Mr. Independent

Justin is getting way too independent for his own good.  Or maybe too independent for our good, depending on how you look at it.  On Sunday we were all downstairs watching "The Black Stallion".  After a while, Justin went upstairs and we could hear him opening drawers and walking around in the kitchen.  A few minutes later, he came walking down the stairs with the proudest look on his face--and a cup of orange juice in his hands.  He had poured it himself! Spencer ran upstairs and then came back to report, "He didn't spill one drop and the juice is back in the fridge!"  

Today I was watching my friend's little girl and she and Justin wanted to get the guinea pigs out.  Poor Rusty and Oreo tolerated all the man-handling like champs for a while, then Justin pushed their basket into Spencer's room to put them back in their cage (or so I thought).  As I was checking my email I heard some bumping around in the bathroom.  Nothing too unusual.  But when the water in the sink started to run, the red flags started to pop up.  Stool + Running Water + Justin = Big Trouble.  I ran in there to find Justin lifting Oreo up to the sink for a bath.  Rusty had already had his, it appeared, or at least his back half had.  I quickly intervened before Oreo was subjected to a cold-water shocker, much to Justin's dismay.  After all, Grace and Spencer did this all the time with my stamp of approval, why should it be any different with him?  So hard to explain the inequities of life to a two-year old!  I dried off the poor piggies and tried to distract Justin with some other worthy occupation while I put them safely away.  That boy is something else!

Crisis Averted

Darrel is deathly allergic to peanuts.  Through all our dating years and married life, we have managed to avoid any peanut incidents--until last night.  I bought a new ice cream to try and we all had some after Family Night.  "Chocolate Seduction" was the flavor and I guess that should have been a clue that this ice cream was hiding something.  It had no nuts in it, just chocolate, chocolate swirls, and fudge sauce, what could be better, right?  As soon as Darrel finished his bowl, the telltale first symptoms of peanut exposure flared up...itchy throat, swelling lips.  He quickly pulled out the carton to check the ingredients and right there in bold print it read: "contains peanuts, milk"  Aw, crud!  In a closer inspection of the listed ingredients, the peanuts turned out to be peanut oil in the fudge sauce.  Now, why they would use peanut oil for this, I can't imagine.  It seems like they wouldn't be sacrificing much flavor with another kind of oil and would at the same time avoid the possible death of one of their customers, but I guess Blue Bunny doesn't see it that way. Darrel quickly took some Benadryl and we waited to see what would happen.  

Poor Spencer and Grace looked quite serious and worried when they realized the gravity of the situation.  After all, their whole life they've been told that we don't have peanut products around Dad because he could die from it.  So we had to assure them that we could get medical help if needed and everything would be O.K.  More waiting.  So far so good.  Darrel's symptoms weren't getting any worse.  We got the kids in bed and I kept getting status updates from Darrel.  By the time we were getting in bed, Darrel's symptoms started to fade and we breathed a sigh of relief.  No E.R. tonight.  Phew!

Jumping In

And with just a few clicks we've joined the blogging world!  That was pretty simple, even for a non-techie like me.  Lately I find myself thinking in "blog", thanks to my friend, Brooke, whose blog I read daily.  I thought it was time to get a real blog and get those thoughts out of my head and onto paper, in a manner of speaking.  And so we begin...