Summer Sweet Tooth: First Ice Cream Cone!

Little Biscuit has lots of food allergies/sensitivities that have prevented him from being able to have real ice cream, much less a cone. He still can't have dairy but God has blessed in huge ways by allowing him to just recently start tolerating wheat without rashes ... the last couple weeks he's had tons of new snacks, including sandwiches, but one of his absolute favorites was getting to have his very first cone...featuring Rice Dream vanilla!!

Here he is in his own little "ice cream shop"...
He took his time, enjoying every bite!Mmmmm!! Good stuff! Drippy, delicious!Gotta have more, more, more!Uh oh, the shark's gonna eat it :)

The Reading Chair

Here is a sight for sore eyes...a SUPER HAPPY little Biscuit bookworm!! ;) He has had a rough go of it since last September and we've had to back off on our weekly library trips (much to his disappointment); now he has another sore throat and runny nose he woke up with today...BUT on the bright side, he is NOT itchy or rashy with eczema even the slightest bit anymore, PTL!! His skin has never looked so good and he hasn't been this cheerful (cold and all) in months! His attention span for playtime and enthusiasm for stories and picture books has been awesome the past couple days (ever since eliminating peanut contamination of his snack crackers, which we know now he's very allergic to based on skin testing, and baker's yeast, just in case).

As an indication of how well he is doing, today I found him in his room reading in his little "reading chair" all by himself, out loud! :D He was reciting "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and then a fun board book about Christmas.

He really enjoys his soft toddler-size reading chair with a book basket beside it ;) It does double duty for lots of entertaining diversions such as:

Story time (obviously)Giggle time!Song or music time ("eyes, and ears and mouth and nose!") -- definitely preferable to nose-picking time (*groan*)Even nap time :D

An Indoor Toddler Snow Idea

Well the whole family has been slammed with tummy flu (viral gastroenteritis) this week; it has been ongoing since Sunday night. The pic above is just our 19-month-old's opinion of the whole experience. I could say more but I think he sums it up pretty well :)

Today we're all still feeling pretty yucky but it is almost 45 degrees outside and we still haven't gotten to play in the snow; rather than wait for it all to melt we went out for just a few minutes since it's Little Biscuit's first "real" snow that he might actually remember...But since we couldn't find child sized snow boots in stock anywhere this late in the game, we couldn't stay out long. The little guy really wanted to play more in it when we were done, so we brought a pan of the cold white stuff inside. We filled it with sandbox toys and set him in the tub with it and let him go at it! He had his own bathub blizzard - a flurry of fun, flake-feeling, cheek-chillin', toddler-style snow-day festivities right there! Bundle up, bath buddies! It's c-c-cold in here!
So Mommy, how do I make a slushie?
More, more, more - I love the snow! It makes me forget feeling so sick!

Let's Pretend It's Pepperoni

Well due to his possible corn intolerance issues we've tried to come up with safe versions of "normal" food for Little Biscuit to eat. For some variety in his pretty bland toddler menu we recently tried pizza made on a kosher matzah cracker (but not kosher for passover as we couldn't find them and those are the only ones that are really supposed to be corn free); I just used regular pizza sauce with pureed beef mixed in it and spread it on the cracker and put on some cheese squares on top (this was before we realized that milk is also a big eczema trigger for him, or seems to be); So he had his first pizza party at 18 months old! Anyway he really enjoyed himself and I guess even if milk is a problem he can still have it without the cheese on top. As you can see he couldn't wait to get his hands on it - Needless to say it was really a celebration for him to get to eat pizza for once :D Little Biscuit didn't even play with his food too much - he was busy scarfing it down!
Not sure what the teething ring and diaper were for...
His bib is clean for the moment, but it didn't last long!
I had fun playing in the kitchen so I also made some home-made pizza for me and Big Biscuit too that turned out really yummy (probably because it actually did have pepperoni!).

Silly Games with Packing Paper

Hide 'n seek...where's Little Biscuit?

Limbo anyone?

Today a package came with some of that ten-mile-long brown packing paper and boy did Little Biscuit ever have a good time with it! His favorite activity was standing under it when I threw the whole mess of it as high as I could into the air and let it fall down all over us. You can't really see the action of the paper falling in these photos, but that's what's going on. He was laughing his heart out and squealing with joy, falling into it and "splashing" in it and whatever he could do to make it a fun new toy. He sure needed something happy today too as he is not recovering as smoothly as we'd hoped from his myringtomies/ear tubes (his temp is still raised and he's having a lot of pain and drainage, so the doc is seeing him again tomorrow). I think he's going to enjoy Christmas so much, even if all he gets to do is play with the wrapping paper off the boxes :D

"Wheeeeeeeeee! Incoming!"
It's smiles like this that especially remind me I wouldn't trade being a mommy for anything!

"Oh boy, it's a TUNNEL!"

He can't jump yet but this "paper jump rope" sure makes him want to try!

