Well, I did say "24 hours" now, didn't I....

And those 24 hours of hell have apparently decided to go down fighting.

"Why Heather!" I hear you exclaim. "Didn't you go to bed hours ago, as soon as The Amazing Race ended, as per usual?"

Well, yes, I did plan to go to bed after watching one of my two favorite teams get Philiminated. I was in my jammies, in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and I heard Kiddo's door open.

Oh heck, thought I, PLEASE tell me she hasn't thrown up again.

Nope. Not barf.

"Mommy, my feet and ankles are SO itchy that I can't sleep and I can't stop scratching them!" says my poor, beleaguered child.

Indeed. I turned on the light in the hallway and I could instantly see the problem quite clearly.

Hives.

LOTS of hives.

EVERYWHERE from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.

Angry, red, worsening-by-the-second hives.

I immediately dove into the very-well-organized-now,-thanks-to-the-house-showing-thing medicine chest and pulled out a bottle of Benadryl. Uh-oh, not much left in this one. Poured her a teaspoon from the dregs of the bottle and gave it to her and then settled her back into bed and went downstairs to check the package insert info for the antibiotic Kiddo's been taking since Friday night. You know, the antibiotic for the sinus infection that was gooing up her eyes (so they'd crust shut - like the worst pinkeye you've ever seen, but not pinkeye) and her nose and face that were generally a disgusting mess... An antibiotic she's taken once before with no bad reactions. So, I pulled out the info sheet and whaddya know, hives could constitute a "severe allergic reaction" to this med.

Fanfreakingtastic.

I called up the after-hours answering service at 9:51. Well, *most* adults are still awake at this point, right? I mean, this isn't like I'm calling at 2 in the morning... Yes, I am rationalizing the decision to call the doctor to myself, don't ask me why. That's what they're there for, right? I explained the situation to the lady and she said "Oh YES, that is something the doctor will call you back for IMMEDIATELY!" Hmmm. I tried not to panic as I waited for the doctor to call back.

In doctor terms, as it turns out, "IMMEDIATELY!" equates to roughly 13 minutes. Not that I was counting. I used the meantime to go back upstairs and check on the hives situation. Still NOT good - even Kiddo's eyelids are hived over. I asked her questions to see if this is getting anaphylactic but she didn't report any itching in her mouth or throat and her tongue and lips weren't swelling. Finally, finally, the phone rings back.

It's Doctor Crotchety McGrump, he of the infamous Splinter Removal incident. Excellent. From the sounds of it, he went to bed as soon as Andy Rooney signed off, though maybe it's just that he always sounds that grouchy or maybe he remembers Kiddo, her volume level and her fierce kicking skillz. I didn't know and I didn't care. I gave him the rundown and he confirmed that yes, in fact, this does sound like a "severe allergic reaction" to the amoxicillin, even though Kiddo's been taking it for 2 days now. He tells me the hives could very well continue for another 3 to 4 days (!!) and she might also experience some swelling in her ankles, knees and any other joints (!!!) and I am to discontinue the antibiotic immediately (duh) and call the office in the morning for a new scrip. Oh, and I might have to add a second antihistamine to the Benadryl, too. I mused aloud about her returning to school tomorrow after hearing about all this and got an earful from Doc McGrump about how "Well, if she's itchy and uncomfortable, is she really going to LEARN anything?" Yeah, thanks for your two cents there, Doctor Spock. He does go on to suggest keeping her cool and lightly dressed and to use cool compresses as needed to help minimize the discomfort.

I hung up the phone and changed Kiddo out of her fleece jammies into a pair from last summer that were wedged at the way back of her pajama drawer. They're a little on the small side but not too tight, so we went with them. I got Kiddo re-settled into bed again (and by now the hives were abating a bit - at least her face was looking less red) and did a more thorough check of the medicine cabinet. Nope, those three drops are all we have left. I preceded to wake Hubby up to explain the situation, some of which he'd gathered from hearing the phone ring and my end of the conversation, and though he was dubious about an allergic reaction setting in two days later, he agreed to keep an ear out for Kiddo as I headed over to Walmart for another bottle of Benadryl.

