hello, summer.

Jude has been very obsessed with the seasons. He kept asking when Winter would be over, and then was so happy it was Spring. The last few months we kept telling him the pool opened in "the summer", so he'd ask daily if it was summer yet. We would tell him it was Spring, and summer was coming soon. Finally Saturday when he woke up we said "IT'S SUMMER!! And the pool opens today!". He wasn't convinced...until yesterday on our way home from the pool for the third or fourth time he said to everyone "GUESS WHAT! It's SUMMER NOW!". So welcome summer, Jude has accepted your arrival. Let's make it a good one. ;)

Elijah has been so so busy at work, and we have really missed seeing him at night and early in the morning. The other night he went back to work after dinner and Jude didn't see him leave. He started calling for "DAD!!!!!!" and when I told him he'd left to go to the office, he started crying and said "Dad working so SO HARD!". It was sad and sweet. These boys love their Dad so much!! We spent a nice weekend together though, going to the pool for most of Saturday (YEA!) and then we picnicked at Sacajawea park with a group of friends on Monday. The boys got to swim in the river and play with their friends...we ate LOTS of good food and had such a great time.

We had some excitement on Sunday morning when Jude came into our room right before church with his eyes and face completely swollen. We weren't really sure what to make of it, but gave him benadryl and I left him with Elijah so I could go play the organ for the meetings. When I got back an hour and a half later his face had gotten much worse, so after Elijah gave him a blessing we decided we needed to take him to the ER. We spent about an hour and a half there...one thing I found out was that if you have an allergic reaction you automatically get "fast tracked" into a room which was REALLLLY nice. ;) There was a Dr and two nurses waiting for us in the room when we got in, and they checked him out. We weren't really concerned because I'd already listened to his lungs for the last few hours and his breathing seemed fine, but we knew we didn't have the medicine to help him and with our pediatrician out of town for the holiday it just seemed easiest to take him there. They were pretty quick to tell us he was "just fine", and then we let them know our suspicions of it being an allergy to the new brand of sunscreen we'd just put on him the day before. I handed the Dr the bottle and after he pronounced it was "almost certainly" a sunscreen allergy I proceeded to get a lecture on why I put too high an spf on my kids...etc. I tried several times to explain the main reason we brought him in is because he's an Alpha 1 kid and has weak lungs and liver, and we wanted to make sure everything was ok , but he didn't seem to pay much attention to that and told me I need not be putting more than a 15-20 spf on my children. OK DUDE. Thanks...Obviously he was happy to have a captive audience to listen to him. His long winded reasoning made some sense, but I still think I'll be coating the kids down with the 50 spf when they spend hours at the pool, thank you very much. Just a different brand I guess. And we're looking into some decent sun shirts.

Anyway, he checked us out pretty fast and sent us on our way with a prescription for a drug we later found out wasn't even available in the formulation he requested because it wasn't for use for kids under 12. Nice. We called back to the hospital and he called in another prescription to the pharmacy, but the time I got back it was closed for the holiday. GOOD TIMES. I did learn two new things in this latest medical mystery.

1. From what this Dr said....Benadryl is good for redness and itching, but doesn't help with swelling or rash. You need a Histamine 2 blocker, which surprisingly is the standard medicines for ACID REFLUX...Tagamet, Zantac. Cool, eh? I would have never thought to treat an allergic reaction to something where the symptom was swelling and rash with an acid reducer. How random. SIGH. All the hospital drama the last 2 years has made me SO WANT TO BE A NURSE.
2. Don't just assume because it's a holiday weekend that your regular ER Dr's will be on. Nope. They actually take vacations too, and then random dudes that are traveling Dr's will be standing in your regular's place and know nothing about you or your history. Even better, don't get sick on a holiday weekend when your awesome pediatrician is out of town. ;)

So Happy SUMMER to you all. Here's hoping yours is great...make lots of good plans and enjoy the sunshine!