Wordless Wednesday

Coraline eyes

Apparently I have a lot of time on my hands for frivolous internet activities. Here's the whole family with Coraline button eyes. I think Ginger is especially attractive with too large buttons that match her bed.

Eggs

Due to a memory lapse and major miscalculation (on my part) we somehow ended up with 3 dozen eggs.

I made scrambled eggs and triple berry banana muffins for breakfast today, but we still have 28 eggs left.
I forsee a quiche, a frittata, a souffle and some lipitor in our future.

Eczema

One of the not so nice things that Spencer inhereted from his daddy is a bad case of eczema. Most kids end up growing out of eczema and we hope and pray this is true for Spencer.

Spencer has eczema on pretty much every part of his body, although it is particulary bad on his lower back, his neck, his scalp, his ankles, his hands, his forehead along the hairline, his right cheek and around his mouth.

Here is a recent picture of a flare up on his face.

This is the routine that we have been doing every night to keep his skin somewhat under control.

The bathtub and soaking in water was just too drying so, first, Spencer takes a lukewarm shower with one of us.

We wash his body with unscented dove (1/4 moisturizing creme),

then wash his hair with selsun blue


and condition with head and shoulders.
Once he's out of the shower and while he's still damp we rub his entire body down with Eucerin lotion (unscented).
Then we rub cortizone-10 into all of his trouble spots.

This is followed by a layer of the prescription medicine Mimyx ($40 a tube co-pay, with insurance paying for over $100 dollars).

On really bad nights we follow this with a layer of vaseline

and give him a dose of Benadryl.

Contrary to popular belief, Benadryl does not make all children sleepy. I have never once seen Spencer just conk out after taking Benadryl. It's almost like giving him a placebo because it actually doesn't even really help with the itching and scratching.

Keep in mind that Spencer is fighting us and crying during each and every step after the shower. It makes for a difficult bed time routine.

In the morning he gets another layer of Eucerin, cortizone, Mimyx and vaseline.

We have been doing this routine for about three months and have not seen much improvement.

Our pediatrician has said that there is nothing left she can do and the next step is to visit a dermatologist. We haven't gone yet but based on some extensive internet research, we started a new routine two nights ago. We're going to evaluate its effectiveness for the next couple of weeks and then I'll do a new post on how Spencer has fared.

If anyone out there has any ideas please, please, please share. It is heartbreaking when Spencer wakes himself up at 3 am because he is scratching so much. His scalp is one big scab. Help!

Flashback Friday

This is my dad's senior picture.

Oh my god, you're saying. Did we just flash back to 1961? Natalie wasn't even alive. What could this be about? Well, it's not really related. I just like that picture. I think my dad looks handsome. And armless.

Here's my dad some years later when Spencer was 3 days old.

OK. Here is the real picture for today's flashback. My dad had double coronary artery bypass surgery on December 19, 1998. This is the day he came home from the hospital. I was at home for winter break when he had the surgery and I made him watch Dirty Dancing with me every day for like 3 weeks. It's amazing he didn't end up having a heart attack after the surgery.

He wasn't allowed to go back to work for something like 3 months. I would take the bus home every day that I didn't have afternoon classes and spend the afternoon with him. Much like I did when nursing Spencer, my dad spent a lot of time watching TV during his rehab.

It was the first time in his life that he was home to watch daytime TV and something really unfortunate happened: he got a little bit addicted to Martha Stewart Living. To this day he will deny this, but it is true. He puts on a good poker face when asked about Martha, but if hooked to a lie detector machine he would probably be forced to share her recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie.

So, one day I was upstairs watching Martha Stewart. My dad was downstairs doing something. I wasn't sure what. The show was all about how to season cast iron. It involved some process with olive oil and salt. The show ended and several minutes later my dad came upstairs. He started pulling out all the cast iron pots and pans, the salt and the olive oil.

Here is a recap of our conversation.

Me: What are you doing?

Dad: I thought I'd season the cast iron.

Me: Were you just downstairs watching Martha Stewart Living?

Dad: (Deer in Headlights)

Me: You were. You were watching Martha Stewart Living.

Dad: No. I just decided, on a whim, with no other influence whatever, that the cast iron that has never been seasoned needs to be seasoned.

Me: Liar!

My dad not so secretly harbors a desire to be called up by the Obama Administration and offered a job. If, in some sort of weird twist of fate he was offered a job by President Obama and Martha Stewart he'd probably have to sit down and make a list of pros and cons for both. And Martha would probably win.

This will not be the last Flashback Friday about my dad. There are just too many good stories. And yes, daddy, I'm talking about the crab salad.

Wordless Wednesday

The car wash

Michael and I decided that we need to do a better job of keeping our new car clean. It rained last week and Kip (yes, we named the Santa Fe "Kip") was spotty, so Spencer and I went to the drive-through car wash.

Spencer looks very intrigued here

As it got louder he was pretty concerned about the monster eating our car
P.S. We named the Sonata "Pearl"

Flashback Friday

Today's flashback is not so old or so long. We're flashing back to September 2007. I have a lot of paperwork to do tonight and the scanner is not working so I can't scan any old pictures. This is the best I could do with all my limitations.

We will all ignore how awful I look in this picture. Please keep in mind I had given birth to a baby 4 days prior and hadn't really slept in 5 days.

Look at how tiny Spencer is. He weighed 5 pounds 15 ounces at birth and went down to 5 pounds 10 1/2 ounces before he started gaining weight. We went to the pediatrician today and he is now 24 pounds 5.5 ounces. He's not so tiny anymore.

Wordless Wednesday- in Hawaii

Ginger's clothes obsession

Ginger likes to take a good nap on our clothes. It doesn't matter if the clothes are

clean

dirty
or still packed

she will sleep on them without a second thought.

17 months

Spencer was 17 months old today. We have taken pictures of him on every month birthday since he was a month old. Some months have turned out better than others. This month was not so good.

Spencer's eczema has been really bad the last couple of weeks. I'll have to do a post some day about what we do everyday to keep his skin calm. Anyway, he usually sleeps for 3 hours in the afternoon. He woke up scratching after 45 minutes today and never could go back to sleep.

Look at this sad face.

Can you see how rashy his poor little face is?
He's such a coy little 17 month old thing

Right before bed tonight you could see in his eyes how sleepy he was. The hair's pretty cute though.

Spencer a year ago on his 5 month birthday

Flashback Friday

This was my living room on September 23, 2006. It was clean, decorated and tidy. Everything had its place and there was a place for everything. And not just for these pictures, but at all times. I was so proud of my living room with its new furniture in my new house.

Ah, how glorious. The wood tones match, the carpet is clean and the neutral colors complement each other.

Did I take this picture or is it from Better Homes and Gardens? It's hard to tell.

And here we are in February, 2009. Did I take this picture or is it from Trailer Decorating Digest? It's hard to tell. The couches have blankets covering them because we adopted a dog with a 5-year established sleeping on furniture habit that proved to be more difficult to break than a heroin addiction (so I've been told). The coffee table has a blanket covering it because I gave birth to a boy who rips off the soft corner covers within 15 seconds and enjoys banging his toys on polished wood surfaces.
WHAT HAPPENED?

I made sure that I didn't pick up anything and then took a picture of the living room every night this week to show the progression from tidy to destroyed. My poor, sad, once beautiful living room goes through this on a daily basis.

Sunday
Monday

Tuesday
Wednesday

Thursday

Do you see this sitting on the floor? The phone rang last night. It was Kara. I was excited to talk to her. As I got up off the floor where we were all playing I had to be careful to not step on the baby or the beagle. Instead of stepping on them I stepped IN this. It hurt. Profanity was used silently in my head.

Warning

This is what happens to the fabric on a cheap glider when you leave it in your west facing backyard in Arizona for two and a half years.

It doesn't seem to bother Ginger though. She takes a nap on it every day.

Superbowl Sunday

Last year on Superbowl Sunday we went to Josh and Amy's house. Spencer had football themed clothes.

This year we stayed home.

Daddy watched the game while I baked some bread, watched the commercials and entertained Spencer.

Spencer had a lot of activites to keep him busy, though none of them really involved watching football.

Spencer

played with his houseand read some books drank some milk
and pounded some pegs
took a few phone calls
and shared the phone with Ginger
(much to her delight) found a new hiding place
played with his train and practiced a new trick