Let me just pause in my tale of woe here for a brief moment to point out that even in my not-really-suited-for-going-out-in-public attire (stretched out, raggedy old yoga pants, a holey, oversized t-shirt that comes down almost to my knees, with a paint-spattered sweatshirt thrown over for decency's sake, blue crew socks I grabbed off the floor, beat up brown leather clogs and a sage green barn jacket to complete the ensemble), I was not the strangest dressed person at our local Walmart at 10:20 this evening. I didn't even rate a second look. Wow.

Anyhow, I grabbed a bottle of Benadryl and the other antihistamine too, since I was there. Of course I'll be back at a pharmacy tomorrow for Kiddo's new antibiotic, but whatever.

And here I am, home again, home again, jiggety jig. I'm totally wired now, and want to wait until it is time to give Kiddo her next breathing treatment with the inhaler (Doc McGrump said to continue that every 4 hours and that it might help with the hives, too) so I turned my computer back on and plunked myself down to whinge away on my blog.

In summary, OY!! Can this 24 hours PLEASE end SOON? I can't believe I'm looking forward to it being MONDAY. Bleargh! I just really, really hope that this reaction isn't indicative of a penicillin allergy, and instead was just because she's on a really strong dose (which was prescribed so she'd only need to take it twice a day, instead of a lesser dose 3 or 4 times a day). Penicillin allergies are a pain in the neck - I was allergic to penicillin as a kid but outgrew it, myself. So, fingers crossed this was an isolated incident and Kiddo is feeling much less itchy in the morning!!

/whinge

Well, that's not utterly ridiculous...

Remember last week's episode of Splintery Badness with the Worst Pediatrician's Office Visit, EVER?

Well, in today's mail came the notice from our insurance company detailing the cost for that visit. Wanna know how much the charge was?

$156.48.

Yes, you read that right. $156.48 for partial splinter removal, a squeeze of polysporin and a Tasmanian Devil band aid. Oh, and of course we can't forget the Tinkerbell sticker the kiddo chose out of the basket at the check-out desk. Less our copay of $10 and that is $146.48 that our insurance is paying the doctor's office. (Um, thanks, Preferred Care!)

You think it was because this counted as some sort of surgical procedure, or because of pain and suffering? I'm not thinking of the kiddo and her Screams of Doom here, either, I'm thinking more along the lines of the doctor's double-kicked groin. Hmmmm.

Hey Karma, I think we're even now!

First, some background. About 20 years ago, my parents went to Germany for a week, leaving me, the Oldest Daughter, in charge of my younger siblings and the various critters who dwelled with us on the farm. It was the first time my parents had gone overseas without getting some sort of More Responsible, Older Person to stay with us. I had my driver's license, I'd already worked as a nanny for other people - yes, other people had paid me to take care of their kids! - so I was deemed mature and responsible enough that they decided to leave me in charge.

Not two hours after we stood waving in the driveway as my parents drove off to the airport, I had my first crisis as Commander in Chief. My then 11 year old sister came downstairs in nothing but a towel, dripping wet, and very calmly said "Um, Heath? I think we need to go to the Emergency Room." I took in the sight and at first decided she was pulling my leg, as she didn't appear to be injured and she was, as I said, very calm. She then showed me the hand she had wrapped in a second towel, more specifically the finger that was spouting blood on that hand. Turns out she'd tripped getting out of the (stall) shower and had sliced her finger open but good - from nailbed almost all the way down its length - on the metal lip at the bottom of the shower door. This would definitely require more than a Band Aid or four.

So, we headed off to the ER. Her hand required multiple stitches and a bit of extraneous jabbing with a syringe for irrigation/cleaning and then numbing to boot. My sister remained very calm throughout this adventure - she actually handled the needles jabbing into her finger (and I swear I could see bone at one point, though that might've been my admittedly overactive imagination) better than I did. I had to look away even as I tried to be brave on her behalf, holding her non-injured hand as she lay on the gurney being treated. One huge bandage later, we were on our way home, with me plotting how best to break this news to my parents when we heard from them. (Just because this was entirely an accident and I wasn't even on the same floor as my sister when it occurred was no reason for my parents not to somehow blame me for this happening on my watch. You know how parents can be utterly irrational at times...) I was dreading their call the next day, but it went quite well. They were concerned, of course, about my sister but reassured that everything was taken care of and all would be well. I was thanking my lucky stars from start to finish - from the no tears (on my sister's part, anyhow) at the ER to the no overseas histrionics from my parents. Whew. I was pretty sure I'd dodged a bullet, and I was thrilled.

