Mall Details!

So as promised I have a second post with pictures from the Brandon Mall. These are from our first visit there.Unlike the bay Area, in Florida there are not an overwhelming number of places in which to take your child to play.Due to the cold winter like weather, or the scorching heat we experienced when there, going to the park was not something I wanted to do.The mall however had a little indoor play area. So this was it. We went with Oma, and Tanta Kat. it was pretty neat.We liked it mostly because it was novel, even during the two hours we were there she got bored and spread out to play in the surrounding areas, but I will get to that in a minute.The play structures were all mode of this interesting hard plastic, shiny maybe silicon like material, not like the backyard plastic, but not a wood or metal either. It was a little slippery.I was a little nervous with her on this "slide" as when she was sitting on the top, if not careful she could have easily fell backwards. So I was keeping a close eye on her.She wanted help the first several times she played on the slide, but eventually she felt practiced enough to be left on her own and had a blast.Here holly is making new friends and sharing her snacks with a little girl we met while playing.There were a few other things for her to play with, like these spinning toys, but for the most part she wanted to play on anything that she could climb on.So before long she was out of the small play area and running around the mall, just behind the area we were sitting in, was a little "Arcade" area.There were 4 different Quarter riding toys there that she wanted to climb around on and sit in.But first she decided she needed a drink and decided to take a break. She loves her some yogurt juice, I wish I could buy it in bulk!Here we are on the first Carousel of the day, this was a little 4 horse get up that just spun around and around. Kat jumped on the back with her to keep her stable.Next she climbed up into this comfy seat, she really likes to try out different chairs and places to sit.This one was a big rocket ship, but we didn't bother to turn it on, she was happy to to climb inside and then out again.She did this of course, over and over again. She really gets fixated on the climbing at times, but it is good for her.This was some type of Roller Coaster thing, where you sit in the seat and then on the screen you see the coaster as if you and in the front car.This one is like an ice cream truck, there was a lot of room for her to climb around in here, I am assuming for the older kids there are other different games and buttons to push.But at this age she just likes to feel like a big girl, sit in the seat, climb up on her own, wave at mommy through the window. She has a mind of her own when it comes to how she wants to play.Back in the play area, here Holly is crawling through a little log tube. It is great therapy for her to be crawling, and she has been doing it more and more, like a fun game, to get a different perspective on the world.I think because she didn't do it that much when she was little she thinks it is really fun to do it all the time now.Here she is climbing on a giant fish. The bigger kids would climb all the way up to the back and sit on top.Holly isn't big enough to do that, so she sat on the tail instead. There were also these two cars that she enjoyed sitting in.She really liked hanging out in the car, she would sit in there eating from her snack container, the seat was shallow though and slippery.I love this picture, and this top. The shirt was a gift from her granny, funny I just dressed her in this outfit this week and paired it with the same pants, they don't officially match.But something about that yellow goes so well with the top. These pants don't really fit her, they are more like Capri's now, but they are one of our favorites.Here she is back on the horse again, I think we jumped on the opportunity of another kid riding to let Holly get a ride too.On the other side of the mall was the big carousel, we decided after a bit to walk over there and let Holly take a ride. She loved it. At first when she was waiting for it to go she was a bit fussy.But once it is moving around and around she gets so excited, she loves to go up and down, and she even hold on like a big girl. Not that I am ready to let her ride on her own.We decided to go around twice she loved it so much. We had a fun time, and isn't this dragon so beautiful. So that was our visit to the mall a place to go and play to get out of the house.

Pump it Up One More Time! -- Wordless Wednesday

Hand's On Fun - I Heart Faces

So I have been finding myself going into the archives and finding some great baby pictures of Holly these past few weeks to post for I Heart Faces. Week 8 of 2010 has a theme of "Hand's on Fun" I had a few close up pictures of Holly holding onto Daddy's "hand" which of course means her little fist wrapped tightly around his pinky finger, but there was no context in the photo, so instead I decided to post this picture that Holly's Daddy took of Holly holding onto Mommy's had, I guess I just like the composition.

It's hard to believe my little gremlin was ever that small and immobile and delicate, back then I certainly couldn't imagine today, and today it is getting ever so hard to remember her being so little, I keep seeing pictures of a "time" where I remember feeling, "Oh, she is so grown up now" and compared to "Now" she was itsy bitsy, they say it goes by fast, but you can;t really imagine how fast it really is when you live it day by day and then wonder where all those days went.

I Heart Faces is a site where you can share photos and submit them into weekly contests, of faces, one for kids and another for adults.

The Saga Continues

Here are some really fun pictures of Holly and Chloe playing. Rather then talking about them, I am going to throw myself pity party number 2, and continue the ongoing saga of Holly being sick. So last update Holly had the eye thing and the double whammy ear infection. She was feeling better and bouncing off the walls on Saturday, and we went to a late afternoon pot luck play date which was a lot of fun. On Sunday we just ran errands and hung out at home, we went to Ross and the supermarket, and she was having a fine day. That evening she was getting a little obsessed with asking for a bath.

It started at around 7:00 and she kept asking, signing, going to the door. I wasn't planning on giving her a bath, but finally gave in and told her after dinner. By that time, around 9:00 she was busting at the seams. She tried to bring the chair into the room, she tried to learn how to open a round door knob by hanging on it and using her weight to get it to turn, she was emphatic. So it was off to the bath. At this point, we just though she was being persistent. Her bath was uneventful, but she was sleepy and in bed by 9:45, not typical. I headed to bed at 2:00 and Joel told me she had been tossing and turning all night, she had trouble falling asleep and at this point she was whimpering and fussing again. We gave her a yogurt juice and tried to get her to fall back asleep, she wasn't awake, but something was wrong.

