It only takes a second...

Ava, my beautiful two year old has a tendency of pushing the boundaries.  That is putting it delicately.  She loves jumping off the tallest step even though she repeatedly falls.  She always does the exact opposite of what you  tell her.  She is my fearless toddler who has made my heart almost stop, more than once, because she is gotten into a bag of nuts ( she is deathly allergic) or fallen on her face on the concrete.  I have started growing used to my little boundary pusher until she pushed the boundary too far and almost changed our lives for good.  This happened a few days ago, and completely changed the way I view my daughter.  I hope this post opens your eyes of how quick your life can change and how it only takes a second for disaster to happen.
I had just gotten home from school and I was tired.  I decided to order a pizza for dinner and remembered that I had needed to take the trash out.  I also remembered that this week was recycle week and so I had double the amount of bags I needed to take to our dumpsters.  I then had to wheel our dumpsters out to the street.  we live on a very busy street and it was 5:30 p.m.  I noticed how fast the cars were zooming down the road.  I needed to make several trips in and out of the house so I decided to leave the back door open.  I have several stairs to get to our deck and both of my hands were full of trash bags.
Finally I made my last trip to the dumpster, and so i rushed inside, locked the doors, and washed my hands.  That is when I noticed how quiet the house was.  Usually the house is filled with screams, laughter, and singing from my two girls.  I walked in the living room and I saw Payton.  I asked, "where is Ava?" She said she didn't know.  Thats weird, I will check her room.  I walk in Ava's room and there is no Ava.  I check the bathroom, no Ava.  I look in Payton's room and then my room, still no Ava.  My heart beat starts to become elevated and I noticed my hands are sweating. "I will check in the basement." I jog down the stairs and there is still no sign of my daughter...."Ok, now I am seriously worried."  I go outside and check the back yard.  We have one acre that leads into the woods.  I start yelling her name, still I can't find my daughter.  I don't know how to describe what happened next but I had this terrible feeling and had this thought in my head that said,   "go check the front of the house."  I ran as fast as I could.  There is a curve in our yard and as I was rounding the curve when I saw Ava.  You would think I would be overjoyed but I was HORRIFIED!  There was a car that had pulled to the side of the road and a woman had picked up my daughter and opened the backdoor and was trying to put Ava in the back seat.  Ava saw me and had her arms reached out towards me.  I was still 60 feet away and I ran like the wind.  I am telling you I ran faster then a cheetah.  The next thing I know is I was behind this strange woman, and I swooped Ava up in my arms and held her tightly to my chest.  My whole body was shaking.  All of a sudden this woman turns around and starts yelling at me and telling me what a bad mother I am and starts walking towards Ava and I.  Then the other woman who was driving the car gets out of the car and starts screaming at me that she going to call the police and I am unfit mother.  I didn't care what those women were saying... I just turned my back on them in mid sentence, held Ava as tight as I could, and walked quietly back to my house.  Now for those of you who know me, I am not the type to be quiet if someone is yelling at me. I would normally react very quickly, but I didn't.  In that moment the only thing that mattered was that I had my little girl.
We went inside and locked the door and I burst into tears!  I couldn't turn of the water works, I felt physically sick.  I kept hugging my daughter and told her that she could never do that again.  I couldn't believe that she had gotten out of my house with me right there.  I have dead bolts on all of our doors, I have child locks on all of the cabinets, I have outlet covers...I love my children.  How could this happen?  The only answer I have is this, "It only takes one second for your life to change."  It doesn't matter how careful you are, and how great of a parent you are, It literally only takes just ONE second.  You could be the best parent in the world, but there in no way for you to watch your children, every second of every day.  You do your best, and trust God with them, and know that he is faithful to watch over them better than we can.