I told you about all that so that now I can tell you this... Yesterday, that bullet finally boomeranged its way around and hurtled through time to strike me firmly in the butt. This was not how I'd planned my day, with karmic retribution from two decades ago, but there you have it.

You see, I had a lovely day planned for the kiddo and myself yesterday. First, she had her summer program - aka "farm school" - followed by an OT session (and by the by, I adore her occupational therapist. Adore. She also was Kiddo's therapist last summer and she is utterly fantabulous) after which I collected her with "car picnic" at the ready and bottles of water chilling in the cooler. The plan was to head downtown and meet up with the kiddo's best friends for a playdate at a playground we hadn't been to before. (Didja hear that distant warning bell? Yeah, not me...) We chose this playground for its proximity to our friends' previous engagement that day as well as for its sorta-kinda-midway point location between their home and ours. Considering I spent over $70 for gas yesterday - first time I've topped $70 and my tank was almost empty at the time... - I was fine with checking out a new place to play that didn't mean one or the other of us hauling our minivans across the county.

So, we arrived at the playground at the appointed hour. It wasn't as large as I remembered from driving by it in the past, and it was wooden. (Yep, that was a much louder warning bell. Big Ben, even. I did hear that one, but I opted to ignore it.) Well, the base of it was wood, but the slides and ladders and whatnot were the standard plastic or plastic-coated metal, so I figured it should be okay.

I am not kidding you when I say it wasn't even a full minute after Kiddo climbed up onto the first tier of the playground that she was back at my side, holding out her right hand. She had, naturally, wiped out while jumping from one level to another. This is par for the course, and true to form, she was barely crying. It's partially due to her SPD, but also she's a tough cookie, not prone to easy tears when injured. She did, however, want a bandage for her hand (she's a Band Aid junkie), which looked to be dirty and also scraped at a first glance. We trotted over to the car, where I keep a first aid kit, and I proceeded to try to clean off and Bactine the wound before slapping the bandage over it. Upon the slightly closer inspection that Kiddo allowed, I saw what appeared to be splinters in her palm. Crap. Well, I wasn't about to drive straight home just for what would invariably be an agonizing splinter removal process (and oh, I didn't know the half of it yet), so I Bactined the heck out of her palm and then covered the whole area up with a bandage and we rejoined our friends.

Now, at this point, Kiddo had more sense than I did. She refused to go back onto the "old, bad playground" and as it was midday and ridiculously hot and un-shady, we grown-ups concurred. We bagged the playground plan, went to a nearby Wendy's for itty-bitty Frosties instead and then headed for our respective homes. When we arrived at home, I decided the time was right to deal with the palm situation. I told Kiddo that once we took care of her boo-boo, we'd throw on our swimsuits and head up to the pool at the camp. Ha.

Once in the nice, strong light of the bathroom, as the kiddo moaned and groaned her way through a more thorough washing of her rather grimy hands, I realized that what I'd initially thought were two splinters and a lot of dirt were many splinters. Many large, deeply embedded splinters. Like more than half a dozen. And the scrape that I had Bactined so optimistically back at the playground? It was not just a cut, but a ravine full of splinters. Oh crap. It also looked red and swollen and Kiddo was complaining that "this boo-boo really HURTS, Mommy." Not good at all. I could see the ends of two of the splinters above the surface, so I quickly grabbed the tweezers.

And this is the point at which Kiddo freaked the heck out. Now, I am a drama queen. It's true. I can pitch a hissy fit with the best of them. I can out-drama Meryl Streep in her Sophie's Choiciest moment when I feel the need. So I suppose it is only fitting that my kid would be capable of making my Streeping look positively Jessica-Simpson-in-The-Dukes-of-Hazzardian. (I've only seen brief snippets of TDoH movie on HBO in passing, but whew, she sure seemed to stink.) It certainly didn't help that Kiddo had a Splintery Badness experience just three short weeks ago, when it took Hubby, my mom and me teamed up over an hour and a half to remove three splinters from her foot. In the next twenty minutes, I managed to extract exactly one of the protruding splinters. This, as Kiddo screamed and squalled and worked herself up to the point of near-barfing. After the first splinter came out and Kiddo clutched her palm into a fist so tight that she could've turned coal into diamonds, I realized there was NO way I was going to get the rest of them out. Not on my own, anyhow, and Hubby had a softball double-header on his agenda that would mean he would not be home until quite late. As Kiddo alternately clutched at my legs and ran screaming from the room, all at top decibel levels (thank goodness the windows were closed due to the AC being on), I did the only thing I could think of: I called the pediatrician's office. An hour later, we were on our way. Kiddo had brought herself marginally under control by then, though the tear streaked face ("Don't wipe off my teeeeeeears, Mommy! I'm not done with them yeeeeeeet!!") under ominously furrowed brow, choppy breathing and still tightly clutched fist warned that this calm was just an illusion.

