Our Peanut Scare!

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Today everything was moving along fine. The kids had spent the night at Mama and Papa’s house (my parents) which gave mommy and me a nice evening out with kidless friends to have an “adult dinner”. It was very enjoyable!  My wife and I were able to sleep in a little longer than normal as well! How nice that was!

Happy Day turns into Stressful Morning

My wife, Cathy, and our two year old daughter, K-bop, were out and about driving around running errands and stopped to pick up additional sales tags for an upcoming children’s sale at a local assisted living community. She had taken 2 packs of dip-able crackers and peanut butter for the kids to snack on. She had already dropped off our son at his daycare, K-bop was staying home because of some “loose poopies”.  Anyway, K-bop ate the crackers and most of the PB. By the time they got back out to the SUV, a reddish rash was on K’s lips. My wife just thought it was a minor rash from the PB being on her skin and wiped it off.

Panic Sets In

Even before the car seat belt was strapped on K-bop, the rash had worsened and white bumps were showing up around her lips and the rash spread down her next.  This is when Cathy started to panic and called the pediatrician who told her to go get some Benadryl and give it to our daughter and to take her to the ER if she started to have difficulty breathing or wheezing. Yikes! Now my wife calls my cell and I don’t understand her at first, then she clearly says, “K-bop is having an allergic reaction to Peanut Butter!”

We had given her a “taste” of PB last week and all seemed OK. But today was the day her body rejected the peanut butter and “told us” in the most frightening way, by an allergic reaction! I remember telling my wife on the phone to “call 9-1-1″ as I don’ take chances with my kid’s lives, which leads back to my post on “Why Can’t I Relax?”. Also, I am about 25 minutes away from there location so I’m starting to get nervous and freak out as well.  My voice on the phone went from calm, to confused, to loud.  My coworkers looked at me with a scared look on their faces (I would have done the same) and said, “GO!” I was out the door and back on the cell to get an update from my wife who was trying to drive to a friends house to get the Benadryl.  I remember that I said rather loudly, “CALL F’ing 9-1-1!!!”

To my Wife: Sorry for being so loud and upset on the phone Sweetie, but I get so scared when I’m not close to you and the kids and something bad is happening. hope you understand.

She did finally call 9-1-1 and they dispatched an ambulance to our friend’s house. My wife had arrived a few minutes before the paramedics did and our friend had called her neighbor who is a pediatric nurse. I had been calling every 5 minutes for status updates while trying to figure out the quickest way to their house.

By the time I arrived at the house, the ambulance had left, and K-bop was laughing and being her crazy self! that was very reassuring to see after the 25 minute stressful drive!

We are going to be planning to take a Child CPR class to be safe, my wife already moved all “contains nut products” to the top shelf in the pantry, and we have a prescription for an Epi-pen for dire emergencies and let’s HOPE THAT NEVER FREAKIN’ HAPPENS!

If anyone that reads this has a child with a nut allergy I would appreciate a comment on how you have adjusted your food purchases and feeding of yourself and other children.  Our 4 year old son LOVEs PB & J and is one of the 3 food he actually eats. Not sure how well handle that but we’ll figure it out.

Oh, maybe you are thinking “why did she have peanut butter?”  Well no one in our family, extended as well have a nut allergy. Our pediatrician says, “you can try peanut butter if no family history”.  Ok, we did and oops!  Won’t do that again.

So I’m heading home now and can’t wait to hug everyone again!

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A Good Husband hosts this weeks Manival

The Manival #13 returns this week with some great articles from real Dads and Real Men in the blogging community.  Stop over to A Good Husband to read this week’s posts by some great men!

Why Can’t I Relax?

Guess it’s about time I faced up to the fact that I’m a HIGH STRESS DAD and need an avenue to deal with the tension, stress, exhaustion and other things going on right now. That is why I started this blog, to write away any stresses I may have. When I started out that was my sole intension, then I quickly wanted to write about fun events and other things, probably to avoid my real posts of releasing tension and stress. Well I’m going to have to start being more open on my blog and writing about the events in my life — the way I intended this blog to be in the first place. I’m not going to always write to release stress, but there will be times where I just need to type to calm down.

A Weekend Party (of stress)

Over the weekend my wife, kids and I were all at a party and I couldn’t fully relax and enjoy the day because I was worried that one of my kids were going to fall off the slide; get trampled on while on the moonbounce; or something – anything! I’m always looking for WHAT can happen to my kids and HOW they might hurt themselves rather than just taking a deep breath and heaving a huge sigh and just tell myself, “Jeff, everything will be all right. Kids are very durable, resilient and can take bumps and bruises much better then an adult!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Daddy’s Toolbox Carnival #3

Hope Everyone Had a Good 4th of July

We hosted a Fourth of July party yesterday despite the crummy, rainy weather in Chester County, PA.  We had over both families and a few other friends. All in all it was a good time.  I was the Master Griller and spent the majority of the day standing in front of a 6 burner gas grill cooking up wings, burgers, dogs and corn.  The wings on the grill were a huge favorite! I used frozen wings for the first time and since they were frozen I couldn’t add sauce to them before cooking so i just poured on the sauce after grilling.  I used Stubb’s Moppin’ Sauce which was awesome! The sauce had a slight heat to it which was good for the company we had over, they are non-spicy/hot lovers.  I also made some apps, grilled stuffed jalapenos this year. Thankfully no one dove into them so I got to eat about 6 of them. Give them a try on my recipe blog, Two Tongues Up !

Our kids had a great time playing with their cousins and a few other friends’ children. We broke up the playdough in the kid’s playroom and really didn’t care what they did or if the playdough got smashed into the carpet. (We are getting new carpet in 4 more days).

After our family and friends left, one couple stayed for a few smaller fountain type fireworks. We bought 2 3-packs of fountains from the local grocery store. These were enough for the kids. We even set them off in a light drizzle around 8pm, it was still dusk, but the kids didn’t care. They wanted their fireworks.  The fountains lasted about a minute each and ended with some loud snapping sparks. That was enough to scary our little girl and make her cry.  It’s a good thing we didn’t go see the real ones at the township park!

Well I hope everyone enjoyed Independence Day as much as my family and I did!

Why My Kids Want Mommy So Much?

Well this isn’t probably too much of a shocker to most married couples with young children. What is with a "mommy " that the kids love that they need to cling to her and almost smother her, leaving me the poor old lonely Dad?  For instance, I used to be the bedtime "go to" parent for both my son (about a year ago) and my daughter up until about 3 weeks ago.  She’s going on two this August and our son will be four in October. Why had my daughter decided she wants MOMMY for bedtime. This really puts me in a bind because I would love to read books to my kids, especially if there are no "power struggles" or meltdowns at bedtime.But like I mentioned, lately, both kids want mommy.  It’s ME that makes the funny voices and sing silly songs about the day to them, so why do they chose her over me?

Maybe because I’m the disciplinarian in the house. Might be because I try to be more strict . Probably because my wife enjoys having fun where I tend to worry about the next meltdown or what "might" transpire if the kids aren’t in bed by 8pm.  So I guess it’s natural for them to gravitate to the one parent that has open arms all the time. But then that creates additional stress in the house, where my wife doesn’t get any "downtime" to herself like I do if she’s doing both bedtime routines.

Now don’t get me wrong. I would LOVE to read books and do the bedtime thing, I have this ritual with my daughter where we read a few books then as I put her into the crib we wave goodnight to the butterfly decals on her wall, then give BIG KISSES, then Eskimo Kisses, then BIG HUGS. Then up until about a month ago, she would immediately fall asleep.  Now since she is almost 2 yo she is beginning to realize we are leaving her alone in her room. Tonight was a battle with her. She really wanted Mommy. It’s the 2 year old thing, the sense of losing a parent.  Read the rest of this entry »