Today was one of those perfect days. I was off work today, and Ethan and I just played all day long. We went for a walk this morning (and then ran home from around the block because it started raining), then we went to run a couple of errands, met with Karen to talk about the Sunday school class we’re going to teach, and took Ethan and Caden to McDonald’s for lunch. I had no idea how much fun they would have on that playground. Caden quickly showed Ethan how to climb up the tunnels and they were off. (thank you, Karen, for always having your camera with you!)

Then after Ethan’s nap, Cara brought Jack and Josie over to play for a little while and that was a blast. Jack and Ethan are very good at entertaining themselves…and each other…and it was quite funny to watch them. Anyway, I’m realizing each Monday and Friday how incredibly wonderful it is to be home with your child. Thank you, Clay, for working so hard to provide for our family, and for knowing how important it is for me to be home with Ethan as much as possible. I love you.

This weekend the Starr Family Band traveled to Fredricksburg for a 2-day getaway. We actually went for a wedding Saturday evening for some friends from Clay’s office, and used it as a good excuse to get out of town. We underestimated how long it would take us to get there, but Ethan was perfect the 4.5 hour trip there and back (thank you Nana & Poppa for the DVD player!). The wedding was at the bride’s parent’s house way out in the country and it was beautiful. They had tons of benches set up outside with blankets over them overlooking the hill country. The reception was outdoors as well, and they rented big white tents and had tables with candles in mason jars and Christmas lights with a live band – perfect!

The trip and wedding were all we did Saturday, but Sunday we just strolled around Fredricksburg. We went to the WWII museum first thing (we really wanted to do the Nimitz museum, but it was closed for renovation), then did some shopping, ate lunch, took Ethan to a really neat park to play, oogled over tons of things in an iron shop that were way too expensive but fun to think about, and then left for home. We stopped in Marble Falls to stretch our legs and ended up taking Ethan for his first game of putt-putt. He knew exactly what to do!!! We had to make one more stop on the way home to eat, but still got home before 9:00 – not too bad!

E & Lauryn
Let’s back up a day before the ER trip, and we had such a great day! We had 5 of Ethan’s friends over and their parents/siblings for an Easter egg hunt in my parents’ back yard. We had a blast! Here are a few pics of Ethan with his friends…can’t wait for next year when all of these kiddos will be 2 & 3 years old!

E & Kellen

E & Caden

E & Jack

E & Hannah

Snack Time!

Well, we knew it would come sooner or later…our first trip to the ER for Ethan. And surprise – it came on Easter Sunday!!! So, to make a long story (and very long day) short, we had an Easter egg hunt for Ethan’s friends Saturday and everyone had a great time (pictures will have to come at a later post…just now getting our computer set up at the new house). So, afterwards, we went to dinner with our friends Brent & Nicole. Ethan started getting cranky during dinner (thinking it was either an allergy outbreak, or he was just really tired from the busy day), so we left dinner early and took him home to get him to bed early. After being up most of the night with him coughing, crying, having a runny nose, fever, etc., I stayed home with him Sunday morning while Clay went to church. When Clay got back, I told him to come and look at Ethan’s chest because he seemed to be breathing really hard. We got out the nebulizer and did a breathing treatment which did nothing to help him, but he would have spurts of about 30 minutes where he seemed fine. So, after 2 calls to the pediatrician and several “gut feelings” that something just wasn’t right, we all 3 load up in the car and head to Cook Children’s Hospital in Ft. Worth (which, by the way, I can’t say enough good things about this place). We get there and I tell the lady that my son seems to be having trouble catching his breath, they take one look at him and send us right back to a room. (moral of this part of the story is that if you don’t want to spend any time in the waiting room, tell the nurse you’re having trouble breathing). They did a quick assessment and said he wasn’t moving any air, so the respiratory therapist came by to do 3 back-to-back breathing treatments. While it was the longest 30 minutes of our lives, we saw some pretty immediate improvement. The steroids do very interesting things to a 17 month old, but thank goodness we had lots of things to make being confined to a hospital bed seem like fun. They took a chest x-ray and did blood work and came to the conclusion that it was some type of viral infection that was causing everything. After 2 hours of observation the doctor wasn’t pleased with his breathing rate, so we did another treatment and stayed for further observation. But, after about 5 hours we were able to go home and kept doing treatments at home through the night.

Phew. I’m tired just writing about all of it, but it really could have been much worse. A follow-up visit to the pediatrician’s office yesterday led us to believe that it was some type of allergic reaction…to what you ask? NO IDEA! Big surprise…we never know what causes him to have reactions, but hopefully he’ll grow out of all of this.

Anyway, that was our exciting Easter Sunday, and today has been much better.