Our pediatrician wasn't available, but I'd told the receptionist (over the kiddo's wails) that we'd see anyone. Anyone who could get these splinters out would be fine, thanks. I didn't care if it was one of the billing ladies, frankly, I just wanted someone professional, someone affiliated with a medical office, to take care of this bad, bad situation. So, we saw the head doc of the group. He's been a doctor longer than I've been alive, and I dare say that he's seen his share of child hysterics. He examined her palm as she sat up on the table, then left and came back with his Implements of Torture and Destruction. He angled a bright light over her hand, strapped on these gigantic, magnifying glasses and got ready to get busy on the splinter removal.

I had been hoping that they'd have some sort of numbing agent they could use, but alas, it wasn't the case. I didn't even have a chance to ask him about this possibility, because the exact second he picked up the first pair of tweezers (and they were twice the size of mine with a sharply angled end, so they were far more eeeevil looking than Mommy's tweezers at home) she went nuts. The screaming was louder than a jet engine at close range. Mainly howling, it also had the occasional "NOOOO!" or "YOU'RE SO MEAN!" or "LEAVE ME ALONE! BAD DOCTOR! I WANT TO KEEEEEEEP MY SPLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINTERS!!" thrown in for added effect.

You know how when you're at the doctor's office and you hear some kid crying in one of the exam rooms, while you may sympathize with that kid's parent, you are also relieved and glad that it isn't YOUR kid making that noise? Yeah, that was my kid yesterday. It wasn't just the volume of her screams, either. It was the length that they went on, unceasingly, whether the doctor was actually touching her hand or not. He quickly decided that she shouldn't remain on the table, but rather sit in my lap, so with Mommy the Human Straitjacket attempting to hold her three uninjured limbs still and keep her from blowing ferocious raspberries on the doctor, he held her other hand in a death grip as he did his thing.

It was somewhere during this period of pure hell that I wondered why they don't have at least one soundproof room at the pediatrician's office, or at the very least some acoustical tiles to deaden sound. Within the next hour, the doc removed almost all of the evil, long, deeply embedded splinters. He gave up shortly after the second time she caught him in The Place Men Never, Ever Want to Be Kicked, Ever with a flailing foot. (She wasn't aiming, just thrashing about. Not that his groin area appreciated the difference.) He told me that the remaining splinters were superficial enough that they should work themselves out without incident, and that it wasn't worth, and I quote, "torturing us all any further" to try to remove them too. After a hefty application of polysporin and a character Band Aid slapped over her palm, he assured me that today's wooden playgrounds aren't made "of the bad stuff" anymore, so he was fairly sure that her hand wouldn't get infected, but to keep it clean and covered in polysporin and bandages 'til it healed. Then he fled the room, likely to hide under his desk and dictate a retirement letter, possibly while availing himself of an ice pack or two.

As soon as the door closed, the hysteria ceased. Kiddo is that good - as quickly as she can turn it on and ramp it up to DefCon 1, she can shut it back off. As we headed down the hall to the exit, all the other people left in the office fell silent. The nurses were standing about in groups, clearly talking about the Screams Like They'd Never Heard Before. A few of them, barely able to contain their amusement, asked Kiddo how she was. "I had splinters in my hand from the bad, old playground, but Doctor X took them out and I was SO VERY BRAVE" she replied, without batting an eyelash. That did it - the nurses were doubled over in paroxysms of laughter as we rounded the corner for the check-out desk. I have never paid a copay more quickly - I practically flung my Visa at the clerk, and I couldn't bear to make eye contact with any of the other people in the waiting area. Kiddo was cheerfully picking out her sticker of choice from the basket and telling the billing ladies about Ectobert, her lion (who had accompanied us for this excursion), without a single smidgen of embarrassment about her previous behavior. That's the thing about my little drama queen - she gets over it pretty quickly without holding a grudge. Well, except against the playground, anyhow - as soon as we got home, she insisted on calling her friends with whom we'd made the unfortunate playdate and informing them that we must NEVER go back to that playground again.