Living with a baby who has SEVERE allergies

Yesterday I posted some pictures of my daughter Ava when she had a pretty severe allergic reaction to walnuts.  Today I thought I would tell her story and explain what its like to live with a baby who has severe allergies.
The day Ava was born was one of the happiest days of my life, little did I know that she had life threatening allergies.  When Ava was 6 weeks old, I noticed small changes that quickly added up to something big.  Her skin was rough like sand paper, her head had what i thought was a bad case of cradle cap that didn't clear up, actually it got worse, her body and head started oozing a clear liquid. (This liquid happens when you scrape your knee or elbow.)  She didn't like being held, and she was not sleeping through the night.  She would scream and cry for hours. I kept taking her to our pediatrician and she kept reassuring me that it was just a little eczema and dry skin.  I had no idea that it was much, much worse than a little dry skin.
Ava was six weeks old and I was nursing her. I had eaten a peanut butter sandwich earlier in the day (Peanut Butter is one of my favorites) when I noticed a wheezing sound coming from my daughter.  I held her up to pat her back, thinking she had swallowed too much, when I noticed her mouth was turning blue. She was wheezing and the blue was getting darker.  I immediately called 911 and got her to the emergency room.   The doctor had told me that my daughter was in anaphylactic shock and that she had severe allergies.  They gave her epinephrin and oxygen, and had me follow up with an allergy specialist.
She got tested for allergies and that was when we found out that she was allergic to Peanuts, almonds, all tree nuts, milk, eggs, soy, strawberries, peas, cats, dogs...etc  He gave me 2 epi pens to carry with us. Because I was nursing I had to adjust my diet and not eat any of those things.  He also put her on a daily dose of allergy medicine. (like Zyrtec)
That was just my first allergy appointment, and every time that we take her back to get re tested, there are more things she is allergic to.  The list keeps getting longer.  Now she has asthma, and we have to do breathing treatments.  (This is very normal for people who have allergies, they usually will develop asthma)
Yesterday, I bought a small bag of walnuts to make banana bread.  This bread was supposed to be a thank you gift for a friend.  We all were taking our afternoon nap.  When I woke up,  Ava had taken our kitchen chair and pushed it to the counter.  She climbed on top of the counter and got into the pantry and got the bag of nuts down. (She is only 2)  I woke up to find her swollen, and covered in hives.  I felt sick, and panicked.  I called the doctor.  Thankfully this time we were able to treat it with benadryl and not another emergency room visit.
Living with a child who has allergies can be scary.  If you suspect your child has allergies, take them in to get tested.  This is so serious, and it is PREVENTABLE.  This is not a laughing matter.  IT may save their life.

Payton and "Kiss and don't Tell"

This week has been a great week.  I am on spring break and I get 9 whole days to spend with my babies! No more childcare this week, no studying late at night or writing papers while the girls are playing,  it's just Mommy and her Girls!
Payton (my five year old) and I were watching T.V. when a Mentos commercial came on.  In the commercial there was a couple who started "french kissing".  Payton has never seen this kind of public display of affection because we are very careful of the things we allow her to see.  She smiled and looked at me and said, "Mom, Do you kiss people like that?" I laughed out loud and said, "Oh no, you only kiss your husband like that."  She said, "Ok" and then our normal program came back on.  Five minutes had passed and in the middle of watching our program she turned around and said, "Wait a minute!  Guess what Mom?  You have a husband!  I think Daddy would like it very much if you kissed him like that." I just started laughing and said, "You think so?" She nodded and said, "But you can't tell him so it could be a surprise." What do you say to your five year old who says something like that?  I just smiled and walked out of the room laughing my butt off.  I can say there is never a dull moment in our house!

..... Jamie and Everything In Between: Ava's Red Paint Polish

..... Jamie and Everything In Between: Ava's Red Paint Polish: "'Mommy, I want you to paint my nails red please.' Ava, my two year old, is obsessed with all things girly especially 'paint polish.' She wan..."

Ava's Red Paint Polish

"Mommy, I want you to paint my nails red please." Ava, my two year old, is obsessed with all things girly especially "paint polish." She wants to be just like her big sister and her aunties who love makeup, dressing up pretty and doing their hair.  Usually I go ahead and paint her nails, but today I was in a hurry and I didn't have time.  I had company coming over in thirty minutes and I was running around frantically  cleaning the house and trying to make it look presentable.  I was in the kitchen when I noticed a very strong smell coming from Payton's room.  I walked in her room to see that Ava had gotten the red nail polish down all by herself, had opened it, and started painting her nails.....or should i say her entire HANDS.  She had spilled the bottle of RED nail polish all over our nice hard wood floor and tried to clean it up with both of her hands, smearing it all over the floor.  It literally looked like she had dipped both of her hands in a bucket of red paint!  It was in between her fingers, down her wrists and on her forearms.  I was in shock, my house was still nowhere from being clean and I had a little girl covered in red nail polish. I ran to my bathroom looking through the cabinet trying to find the nail polish remover, my back was turned so i didn't hear the sound of little feet behind me.  Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, Ava puts her wet, red hands on my BRAND new pants.... (I literally just bought them yesterday)  I didn't yell or scream, which is very unusual for me, but I just started laughing hysterically.  I knew that there was nothing that I could do, I didn't have enough time to finish cleaning my house, all I could do was laugh.
Somehow I managed to get the nail polish off of my daughter and clean up the hardwood floor.  My company arrived shortly after the incident and my house smelled like a nail salon, my carpets never got vacuumed, and Ava had a big smile on her face.