Marino's 2nd Easter

My first ever post to this blog was on Easter of last year. It's amazing to see how much Marino has changed since then. He was not yet crawling, standing, talking, etc, and hadn't cut his first tooth yet. Look at him now (ok, he still has a freakishly small number of teeth, but everything else has changed drastically).

My mom and stepfather came down on Thursday night so they could watch Marino for us on Friday (daycare was closed but we both had to work). Marino definately bonded a lot with them. When I got home from work, he was calling my mom "Granna" (this adapted from "Manna" which is what he called her last month) and Ray "Grampa." He had a great time hanging out with them, and trying to convince Granna to let him take a bath in the lake:)

Saturday, my mom and stepfather, Aunt Chelle, Evan and I all took Marino to Bunnyland at Butler's Orchard. It's a scaled down version of their fall festival but was a lot of fun. We had beautiful weather (high 70s and sunny). Unfortunately, the boy was cranky. He is cutting a molar on the bottom (it's swollen but hasn't cut through yet) and I think that may be the reason for the crankiness. He was not even amused by the bounce house (although he recognized it as we were driving into the parking lot and said "bouncy house!") and he was too afraid to look at the bunnies because a woman was holding them with her face painted like a bunny, which apparently Marino found terrifying (odd, since he is not afraid of much).

Marino's favorite part of Bunny Land was these big slides that he went down with Daddy. He LOVED them!!

After some sliding, we went to this cute little hay ball pit where Marino was enjoying himself. Evan walked away for a minute and Marino started saying "need Daddy." When Evan came back, he said "More? Slide?"...since Evan brought him down the slides before, I guess he thought he needed Evan to go back down. It was pretty funny (so, of course, we had to oblige).

Wish granted, more slide

Evan's friend Brian said this tunnel is sort of creepy.

They had new chicks there - so adorable!!

And some sleepy sheep. We remarked the sheep looked tired and a toddler next to us looked at us and said "shhhhh" with a finger to his lips:)

Family love

Marino and his Aunt Chelle

Tractor trike...he couldn't reach the peddles, unfortunately.

More sliding

I love this picture of Evan!

One of Marino's current favorite things - BUS!!

Going through the maze with Daddy

Marino and his Granna

Marino with Grampa and Granna

He was so excited to climb up this hill after he saw some big kids do it. Climbing is one of his favorite things!

Daddy and Marino liked this slide the best (it was the fastest one).

Hi, Bunny!

Even the ponies had bunny ears

We were supposed to go to my friend Miriam's birthday party for her son Matthew (Happy 1st Birthday, Matthew!), but the boy was so wound up and cranky after our visit to Bunnyland, he didn't take a nap until 1:45! After he got up, I decided he was too cranky to subject people who don't already know and love him to his madness. We just relaxed the rest of the day, hoping the crankiness would get better (it didn't).

Easter morning, we got up and went to the playground for a little while before the Easter bunny arrived.

I kept thinking something was "off" here; I forgot to button the top bottom of his shirt! Oh, well!

He is in love with his Brobee backpack. He wears it around the house, outside to play, etc.

Later that morning, the Easter bunny arrived. In the boy's Easter basket:

Books on his favorite things:

Curious George Rides

Elmo's World: Balls!

Yo Gabba Gabba: It's Nice to Be Nice

Gab N Sing Toodee

Gab N Sing Brobee (the Toodee and Brobee I got on Kid's Woot for $10 for both!)

sidewalk chalk

Birdies t-shirt

Brobee Mega Bloks set

Gerber apple mini-fruits

sifter, shovel, rake and truck for his sandbox

Silly Jumpin Plex (this was a big hit...it only makes noise if you throw it or thump it on the ground...perfect for a toddler, although occassionally he would feel bad and give Plex a hug after throwing him).

wind-up eggs (we told him they were Oskee bugs from YGG)

He thought this sand rake was a brush

I think the apple snacks were his favorite thing in his basket (Max's, too).

He seemed to enjoy his Easter gifts, although after seeing all the Yo Gabba Gabba toys, he asked "Where's Foofa?", Foofa being the only character he doesn't have a toy of yet. I guess I need to get on that!

After lunch and naptime, we painted wooden Easter eggs. I was very nervous about attempting to dye real eggs, considering the severity of Marino's egg allergy, but I still love the tradition of decorating eggs. My buddy Rachel over at Allergen Free Please had posted this great idea for decorating wood eggs. I like the idea of painting a few a year and I decided we would write the year on the bottom. I think it will be fun to pull out the eggs we've painted each year to decorate our Easter baskets.

Evan and I painted the eggs with an acrylic paint base color on Friday night and then we used washable paints to decorate the eggs with Marino. Washable paint serves a purpose, but my best analogy is that it's like painting with nail polish. I think next year Evan and I might paint our eggs with acrylic paint for a better result and let Marino use the washable paints. As you can see, our eggs are not exactly beautiful, but we did them together and I love them!

After painting eggs, we went to Great Seneca Park to their great playground. The boy was still sort of cranky and he was sort of overwhelmed by all the very big kids there (10 and older). He mainly wanted to snuggle with me instead of playing.

Climbing up to the slide with the big kids

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday, as well!

So, This Egg Allergy

is apparently more serious than we thought. When we had Marino's scratch test in July (he was 1), the doctor thought he had a moderate allergy to eggs. He wanted to attempt to do a food challenge in 6 months, where they would have him come in and eat a small amount of egg in a controlled environment. We had blood work done on Monday to test his RAST number, to see if a food challenge was a possibility. Well, the PA called us today and said that Marino's RAST number needed to be 5 or less (and it gets down into the decimals, so even a number of 5 is a moderate allergic reaction) to do the food challenge. His RAST number is 44!! She said that is an unusually high number for someone his age so we need to carry an epi-pen with us at all times. There is also a greater possibility now that he won't outgrow this allergy. ::sigh:: I think I am going to start looking into ways to make egg-free treats so he isn't left out of things. We have numerous birthday parties coming up, and I'm not sure how much longer he will notice he is the only one eating clementines while everyone else is eating yummy cake. Poor guy.

My buddy Rachel at http://allergenfreeplease.blogspot.com/ (excellent blog about dealing with childhood food allergies) recommended Ener-G egg replacement, so I am going to hunt that down over the weekend (our grocery store doesn't have it).

1st Allergy

Marino is allergic to eggs. Today was the third time he had them and within half an hour, he broke out in hives. The hives went away and then he began wretching and vomitting all over me, himself, the carpet, etc. I ended up having to put him in the tub until he stopped. After he was done vomitting, he seemed very lethargic. Of course, Evan and I were freaking out! We left a message for our pediatrician, who is amazing and returned our call within 5 minutes (today is Sunday, too). She said he didn't need to go to the ER unless he seemed to have trouble breathing, and that we should give him Pedialyte and a dose of Benadryl. She also said no eggs or butter at all (even in baked goods) for 2 months and after that we'll do full allergy testing.

The pediatrician said a lot of times an allergic doesn't occur until the child has had a few exposures to the allergen, since it can take time for the antibodies to build up to attack.

Those of you who know me well probably are not surprised my son has a food allergy. I have celiac disease (gluten/wheat allergy), I'm lactose intolerant, allergic to shellfish and eggs bother my stomach (although I don't think that the eggs are a true allergy for me). I was also allergic to citrus when I was a child. The allergy testing will be good and take a lot of the guess work out of feeding him.

He is now resting peacefully on my lap (he also LOVED the Pedialyte).