What we've been up to

We have been enjoying a holiday of sorts, simply spending time with family and friends with no particular agenda!

Sleeping with Abba

Growing!

sand castling on a foggy beach

Swimming at Cranberry lake

It was interesting to see how the girls reacted to swimming in a lake rather than a pool.  Grace was intrigued by the uneven rock entry, and Jasmin took quite a bit of convincing that it was okay to not be able to see the bottom!

Sleeping by the lake

photographing (and sneaking up on) ducks in the Gardens downtown

Drawing with Aunty Joy

Reading with

It is so much fun watching the girls spend time with their aunts! Though they monopolize highly effectively and we have yet to have a good talk :o)

Learning

 We've tried to keep a bit of schooling going this summer - the more books we can finish before we return to Asia, the easier Mommy's packing job will be!

Back yard picnicking

Trampoline jumping with and without friends

We could say we are jumping for joy... we finally got some test results for Jasmin, and she is cleared to eat a much more normal diet, only needing to stay away from sesame, cranberries, and coffee - not that hard at all after a few years of staying away from dairy, wheat, soy, eggs...
We are enjoying our culinary freedom and, while not exactly jumping for joy, we most certainly are praising God for this development!

Excitement

Mommy cut a finger badly enough to need stitches yesterday suppertime. Cutting pizza.  It was supposed to be a nice thing that we were bringing supper to Abba and Imma because they had been busy all afternoon and were to host a Bible study that evening.  We were late, they were late, the pizza was taking a long time cooking.  So it became a bit of a hurried, disjointed supper only 1/2 an hour before the study was to start.  And then, while cutting pizza to serve, the handle of the server broke. It was ceramic. The force of the snap combined with the force Mommy was applying to cut through the crust. The broken edge sliced deep across the pad of a finger. Rather than helping to smooth a rough day - we added to it! Now among the calls for pizza, the preparations for Bible study, and various other interruptions, was an urgent discussion trying to arrange transport to the hospital for Mommy and home for the girls and Michael.

Thankfully, it "just so happened" that Jo was eating with us and she graciously offered to take Mommy to the hospital and stay to drive her home afterwards.  It was a very good thing she did, as the wait time was not long, so Aiden needed coaxing to stay calm well past his feeding time as Mommy had her finger stitched.

Far from being traumatized in any way by lots of blood and a hurried departure of Mommy to the hospital, the girls were waiting for us to arrive home - quite disappointed that the finger was well wrapped and they couldn't study the stitching right then and there! I'm sure they probably would have been as curious, interested, and excited to watch the finger being stitched as their aunty Jo and Mommy were...

The Overnight

After much debating, we chose to drive to Halifax overnight.  A 16 hour drive with a new baby and 2 kids with car sickness sensitivities is not something to undertake during the day... how many activities do you know that can safely occupy 2 kids if they can't focus on anything inside the car for more than 5 min without beginning to complain of carsickness?

All in all, I think the overnight experiment went well.  Ok, so the plan for parents to get extra sleep the afternoon before leaving didn't work out, the girls were so excited to start on this journey they stayed up until 1 am, and of course, at each stop to feed Aiden they both woke up...
But, we had no complaints of car sickness, and only one 2 hour period of over-hyper, restless strapped-in kids. Parents survived mighty well as well - a 4 hour layover in Meductic certainly helped there.

So, we are here and recovering.  The girls have already discovered friends and a trampoline in the back yard where we are staying so are not too interested in catching up on lost sleep or routine, Dad has slept all night and a lot of all day to catch up on sleep, and it'd better be Mommy's turn tonight and tomorrow, though somehow she doubts that will happen as she'd like it to...

Tests and Doctors

One of our goals for our time here was to get Jasmin retested for food sensitivities.  Five doctors and 4 pokes later, we finally got one done today!  We don't get the results for a week or two, making the grand total of this project about 6 weeks. It went something like this:

Mommy learns from her own doctor that a retest is possible, but we decide that we'd like to avoid having medical records for Jasmin scattered between 3 doctor offices in the city.  So she passes up this opportunity to have the test ordered.  Bad move in retrospect.

We sign up with a new pediatrician, and have to wait a few weeks for an appointment.  Unfortunately she "doesn't believe in that stuff" and has never heard of the specific test we are requesting. Instead, she books a request for allergy testing and a dermatologist appointment.

We try to book an appointment with the doctor who originally got us the test done 2 years ago.  The earliest date we can get is after we have left for Halifax.

NiNi ferrets out another, nearer naturopath able to do the test.  He is more than willing, but can't get enough blood for his test from Jasmin's finger (without poking 10 times or so!). He is apologetic and goes far out of his way to arrange for a colleague to draw blood.  

And finally today we get the blood draw done!  It takes a bit longer than expected, and two pokes since Jasmin has "dainty princess veins" as the doctor observes.  But, success!

Now we wait to get the results.  Jasmin has been eating normally for about a week for this test. She has done really well, but we are starting to see the effects of eating the foods she must be still sensitive to.  We are hoping the list is much shorter this time though!

Tomorrow is the allergy testing.  Curious to see if anything shows up, though I don't expect anything will.  And then, hopefully we are done with doctors and tests for a good long while!