(Oh, and the character bandage the doctor applied to her hand? It was a Looney Tunes bandage covered with the Tasmanian Devil. Now, you might think Kiddo is deprived, but we've never let her watch Looney Tunes. Even though I myself would watch Bugs and crew every Saturday morning as a child - mostly because that was the channel that also would play Schoolhouse Rock rather than because we were diehard Bugs or Daffy or Wily E. fans - as an adult, I don't feel it is appropriate viewing for the kiddo yet. Too violent and un-socially redeeming. Call me puritanical if you must........ Anyhow, she looked at the bandage and inquired "Who is that mean guy?" So, I explained he is Taz, the Tasmanian Devil and that he is silly, not mean. She said "Why is he shouting with his mouth open and all his teeth out?" Because, you know, he was being all Taz-y on the bandage. I explained that he doesn't talk as much as yell "AAAAAAAH!" and spin around in circles, really fast. (You try doing a decent Taz impression after holding onto the Most Squalling Kiddo Ever through a procedure for which she was behaving as if instead of wielding tweezers on her palm, the doctor were winding her intestines onto a rack ala the finale of Braveheart...) Well, that wasn't good enough for the kiddo, and as soon as we got into the car, she requested that the bandage be replaced, as obviously Taz "isn't kind" - she was shocked that the doctor would have bandages featuring such a mean guy, but too polite to reject it on the spot. And seriously, how many kids her age really are that well acquainted with the Looney Tunes crew? Are they even on TV any more? Would it kill the pediatrician's office to stock more commonly recognized character bandages, like Curious George, Dora, Diego, Backyardigans....?)

So, we got home, the reverberations of her yells still pounding in my brain. I'm really, really hoping that the remaining splinters (there's actually one larger one and a few, scattered much smaller ones, I just noticed upon bandage-replacing inspection) do work their way out and not get infected. Because if we have to go back to the doctor for further splinter removal, I'm going to be requesting drugs. I don't care which one of us they knock out, but there's no way I'm going through that again without either Kiddo or me being unconscious.

I am swearing, right here, right now, a solemn vow never, ever to let the kiddo near a wooden playset again. Ever. In the meantime, karma caught up with me with interest, as clearly all the caterwauling from yesterday was psychic payback for getting off the hook so easily all those years ago when my sister sliced open her finger. So, at least I'm back to even now, right?

Ramble-rama

Warning: I feel a long-n-rambling post coming on here...

This has been quite a week here in the Smith house. It kicked off on Sunday with the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa from the motherland (aka New Jersey). The kiddo was especially excited about this because Grandpa was going to go fishing with her in the pond behind our property. She sat on the back deck for most of the afternoon, practicing casting with her new Dora fishing pole (which was a birthday present and had yet to be used) interspersed with impatient, repeated questioning as to G&G's whereabouts ("Are they still in Pennsylvania? They're in New York now? We're in New York so they should be at our HOUSE now, Mommy!") and then persistent requests to call them (oh the joy of the ubiquitous cell phone) to see how far along they were. Now, as the kiddo well knows by now, it is a six hour drive from our house to theirs, if you're driving reasonably close to the speed limit. My dad? He makes Mario Andretti look like a turtle. (Um, sorry, I'm wholly unfamiliar with NASCAR and therefore do not know any more current drivers. I could call my 4 year old nephew and/or his father, who are NASCAR fans, or I could google NASCAR and come up with someone better to illustrate my example, but I'm feeling lazy and therefore will just blather on about how I don't know any race car driver other than Mario. He's a classic at least, right?) Dad can usually make the trip up here in less than five hours, but even that wasn't fast enough for the kiddo. She had him out in the back yard looking for worms for bait within approximately three seconds of their car pulling into our driveway. I'm pleased to report that the fishing expedition was a rousing success - the kiddo caught her first fish ever on her very first cast! It was a sunfish (I'm pretty sure sunnies are the only fish in there, this pond isn't exactly a sport-fisher's paradise) and it was almost bigger than my father's palm. The kiddo was so thrilled it didn't even matter that the sunny was no larger than her (admittedly big, fat) goldfish, Swimmy. Grandpa duly unhooked him, we admired him and then Grandpa tossed him back into the murk. I'm pretty sure that the kiddo then proceeded to catch that same sunfish at least twice more over the next hour, along with one sunfish that Grandpa said was ready to lay her eggs (no idea how he deduced that as I was busy trying to wipe goose poop off the bottom of my flip-flop) and one that both Grandpa and the kiddo swore was MUCH larger than the first (second, and third) sunfish. Like two inches bigger. Woo! Now the kiddo has majorly caught the fishing bug, so I envision many a future weekend afternoon spent digging up various corners of the back yard in search of worms and then waving to Daddy and the kiddo as they stand down by the pond. (I haven't obtained a fishing license yet this year, so technically I cannot help the kiddo fish, but Daddy has his already, so he's good to go.)

