Monday Monday...

Boy was today a Monday!  Monday arrived right on schedule and hastened to disrupt my carefully laid plans. 

Yesterday Amerah came home with an itchy little rash on her belly and her back.  She had spent the night with her mom, at her cousin's house, and Dave and I thought they looked like bug bites or maybe something plant related...

 

Not great pics, I only took one photo that didn't turn out fuzzy! 

So I put her to bed with some Benadryl smeared all over her spots for the itching, thinking that that should take care of it.  No such luck... This is what we woke up to this morning...

This is a blurry photo of her ankle and foot.  Both feet were completely covered in red splotches!  Finally the only clear photo :-)

Since the other photos are a bit blurry, you can picture these spots all up her calves, on her feet, her back, her belly, and on her shoulder... with a few random spots on her other arm, one on her temple, and a couple on her neck. 

So, like any responsible parent, who had absolutely no clue what this could be, I kept her home from school and took her to the doctor.  This meant that I had to cancel all of my plans for the day because I didn't know whether or not it was something contagious and I didn't want to expose anyone to it if it was.

The verdict was good... no communicable diseases in our house at least.  The doc thinks it's a severe allergic reaction to something she came into contact with while she was with her mom.  Heaven only knows WHAT!  It's impossible to tell what caused it without having a sample to test on her.  So now the poor kid has two prescriptions, one for the itching, the other a heavy duty drug to knock out the allergic reaction.  I asked why the Benadryl didn't work if it was an allergy and the doctor said that she thought it was because it was so severe a piddly little over-the-counter topical cream was no match for it.  She said some allergic reactions require internal medication. 

Good news is that she's good to go back to school tomorrow and has a note from the doctor to prove it... bad news is that I have to reschedule appointments.  Thank heavens it wasn't anything contagious!

this, that, and the other thing

I've had one of those weeks... yep, just one of those weeks. 

 

We released little bunny Foo Foo into the wild.  I had mixed feelings about it since I'd been feeding her from an syringe since she was a week old.  It was hard to let go however it was for her own good.  Everything I read insisted that wild rabbits don't make good pets.  I saw that with my own eyes, even though she still wanted formula (at least 2 weeks after she should have been weaned), she was more than capable of feeding herself.  She was also getting agitated and bouncing around the cage like crazy.  Not to mention that she was terrified of everyone but me.

I agonized over where to release her.  Our backyard was out of the question because of Lily.  The woods across the street harbored too many other critters that I worried might eat her plus it was too close to a street.  We decided to release her out at Kensington State park.  I chose Kensington because of it's great nature trails, especially the one that Dave christened "the bunny trail" because he always saw rabbits there. 

It took us 45 minutes to get there, Lily went along for the ride...

 

 

These photos really don't show how excited she was to go for a ride :-)  It was only after a while in the car that she decided to take a nap.

Dave released her near a pond with lots of thick brush for her to hide in and Flopsy hopped away without a backward glance.  I worry about her.  I miss her.  Sigh.

As for the rest of the week...

I should be feeling grateful that I am doing so much better than I was right after I fell.  Instead of gratitude I've been cantankerous.  Yep that's the word for it.  The pain and swelling that I still have, combined with my inability to do 75% of the things that I NEED to do and even WANT to do have made me grumpy and irritable. 

School has been in session for 2 weeks now and, despite having an extra half hour to get ready, it still seems to take Amerah every last minute to get ready (with me prodding her every step of the way).  Although I don't mind the later mornings so much, I'd gladly take the earlier shift back so that she could get out earlier.  The later dismissal time has played havoc with our schedule, leaving the poor kid time for nothing more than homework, dinner, bath and bed (we're really stretching it on Tuesdays and Thursdays when she goes to karate).  So the end result has been ATTITUDE.  Buckets and crates and barrels of attitude. 

If you add Amerah's attitude to my irritability... well not so much fun.

On the upside, I'm thinking of putting together a calendar of sexy men... :-) In it I would include the following photos... boy did Lily and I enjoy watching him... ;-)

 

 

 

 

  

As you can see... Lily enjoyed the show just as much as I did :-)

 

Now I just need photos of men doing dishes... vacuuming... well you get the picture ;-)

Amerah turns 10

I am a lucky step mother because I can tell Amerah that I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when she was born.  I guess that's the upside of sharing your birthday with a tragic day in history.  Ten years ago, as the twin towers were crumbling after being hit by two airplanes, I was sitting at my grandmother's house in my pajamas, glued to the television.  At this exact moment, Dave was at the hospital (which was put on lock down) welcoming his new daughter into this world.  Sorrow and joy, all at once.

Tonight we had the family over to celebrate Amerah's birthday (so that all the grown ups don't have to go to the "kid" party that we'll be having in a couple weeks). 

Apparently "10" is going to be the year of the silly faces.  It's become next to impossible to get a nice, smily photo of the kid!  So, with that being said... here ya go...

  

The cake cracked... sigh... but Amerah joked that it was an earthquake because Grandma lives in California and couldn't be there...

She hammed it up again when we sang happy birthday and it was time to blow out the candles... I almost forgot that I was dealing with a 10 year old rather than a 4 year old whom I had to remind not to SPIT when she blew out the candles!

 

 

 

This next section is for my mom... since she wasn't here to see Amerah open the box she sent... and yes mom... she looked a lot more excited than these photos show... it's only that, whenever she realized that I was taking a picture, she made faces... sigh...

 

 

 

 

 

 

And THIS is how she felt about her gifts from "Mimzy"

The following are a few random gift-opening photos... we had to rush into the present part of the evening because Dave had to leave for work.  We were actually lucky to have him home at all!  His boss called him into work at 4 pm and there was no one to take his place!  They did some finagling and managed to give him 4 1/2 hours to be home with us.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 My grandmother "Nanny" gave Amerah what has to be the most obnoxious birthday card in existence.  Amerah LOVED it.  It is a monkey sitting in a pile of bananas.  When you pull the monkey out, the card shrieks and makes loud, nonstop, annoying monkey noises.  I will be sure to send it with Amerah next time she goes to spend the day at Nanny's house...

Uncle Mike tricked her by folding a $10 bill so it looked like $100 and clipping it in with some barrettes... hehehe

 

 

And yes, Dave and I got our daughter TAPE for her birthday...

 

10 rolls of scotch tape and one roll of zebra print duct tape hahaha!  What can I say... she's a crafty girl and it's what she ASKED for! :-)

Of course, we also bought her a camera... we're looking forward to seeing the photos she takes with it...

 

Just for your amusement... yes... Daddy decorated for the party... I may have to take a more active role in that department next year! :-)

 

 

All in all it went well and we had a good time...

 

 

After half of our guest left for the evening, things started to get a little silly... One of my mom's gifts was a tin full of glasses with colored lenses which were a big hit... "Mimzy" calls it color therapy...  i call it a recipe for silliness...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time everyone left and Amerah and I were cleaning up, the poor kid could barely keep her eyes open... 

So although the date on this blog will say that it is already September 11, 2011, it's only 2:06 AM.  I'd better head to my bed so that i can be up early to wish my girl a happy birthday! :-)