"Who says I can't swim with ear tubes? Watch me SPLASH!"

Mystery Septra rash

Okay for all you House fans out there...can you help us out with a diagnosis until we're able to see the doctor in person? Little Biscuit popped out with some spots over the last day or two that don't really look the same as his usual eczema (these are more rounded and in unusual locations for eczema, like his thighs, and on his chest and arms); they do have the same scaly, rough feel as eczema though. They really got worse after his dose of Septra antibiotic last night (a sulfa drug). We called the on-call doc and they had us stop the meds ASAP with no substitutes "just in case" which we have done. In the meantime I took these pics and we'll ask the doc at his surgery if he thinks it's from the meds, but we wondered...is it eczema, or erythema multiforme, or just a general drug reaction rash that's harmless or something else? It doesn't seem to itch a lot, but he has been fussier the last two days - of course the antibiotics aren't working so we know his ears are hurting too so that's probably a big part of the fussiness. He only has a handful of spots but on the teeny tiny chance it could be EM we are not taking any chances whatsoever because if it is and we continue the meds, it could lead to SJS and that is about the scariest sounding condition I can imagine. Any thoughts, anyone? I know you're not docs but anyone with experience, this is your chance to throw out the advice!! Thanks :) I'll try to update this post when we find out the doctor's opinion.

Little Biscuit Helps Bake Christmas Cookies

Biscuit had his ENT appointment today and the doctor scheduled ear tubes for his 18-month birthday, the 16th (next Tuesday). Hopefully this will solve his problem with recurrent infections. But to take our minds off of it (mine really), we had some fun after nap time with making up a batch of sugar cookies to share for Christmas. I wanted it as hands-on as possible for Biscuit (who can't have corn and it's in almost all those fancy icings and frostings) so we kept it as simple as possible with the egg-yolk glaze that goes on before baking. He had a blast using the rolling pin, cookie cutters, paintbrush, mixing bowls and of course, taste-testing all his hard work :D So did I but wow did my tummy hurt afterward. Oh my.

Time to cut out the snowflakes, Christmas trees and gingerbread men from the dough! Little Biscuit even used sound effects pressing out the shapes, grunting loudly every time he pushed one out! :D Too cute!
This was our glaze...Practicing in the bowl first...Then on the real thing (with some help from mom--although frankly I think his turned out prettier than mine!!)

A little diversion while they're in the oven...

And now for a scrumptious sample...mmm!! Biscuit's very first cookie, and boy did he like it!

Ta-da! Christmas cookies with a toddler's touch :)

Do-it-yourself toddler racetracks, ramps and railroads

Well, Little Biscuit has been dealing with some big pain at night the past few weeks from his molars and canines coming in - sometimes waking up every hour or two, so we are all pretty sleep-deprived. One thing that really distracts him in the daytime though and keeps him really happy for long stretches is table play. He is crazy about the free train tables set up at Barnes and Noble, Toys R Us and Lagoona Magoo. Since they're pretty pricey to buy ourselves, we improvised with some scrap wood slats I found at Home Depot for 1.27 apiece (I bought five and covered them with packing tape to avoid splinters and rough edges). Here's a look at just the tip of the iceburg of all the fun things we've been able to do with them so far...

Ramps...beep! beep!
(We used a basket and some of Biscuit's little bowls to make a ramp system. We also set a few ramps up against the couch, three in a row, and made a tunnel for his cars to drive through - he LOVED that, since he's a tunnel junkie!)

Racetracks...vroom! vroom!
Railroads...choo-choo! (We're still trying to decide if we want to draw railroad tracks on one side with markers, and street stripes on the other side...)

Peek-a-Boo-Boo! (making First-Aid "fun" for a toddler)

Today Biscuit and I found a "hidden" park we didn't know existed - we both had a great time playing on the fun, new equipment, but after Biscuit played peek-a-boo on a swinging bridge with a new buddy he met there, we had to go home and play "peek-a-boo-boo." He'd managed to trip and fall and earned his "big boy badge" while he was at it -- he'd skinned his soft, smooth little baby knees for the first time!

I know today's incident is only the beginning of many more scrapes, splinters and sappy sagas yet to come, so I wanted his 1st "first aid" experience to be as positive as possible. Here's how it went down...

First, Biscuit got to play with the Boo-Boo Box full of gauze, sterile strips and other surprises...
Then he doctored up the Boo-boo Bear - we put some antibiotic ointment and a Band-Aid "sticker" on his fuzzy blue knee to see what it'd be like.Biscuit's turn! Let's wash that dirty knee, then put on some cream, and add the Band-Aid...Where's the boo-boo?? PEEK-a-boo-boo!! ("Who needs a Band-Aid, Mom? I'm a big boy!")"Ha, ha, nice try, Mom, but I'm gonna peek-a-boo-boo this one too when you're not looking!""So, hey, Mom...this was swell fun and all, but can we go back to the park now!?"