So, that was Sunday. Monday morning, Grandpa left and the kiddo had her second-to-last day of preschool. I had to help set up and then clean up the teacher-staff appreciation lunch that we were throwing that day, so Grandma, who was along for the ride, got drafted to help with that. She mostly helped by keeping the kiddo occupied and out of my hair so I could attend to the setting up and the cleaning up as needed, which was very awesome. She also rummaged around in the school's kitchen and came up with various bowls and utensils that hadn't occurred to me that we'd need for the lunch. From what I hear, the lunch was a success and the teachers and staff enjoyed it, which is very, very good to hear. They all worked so hard this year and did such a phenomenal job that I wanted to be sure this luncheon was a nice treat for everyone involved in the classrooms. I also had a licensed massage therapist come and do chair massages for anyone who wanted one, but more on her later...

Monday afternoon was the kiddo's first gymnastics class. Well, not actually her very first - we tried gymnastics classes once before when the kiddo had just turned three. That time was a raging, flaming disaster. She made it - and by "made it" I mean "was physically present in the gym" and not much more in terms of actual gymnastics study - through two classes that time around and I pulled her from the class. That was mere weeks before she was evaluated and we learned about SPD. In retrospect, don't know what the hey I was thinking signing her up for gymnastics back then. Actually, I do know what I was thinking. We'd done Gymboree for a long time and the kiddo loved all the climbing on things and physical, gym-type activity, so gymnastics seemed a logical progression. Unfortunately, it was too much for our sensory seeker to handle, as she got way overstimulated and couldn't control herself - she literally couldn't sit still, much less listen to or follow any instructions.

But we are two years older and wiser now, and the kiddo has almost two years of OT and PT under her belt now as well, so when she asked - begged, really - to try gymnastics (after spending countless minutes transfixed in the doorway of the gym on our way to or from the pool for swimming lessons, watching the gymnastics practice in progress with a passionate longing in her eyes), I agreed. With some modicum of caution - I didn't buy her the leotard I was fondling at Target (yet) and instead sent her in shorts and a tank top to the first class. Well, I'm so happy to say that she was a champ! She listened to the instructors, sat mostly still (at the least, she didn't wiggle around any more than any of the other gajillion kids in her class) and consistently managed to wait her turn without cutting in front of any other kid. For a whole hour! Woo! She also made her best attempt to do each thing they were being taught - for an hour. Woo woo woo! And, if I may brag for a moment (though it's not just my bias; other moms sitting along the wall said so as well) the kiddo was the Best Somersaulter of the whole class. She could be the next Nadia Comaneci! (Okay, I just did that "classic" example on purpose, to go with Mario. I can totally be more current when it comes to gymnastics. Mary Lou Retton! No? Shoot. Um, Dominique Dawes! She was on the Olympic team in Atlanta... ooh Carly Patterson, I think she was from '04... There ya go, from this century! I can be current!)

Tuesday was the kiddo's last official day of preschool, which was followed by an afternoon at our local zoo. We hadn't been to the zoo since April, and there were a few new things open since our last visit. The most exciting of these was a frog exhibit (dude, I am totally serious: you must check out the Vietnamese Mossy Frog - way, way cool) and the new baboon exhibit. While those baboons can get quite x-rated (and a few did, though thankfully the kiddo's attention was elsewhere so no need for an uncomfortable, public Q&A session), there also were several juvenile baboons who were clowning around and being quite heeelarious. At one point, two of the younger baboons came right up to the kiddo and attempted to swipe her lion, Ectobert, right through the glass. (We generally are accompanied wherever we go by at least one member of the kiddo's stuffed animal menagerie - that's just how we roll. Ectobert also visited Disney World with us last November, though Terry the Triceratops was the one who got to visit Dinosaur World in Tampa and Joey the Giraffe went to the Lowry Park Zoo on that same trip.)



