Letters from the Evans: Allergy Testing & Paint Nails: All About Clara!

Today was a BIG day for Clara. First, she went to The Woodlands Wellness Center with us to become a new patient and get tested for allergies. I was rather nervous about the entire experience, and decided that even though they are super anti sugar I'd take a lollipop anyway, just in case I needed a bribe.

This place is so far from being child friendly, let alone child proof, that it's outrageous! I was thankful when Clara stopped pretend feeding the ceramic birds with the glittery breakable pumpkins and started playing peekaboo with the curtains instead. Yes. THAT'S how un-child-friendly this place is! I'm so thankful we didn't end up needing to pay for anything broken.

To give herself a little extra dose of bravery this morning Clara decided to wear her Elsa dress. It wasn't until we were there that she told me the REAL reason she decided to wear it: "See Mama? My arms is all full so no one can poke with me shots." Excellent thinking kid! I'm sorry it didn't work for you.

Playing with the muscles and fatty tissue models:

She was also given a sticky note and "Elsa" gloves to keep her out of mischief

In order to help the process, Clara was given a ton of numbing cream and then wrapped up in cling wrap to keep it working. She was baffled and not super happy about the process. She was better once we pulled her sleeve over the wrap.

After taking her weight (32lbs) and her height (37") and her temperature and blood pressure, we met briefly with the doctor which resulted in being given some recommended supplements that will hopefully help with the serious sleeping problems she has plus the asthma and eczema. Then she was ready to get those shots. Okay, not really. She was terrified and not at all happy :( But it was time anyway!

Okay.... fast forward 30 minutes or so, after 11 pokes, so. many. tears., and a lollipop (ha! mommy knows best) Clara was doing better. It was about as awful as I expected, and my arm and ab muscles got an excellent workout holding her steady while they did the testing.

It turns out that she's allergic to lot of weeds and grasses, as well has having severe allergies to mold and dust mites, and an extremely severe allergy to eggs! I'm so glad we did the testing. I knew there had to be something causing her flare ups, and I just didn't pin down eggs as the culprit. No more scrambled eggs for her on Sunday apparently. I feel pretty awful about that. They did tell us to not just abruptly eliminate ALL eggs because her system would go into shock and that's what the allergy drops are for anyway. Yes, DROPS. Not weekly shots, but a daily drop under the tongue. I know, I know. WHERE have these been my entire life!? Anyway, so very small amounts of eggs are ok, but no more than that.

She refused to put her sleeve back on the rest of the morning.

Back to smiling thank goodness. Look at all of those pokes :(

As we were about to leave she started bawling all over again - I'm guessing the numbing cream was wearing off. I asked her what would make her feel better and she told me "candy and breaf-ix" between sobs. I thought, "why not?" so Daddy, Clara and I all ate at Olive Garden for lunch. And in case you were wondering, yes, that's all she ate - 3.5 breadsticks, one bite of salad, and 2 Andes Mints. Superior parenting, people. Oh well.

We thought about it later, trying to figure out why on earth she thought of bread sticks, but realized the last time she got a shot at the doctor's office (a steroid shot for a particularly bad infection) we went to Olive Garden afterward. Shots = breadsticks. Who knew!? We started our own tradition. This child remembers everything!

After a few ROUGH hours at home involving no nap and many tears, I decided we needed to do something extra special and fun to turn our day around. Thus, Clara's first manicure and pedicure happened! The place near us has a small room off to the side that's rather well ventilated and has these adorable little pink chairs with butterfly wings on them for little people to use, plus an adult sized chair right next to it.

Clara was in HEAVEN. She picked her color, and the gentleman trimmed her nails, filed, buffed, painted them and then even put these cute little flowers on her thumbs! She kept telling him, "wow! you do a good job!" - I'm not sure if that's an indirect criticism on my usual nail painting job or if she just truly was impressed, haha.

She was floored when he rubbed her feet, clipped, filed, etc. and painted her toe nails and added little white flowers to her big toe nails too! At this point she said, "Wow. You paint my paint nails next time, not mommy, ok?" Ha! You'll get regular purple polish and like it, little dude :) Maybe I'll add glitter or something next time to up my mommy game.