Mommy! A plane!

A living room snooze

Playgroup really wore her out...

Fancy dancing, part one and two

Dan, aren't you glad your piano is getting put to such good use?

Dermographism

I'm going through old photos tonight to try to get caught up on the blog and realized that I never posted about Anna's dermographism episodes. Anna was diagnosed with dermographism in March- a condition where the skin is abnormally sensitive to be scratched and rubbed. Dermographism can happen to someone once, can happen on and off throughout their lives, or it can be a permanent condition. Sometimes there can be a clear trigger at other times no one knows what started the problem. Anna's seems to be triggered by cats. Anna is allergic to cats- we knew this because of her skin testing in early March, but she displays none of the typical symptoms when in a household with cats- sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose, etc. So we figured she's mustn't be very allergic to them. We've discovered she is very allergic when her skin is pierced- as in a scratch or a bite. Twice this has happened and both times it has triggered a dermographism episode that lasted for a couple of weeks. When Anna is having an episode even a very gentle scratch leaves a mark. When she rubs her eyes the skin around them turns pink. She gets small hives for no particular reason.

Why is Anna hanging out with all these violent cats, you ask? There is a cat at both grandparent's homes. Junior, the cat belonging to the Van Hals is incredibly laid back and lets Anna do whatever her little heart desires. He does not seem to mind in the least when Anna pulls on him, lays on him, etc. He has all his claws, though, and accidentally scratched Anna's belly through her shirt- probably he was sitting on her lap and then used his claws when he stood up. Samson, my sister Kathryn's cat, does not enjoy Anna's attention nearly as much as Junior. While we were in St. Louis the week of Easter Anna was scratched once and bitten once, and trust me, she deserved it. We tried to keep her from provoking the cat but Anna absolutely adores cats and she is FAST.

Anna has been on Zyrtec to help manage her symptoms but we stopped giving it to her a couple of days ago as her pediatrician said to stop giving it to her when she's been free of symptoms for a week or two.

In the meantime we still haven't been trying peanut butter because her skin has already been so sensitive.

I took this photo the day Anna's pediatrician diagnosed her with dermographism. I (gently) drew a smiley face on Anna's back with my fingernail and this was the result a couple of minutes later. Bryan thinks this was a little cruel of me, but I swear it didn't bother her! Sorry, Anna, I couldn't resist.

Hanging out at the pond

Anna chatting on her "phone"- a piece of mulch.