I have wanted to post new pictures, updates, etc., but this has been a really crazy week. Wednesday was my last day at American Heart Association after being there more than 5 years, yesterday was my first day at my new job that is less than 10 minutes from our house, we’re trying to get all of the last minute things done on the house to make it liveable for us to sleep there tonight, we’ve had family and friends come visit this week, and we’re getting ready for an Easter egg hunt for Ethan tomorrow. Phew!

Okay – allergy update first:
The allergist was wonderful! Unfortunately, though, we didn’t leave with any new information. She tested him for milk (still allergic), and egg (not allergic – praise God!), and then 5 other “common” allergens like dog, cat, etc. All of those came back negative which is wonderful, however, we’re still left with the mystery of why he has these horrible reactions for no known reason. Dr. Harvey said that in kids this young, it’s not uncommon for their tests to lag behind the symptoms. Meaning that just because the tests came back negative for the common allergens, that doesn’t mean he’s not really allergic to some of those. There are also a thousand other things people can be allergic to, but until he’s at least 2 years old we won’t put him through the testing for those. All of that to say that we’re still where we were 2 weeks ago, but with little more confidence that we’re doing all the right things. Our treatment will have to be completely reactive at this point instead of proactive, but we really have it easy compared to a lot of people with allergies (Amber – I hate that you’re in this category, but I admire you for dealing with milk, egg, soy and wheat allergies).
Okay, on to the house. We have the living room and dining room finished, and all of the kitchen cabinets are loaded. We have one little wall in the kitchen we want to paint and then it will be finished. Clay and my dad took up the tile in our bathroom, so all we have to do now is put the slate down and it will be ready to go! Ethan’s room is painted, but his bathroom has a LONG way to go before it’s presentable. But I guess that’s half the fun of it. I have a feeling that my new part-time job (and part-time pay) will have us putting a few projects on hold, but I wouldn’t give up these 2 days at home with Ethan for anything. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me about finding a part-time job and for us to just have faith that everything will work out. I couldn’t be happier.

Can’t wait to have everyone over to the house as soon as we can. Keep in touch!

What a day! Sundays are supposed to be days of fellowship and rest, however, today was not such a day. We remembered about 10:00 last night (while Clay was STILL at the house working) that it was daylight savings time, so we were a little upset about that. After getting to bed late, we forgot to tell Ethan that it was daylight savings time (meaning – sleep later!), so he was up at the normal 6:00. We drag ourselves out of bed after a full Saturday of painting, yard work, cleaning, etc. and get ready for church. At about 8:20 (we try to leave at 8:30), I remember that I still haven’t gotten my bread and dessert for our class potluck. So, we race to the grocery store for rolls and bakery cookies. We get to class on time and Ethan is NOT happy about being left in Bible class this morning, so his teacher had to hold him. Yes – the oldest child in the class had to be held by the teacher. Ugh. (the picture is Ethan’s teacher – notice the scrape from Ethan’s battle with the sidewalk)

We made it through class and church where Ethan is rubbing his eyes because again, he forgot about DST. We go to the fellowship hall to get lunch ready, and Clay gets Ethan in his highchair with some other kids. As I’m trying to get Ethan to eat and Clay is almost to the front of the line, Ethan’s face swells up, turns red and splotchy and he immediately becomes miserable. I run over to tell Clay to get our things because we have to go home to get him some medicine and wash him off (there is no telling what he got into because we have no idea what all he’s allergic to). We race home where Ethan is screaming and take him straight to the kitchen for medicine, but he knocks the cup out of Clay’s hand and gets medicine all over him. We force the medicine down his throat, strip him down to wash him off, and I lay with him for the next 2 hours to keep him calm. But after 2 hours he was feeling good and his face looked okay, so we head to the house to help Clay with some work. We get back to mom and dad’s in time to take showers and head out for church tonight…same scenario as this morning. We get to church, he starts rubbing his eyes (stupid us didn’t learn anything from this morning’s experience so we chalk it up to being tired), we go get some dinner after church and the second we sit down at our table to eat, his face swells up, eyes turn red, starts sweating, etc., etc. We race home to do the allergy outbreak routine, but this time his face has welps on it, and his eyes have big purple circles under them. He was crying so hard, he wouldn’t even let us put eye drops in. The only thing that would calm him down enough was watching Baby Einstein – Baby MacDonald so we watched it …twice.

All of that to say, that our appointment Thursday with the pediatric allergy clinic at Medical City cannot get here soon enough. I’m so frustrated that I can’t keep him from having these reactions because I don’t know what all he’s allergic to. The only thing I’m sure of is milk, eggs and wool – he didn’t come in contact with any of those today. The only common denominator we can think of is that he was at church both times he started rubbing his eyes. Surely the child isn’t allergic to church!!! I would welcome anyone’s theories on the situation. I’ll update after the appointment.