Wednesday was the kiddo's preschool graduation. It was a Very Big Deal, held in the decked-out-for-the-event auditorium and complete with a slide show (which elicited many an awwww), caps, gowns and a processional by the class to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance. The parents were worse than any swarm of paparazzi, but isn't what the event truly was about? It was positively lethally adorable from beginning to end, including the songs (complete with hand signs), the receiving of diplomas (though the kiddo was far more interested in the ice-cream cone shaped bottle of bubbles that was also in the bag) to the semi-unison bow at the end. This was followed by a reception featuring many delicious treats and therefore much sugar consumption (specifically in the form of heavily-frosted-in-neon-blue cupcakes - the kiddo has issues with highly processed foods and certain food dyes, so this was not good), which was followed by a rather hellacious afternoon of the kiddo being way out of whack and wired, falling asleep in the car which is highly unusual, and culminating in the week's darkest point when the kiddo got not one, not two, but three nasty, large splinters in her one foot from walking on the deck barefoot. (Hubby blames me squarely for the splinters, as we had learned back when the kiddo was a newly-walking babe not to let her be on the deck barefoot as splinters will ensue, but yesterday I didn't make her re-shoe after playing in the grass with some water balloons...) The three nasty splinters led to more than an hour and a half of serious freaking out during their attempted removal. It took a combination of Grandma, Mommy and then Daddy (who arrived home from work to the screams and squalls of the freak-out at about its one hour mark) to get the splinters out. I'm a bit surprised that emergency vehicles didn't come screeching up to the house, as we had all the windows open and she was howling loudly enough to make it sound like we were doing far more sinister things than attemped splinter removal. Thank goodness they eventually came out and the judicious application of many Curious George, Disney Princess and rainbow band-aids aided in calming and a return to peace and relative quiet.

Today, my mom treated me (and herself) to a massage at my favorite massage place on Earth, which coincidentally happens to be owned by a friend and former colleague of mine. Oh heck, it's my blog, I'm gonna plug it: Retreat House Massage and Wellness Center - if you're in town, check them out. Tell Joan that Heather sent you! After my hour on Joan's table was up, I was my usual post-massage limp noodle self. Deeeelightful, especially after the residual tension from Operation Splinter Extraction 2008. I am a total massage junkie, and if we ever became indecently wealthy, I would most definitely have massages as part of my regular weekly schedule. Weekly? Perhaps daily, even! Since we are nowhere near indecently wealthy now, I'm trying to train the kiddo to become a champion back scratcher, but so far, results are fair to middling at best...

Another potentially dark moment for the week - on our way home this afternoon (after depositing Grandma on a train back home), the low tire pressure light came on in the Sienna. I pulled over as soon as I could and inspected the tires for signs of an obvious flat. There weren't any, though I thought three of the four tires felt a bit squishy. It seemed safe enough that I continued home, where I left the van in the driveway for Hubby to inspect when he got home from work. He came to the same conclusion - it could be any one up to all three of four of the tires. His solution is to wait and see whether one starts looking noticeably flatter, at which point he'll replace it with the spare (which is a full-sized tire) and we can take the flat in for repair/replacement. Thank goodness for lifetime tire warranties! I'm not quite as psyched about this plan as Hubby seems to be, but the kiddo and I have no pressing plans for tomorrow so if we wind up stuck home with a flat (Mommy doesn't change minivan tires. Daddy has and will again soon, I suspect - that low tire pressure light has yet to be mistaken.) it isn't a big deal. I will not have the effects of my massage ruined by flat tire stress!! There is a lot of road construction going on around town, and we were driving through/by a lot of it, so who knows what I inadvertently picked up in my tire(s) while out and about today... Stay tuned!

Lastly, before I head downstairs to help rid the fridge of some of the array of leftovers we acquired over the past several days, I wanted to show off these:



Woo! Hummingbird! Captured on film! Er, not film, actually - um, captured in pixels? Okay, how about captured on camera! Yay! This particular hummingbird has been hanging around the feeder for the past week, and in between drinks, he (she?) hangs out on this one particular branch in the same tree. Could we have a hummingbird nest in our future? Fingers crossed!