I finally gave her my cell phone to watch a video in hopes that it would calm her and I noticed she was doing something funny with her foot. She didn't want it under the cover and she was pulling it away when I touched it but she was grabbing at it too. Her toe nails were a little rough, and I thought maybe she somehow hurt herself. I didn't want to completely disrupt her and turn all the lights on so Joel got a flash light. Just before this, I was trying to change her diaper, and she kept fussing every time I tried, and I didn't understand why.


So that's when I saw it, her foot was all red and splotchy, and we discovered she had some type of rash. We starting looking all over her body and she ended up having it on both feet on the tops and her ankles, and then on the tops of her hand, a little on her arm and a few very small spots on her belly and back. By this time I was freaking out and the lights were on so we could see what was going on. Joel decided to give her some Benedryl in a bottle and Holly got the idea in her head that she wanted another bath, I think this had something to do with me taking her top off to see where the rash was. I was on the Internet and in my baby books trying to figure out what it was. I was able to rule out most scary things, and the description matched hives, or allergic reaction, not that I could think of what she might be allergic too, but it said warm water would ease the itching, so I gave in and gave her another bath, yes it was 4:00 AM.


By 5:00 she was back in bed and had a bottle, which she drank, but she didn't go to sleep until around 6:00 AM. The Benedryl has the ability to make you drowsy or wired, and I guess in this case it was wired, and she had herself a 4 hour mommy and Daddy Middle of the Night Play Date. We called and cancelled Katie for the morning and all slept in until about 11:00. When we woke up I called the advice nurse. The rash was gone, I saw no evidence of it, but they insisted that I come in and get her checked out so we did.

She did amazingly well at the Doctor's office, instead of screaming the whole time, she only whimpered when they took her temperature, (99.7) but stayed still and then immediately started playing. She was intent on playing with the instrument that they look into your ears with and even tried to put it into her own ear. The doctor came in and took a look and one of her ear infections was healed, but she still had one, in the other ear. And then we looked and found a spot on the top of her hand and a little spot on her arm. So the Doctor asked me a few questions and decided that Holly is most likely allergic to the antibiotics (Amoxicillian) She gave us a prescription for something different that she needed to take for the next 7 days.

This new medication can't be taken with Formula or Milk (within 2 hours), due to the iron, but the Yogurt Juice is Ok. Also the Fomulary comes flavored but they filled it generic which didn't and I could not add any flavoring just in case it was a reaction to the dye or the flavoring. We were at Walgreens almost 45 minutes, that was not fun. She was running around alike a loose chicken from being too cooped up, but I didn;t want to make a trip home and back so I chased and we waited. So we get home and I have to deal with the cleaner coming over and Holly ebing so hyper that she is trying to dump out every toy that Tanta Kat just cleaned and pulled up off the floor for the cleaner.

I am working on getting her a dose of Benedryl and her new Antibiotic since we skipped the mornign dose per Joel's instinct and then the nurse's direction. I am trying to get her to settle in bed and then notice that the entire side of her face in covered in a rash and her hand and arm. I start to freak out again, but remind myself that it has been 10 hours since her last Benedryl and it is only supposed to last 6 hours.

The doctor also told me the rash could last 24-48 hours. So to continue the Benedryl until Tuesday evening and if she has a reaction on Wednesday then she is allergic to the new anti-biotic, which is a distant cousin to the Amoxicillian. I am so not excited about this new development, it would be bad if she is indeed allergic, especially since she is ear infection prone, it needs to be confirmed by a blood test, but the doctor said to wait until we have another reason to draw blood and for the time being avoid Amoxicillian. I was also surprised that she had already been taking it for 4 days, and this was like her 5th ear infection, so she has had it in the past, but the Doctor said it usually takes a few days to react, and that sometimes you grow into the allergy.

Now I am wondering if this could have anything to do with the fact that she was on the Minocyclin, which is a type of antibiotic, could it have created some type of allergy because of the exposure? I don't know, I just hope she isn't allergic to "penicillin" products. So in the end, she never did go down for that nap I was talking about earlier, but she wasn't "that" grumpy. She insisted on another bath tonight and was in bed by 9:30. She did really good for being awake over 10 hours strait. She had a good dinner tonight too, we tried one of those Gerber Graduate Dinners my mom got us over Christmas, 30 seconds in the microwave and she had Mac and Cheese and Veggies, she ate maybe 3/4th of it. She later also ate a 1/2 container of Garden Veggies and picked off my plate eating Fettuccine. Poor baby is such a trooper.

I mostly gave her the bath because she had a bit of diaper rash from being constipated, four difficult poops today and she was red and hurty, the bath helped that and the itching I am sure, Which Joel surmised must be why she was so insistant on the bath the night before. The splotches were just starting to reappear before bed. She had cheese, I hate to deny her when she asks so nice, so for lunch she got yogurt mixed with prunes. Anyways, enough with all that, I will sure be back here whining some more if the Saga continues, no eye drops tonight, Daddy and I aren't good at it, but I think I will give her one more dose in the morning with Tanta Kat's help. The doc said the eyes looked good. Lets hope tonight when I go to bed she will stay asleep, I don't know if I can take another night of sleeping only from 6am-11am. Remember - I am still sick, cough and soar throat :-( I also send well wishes to Katherine, Chloe's mom who is sick too and cancelled our playdate today. it worked out for us in the end, trying to stay home and rest, but we missed them.