Busy Weekend. . . .

We had a very busy – and very fun – weekend.  I’m sitting here a little sore and a little sunburned and pleasantly exhausted.  The weekend was exciting, fun, busy, and eventful.  As far as the eventful part, we learned that Penelope has a peanut allergy.  Last week, she snagged one of the big kids’ peanut butter sandwiches.  Miss Sally got it away from her quickly, and she didn’t have a reaction to it.  I was thrilled, because peanut allergies scare me to death.  As our pediatrician had recommended when we were testing the big kids out on peanut butter, because some kids don’t have a reaction the first time, we waited a few days then this past Saturday gave Penelope a thin layer of peanut butter on a biscuit (our big kids love peanut butter on biscuits) and watched her to see what happened.  We drew up some Benedryl and had it ready before we gave her the biscuit. . . .

It wasn’t immediate, but pretty quickly Penelope developed quite the rash and set of hives around her mouth and neck.  We dosed Penelope up with the Benedryl immediately.  Luckily, she didn’t have any breathing problems. She was fine a stressful hour and a half later, except for the Benedryl hangover which made her a bit grumpy.  She did have a little rash come back later that afternoon, but after another dose of Benedryl it went away.  We  are calling Rosemary and Gary’s allergy doctor in the morning to find out what is the next step.  For now, clearly, the big kids don’t get any more peanut butter until we get a handle on everything (and an epi-pen or two). 

I have a ton of photos from the weekend to blog and to share, but I have to sort through them all first.  I do want to go ahead and share a couple from this weekend.  I don’t know if it’s because she has an older brother and two older sisters, or if it’s just her attitude in general, but Penelope has no problem telling anyone what she thinks.  For instance, at a birthday party on Saturday (after the big peanut butter scare), a sweet little girl was trying to make friends with Penelope and was trying to touch her. 

Penelope was having none of it.

Not at all.

She kept batting away her hand and saying, “No!”

This just cracks me up!  Girlfriend has no problem speaking her mind!