Catching Up

The babe was home from school for 11 days straight.  And you know what?  We made it!

Spring break is a wonderful concept, but it has the ability to really mess with your schedule.  Luckily my amazing Mom flew down from Ottawa and helped take care of the kids, the house, and me.

In the week she was here, we managed to take the kids to the National Museum of Natural History (LOVE IT!), the National Building Museum (not a whole lot of love for this one), Costco, the shoe store, and the park (numerous times).  In addition, I managed to take myself to the dentist (yuck and ouch), for a (Groupon inspired) massage (yum), for a baseline mammogram (it wasn't that bad and I'm gratefully in the clear), and on a variety of solo shopping quests (yes, shopping for just moi).  Oh, and I managed to go on a dinner date with my Mom, and ANOTHER dinner date with my husband.  Not too shabby! 

I also spent six hours with the babe at the allergist's office doing her second "food challenge," this time with sesame.  She slowly ate measured pieces of bread with fake cream cheese and sesame seeds over a period of a few hours.  And I am so pleased to announce that she passed her sesame challenge and is officially able to enjoy sesame in whatever she pleases (bring on the hummus!).  This is super good news because she has now outgrown 2 of her allergies (the first was egg, which we cleared last month).  According to her doctor, things look good for outgrowing the majority of the remaining ones (although the babe will likely have to live with her peanut allergy for the rest of her life).  I have spent about 17 hours in the same small room at the allergist's office since last month, and every minute has been worth it.  I really can't explain how awesome it is to see your kids move beyond a food allergy. 

As you can see, it was quite a week here.  After all the excitement, it was odd to go back to our old routine on Monday.  My Mom had left, the babe headed back to school, and all of a sudden the little guy and I were left staring at each other.  Unfortunately his classes don't start up again until next week, so we've been drifting through the days and catching up with fun things like groceries and laundry.  I did however take him to the community center gym to run around for an hour this morning...so I'm not as evil as it sounds. 

Anyway, I had no real deep message about how I've grown as a parent in the last few weeks, but I did want to let you know I'm still standing...even after 11 days straight with my kiddies.