The month started with a trip to Calgary. Jeff was returning from meetings in Dallas, TX, so I drove with the kids down to Calgary and met him at the Diamonds. We all had a great visit and journeyed home.
The following Wednesday I attended a women's group where they took some portraits for Mother's Day. The funny thing of the photo is that we had a lot of trouble to get charly to look at the camera, but in the end he looks the best in the photo:
Mother's Day was nice - sleep, treats, and Jeff's mom and step-dad over for supper. The cinnamon buns that Jeff picked up were a great hit :)
When the Shriner Circus came to town, Jeff's mom watched Sarah while I took Charly. Charly was thrilled (and me too!) to take an elephant ride, see dogs do tricks, see some clowns, and acrobatics. Charly had no problems gobbling down popcorn and cotton candy - he was just bouncing from the sugar by the time we got home.
The following weekend we went back to Calgary, to the Heritage Park, for a "Day with Thomas the Tank Engine". The weather was great - not too hot and not too cool. One of the few truly Spring days we had this month. So we went on a train ride, with Thomas at the head, acting as the engine. Afterwards we had lunch, walked around, charly went on the merry-go-round tiwce, and ran the kids ran through the kid's maze a million times.
May 17 I finally found out that Sarah's biopsy was going to be held at 9am the next day, so I scrambled to get packed, took Charly over to Jeff's mom for a sleep-over, and then drove with Sarah to Calagry - we had to be at the hospital at 7am so it was easiest to go the night before. We stayed at Jeff's aunt Joan's house and was able to have a nice (although short) visit with them. We made it to the hospital on time (construction everywhere but most hadn't started that early in the morning yet), the biopsy went well and that afternoon they started Sarah on a bunch of antibiotics to keep any infection out of the biopsy site (rectum). She was discharged the next day, so we drove home to wait for the results. It took a week, but the doctor finally phoned and said that the results were good, so no more surgeries were needed - YAY!!! We have to be carefully to keep her out of dirty water (no pools, clean bathtub/no sharing, etc) for 3 weeks but hasn't been a problem. After 3 weeks then we get to resume her previous treatment with hopes that at her follow-up in 2 months we'll finally find out when this adventure will end.
Charly had stayed with his grandparents for one night (Mon), then Jeff picked him up the next night (Tues) and took him home. Charly woke Jeff up at 5am Wed morning, vomiting. He had somehow got the stomach flu and was ill for the next week. For 4 days he could keep nothing down, and we had to fight to get water/juice into him. But finally he got better, and luckily no one else in the family got ill from it.
Last week I took the kids to Heritage Ranch here in town. Both kids went for a pony ride, which was so cute. Unfortunately my camera wasn't working then. Sarah was thrilled to discover a cat and 2 bunnies, but she was not happy when I wouldn't let her chase them all over.
Sarah continues to be herself - mischieveous. She finally started to sleep through the night. We did a bit of experimenting and found that she was waking and wanting her bottle because she was hungy and not just for attention. So we're working on feeding her more before bed with hopes that there are many more nights ahead where both kids sleep throughout the night! This past week Sarah's 4th molar finally broke through, which has helped in her mood. For a while there she was incredibly moody, between teething, soar bum, a brother too sick to play with her, etc.
I have been attending a monthly women's group potluck supper. On May 26th it was held at a house we hadn't been to before. I took Charly and meatballs and we had a good supper. But right after supper (we'd been there less than 1 1/2 hours) Charly suddenly had an allergy attack to the dog that was there. His eyes puffed out so much that he couldn't see. He had some welts and swelling inthe surrounding face tissue too. We quickly left and I headed straight home. But a couple minutes in the vehicle and Charly quit talking to me and collapsed, so I panicked and went straight to the hospital. tuns out his breathing was fine but he was just exhausted from fighting the allergy. So after a long wait he got some drugs, then more wait to make sure the drugs would work, we finally went home. I woke Charly up at 2:30am for more Benadryl, and by morning he was feeling better, but still needed more drugs to reduce the swelling in his eyes. It was a learning experience. I now keep a bottle of Benadryl in the diaper bag, and know that unless there is breathing problems -do NOT go to the hospital without taking Benadryl ahead of time.
Other events included another trip to Calgary to take Jeff's mom and step-Dad to the airport, and visiting Dickson Dam and Gwennifer Lake. And both kids also got hair cuts - Sarah's first one! Cutting off all the straggly ends has made her hair look a little thicker.
And what can I say about this month's weather?! We got snow at the beginning of May, sunshine in the middle, and more snow at the end of May. Ugh. I hope moisture is helpful in keeping the drought conditions away - for a while there it was looking pretty scary - forest fires north of Edmonton already.
Okay, that's about it for now. Time to go get supper ready.
Photos
http://picasaweb.google.ca/snowite73/201005#
Videos:
