Memorial Day 2009

What an action-packed weekend we had!

It all started Friday morning, when Scout awoke with big puffy red eyes. I knew it was an allergic reaction to something, and kept thinking (especially as it turned into a nasty rash on her cheek and forehead as well), "Man am I glad she didn't have this on Tuesday when she had her photo shoot!" She had been chosen to model for a new Johnson and Johnson product launch. The above photo is one that was taken that day. I don't have any of her poison ivy on this computer (and am too lazy to walk into the living room to get some) so just imagine that beautiful girl, covered in a nasty red rash.

Friday evening Amy and Brian showed up with their little cuties, Vera and Ella. Ella and Scout hit it off immediately, and had not one but TWO cousin sleep overs (Scout is only allowed to have sleep overs with her cousins, so she was very excited about it... so excited she didn't mind sleeping on a shared blow up mattress the size of a postage stamp.) Vera was adorable and we tried not to notice what an amazing communicator she is... despite being 5 months younger than Crosby. Get a delayed kid and an advanced kid together, and there is a vast difference. They very much enjoyed watching Dora together though, so once again we find that Dora is the glue that holds us all together.

We had fun playing in the backyard all afternoon and ate dinner, and then around bedtime Calder complained that his ear was hurting (he had mentioned it that morning, too) so I decided to take a look. And nearly freaked out. Because inside his ear was one of the freakiest things I HAVE EVER SEEN. It looked like a wheat kernel (maybe bigger) and was surrounded by tiny black specks. My first thought was that a bug had taken up residence in his ear and laid one thousand tiny eggs. I casually said to Trav, "Hey... will you come and take a look at this?" and he looked as shaken as I felt. It was clear something was wrong, but we were trying to keep things mellow for C. Brian looked in and declared it was a tick, which I had suspected. He began describing the ticks that would attach to his dogs and how they'd get so big their shells would crack apart, and Travis began giving Brian non-verbal cues to stop talking while I sauntered over to the phone to call our resident health expert, Tania.

Thank goodness she was home (and thank goodness all the people in this story so far have blogs, so you can go and check them out with my awesome links). She told us to come right over and she and Emily graciously paused their movie to remove said tick. She was amazed at how big it was... I think it's been in there quite a while. What's so crazy is that three years ago almost exactly, after we first moved here, Calder had a tick behind his ear and Tania took that one out too. We were both amazed at how much better he handled this tick than the last one. He's come a long, long way in three years. I can't believe it happened to him AGAIN. Scout would have been delighted at the chance to show up at Emily's house on a Friday night, and would have been intrigued by the tick. She probably would have brought a vial for it, and kept it in her room and named it Phil. But she did get the poison ivy, so I guess her life isn't totally charmed.

Saturday morning Brian and I went for a run (impressive because he'd gotten up with Vera when she awoke at 4.30 AM!) and then we headed to the Bronx zoo. We had a blast riding the monorail and seeing the giraffes, and any other animal we passed on the way to and from the monorail. Our favorites from the train ride were the elephants and the baby rhino, which Calder declared was about the same size as Oz. Not too far off, for sure.

We BBQ'd that night and went to the duck pond and had fun hanging out. The next day we did church and more BBQing (we are loving our grill. Can't believe how easy and tasty it is!) with the Palmers, and did lots of playing on the swing in the backyard. The swing/backyard post is coming... it definitely deserves a post all it's own.

Monday I finally took Scout to the dr. Her rash was worse than ever and she was losing it from all the itching, and I'm glad I did because he told me that when poison ivy gets on your face, the only way to get rid of it is using steroids. He also told me that she was exposed to it THREE DAYS before it showed up, so yeah... she got in it at the photo shoot in Long Island! Good thing, because I had been stressing about Crosby getting in it and was afraid it was in our yard somewhere.

We headed into Central Park to hang out with the Barkers one more day before they left. It was a hot, crowded day at the park and the train ride was long both ways, but all in all we had a great weekend. We loved having our cousins come to visit! And thankfully everyone is healing well from their adventures in nature. Can't believe we got a tick and poison ivy and we didn't even go camping! Now we just have to wait three weeks to see if Calder gets lyme disease. Sigh...