Allergies

Unfortunately, I believe Nadia has inherited my allergies. Every morning she sneezes and sneezes and sneezes and lots of clear stuff comes out of her nose. She is worse if she spent a lot of time outside the previous day. The same goes for me although my sneezing and runny nose lasts All Day and All Night long. I finally caved in and took one Claritin yesterday because the area around my nose was rubbed raw; it was red and very sore even though I use tissues that have lotion in them. I am much worse after I mow the lawn. I like the fact I get a good one hour workout, but I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it to suffer physically for a few days each time after I mow the lawn. I took another Claritin this morning, but I'm not going to take another one any time soon as I am feeling a bit light headed today. I think I'll buy myself a mask. I was looking online this morning at washable ones as well as disposable ones. Does anyone have any experience with wearing a mask outside for allergies? I at least need to wear one while mowing, and I might end up wearing one anytime I'm in my backyard. My body isn't appreciating spending so much time outdoors, but I'm certainly not going to keep my outside loving girl cooped up all summer. I know I'll look a bit ridiculous, but #1 not many people will see me and #2 I learned as a child that preventing illness is more important than vanity. As a child and teenager I had to wear ear plugs plus a bathing cap when we went to the pool to prevent ear infections. I was the only one under the age of 80 wearing such a thing on my head at our community pool.

Cancelled plans and lack of sleep have compounded me allergy woes and left me felling very sad today. The plan was for my parents to come up last night and spend time with the kids and I this morning and then we'd meet my sister and her hubby and 4 kids at Knoebels this afternoon. We haven't seen them since May 21, and it will likely be 2 years until we see them again. That's also part of the reason I'm feeling blue today. I don't like not being able to see my sister and her kids for what feels like such a long period of time especially considering how much young children change in that amount of time. The reason the plans changed is because their youngest has hand, foot, and mouth disease, and it's a very contagious virus. My inclination was to still meet them because it's not like kids touch each other a lot at amusement parks or share toys or anything like that, but Paul was concerned, and if either of our children ended up contracting HFMD, I'd feel awful. Every fiber of my being wants to put the kids in the car and drive to Knoebels right this very minute. I hate that they are 45 minutes away from us, but we won't see them. The weather is gorgeous. What a perfect day to have fun with my family at an amusement park. The good news is that my parents are going to come to our house tonight and spend a little time with the kids tomorrow morning. I'm grateful for that.

The lack of sleep is because of Ian. Paul put him to bed a bit early (6pm instead of 7pm) although Ian was up from 6:55pm to 7:30pm as he woke up shortly before I got home from giving the exam so I nursed him. He cried at 12:30am, but I let him cry for the first time in awhile. Thankfully he didn't cry very long, and he slept for another 3 hours. The problem was that he nursed for almost an hour and then I gave him a little bottle to make sure he was full. Usually he only nurses for about 20 minutes. Then it took me more than 30 minutes to fall alseep, and Ian slept less than an hour between 3:30-5:30am. So during that time span I got about 10 minutes of sleep. 3:30 is just way too early to start one's day. Thankfully I had gone to bed before 9pm. I would have gone to bed sooner, but I was grading exams. I am thinking in the near future I am going to go on strike with feeding him during the night. He's almost 7 months old. I really think he can go from 7 or 8pm to 6am without being fed. That is my goal. Hopefully he'll achieve that soon! When Nadia was this age she was sleeping from about 6pm to 6am without being fed. I tried to take a nap today but the overlap between their naps was only 30 minutes, and to make matters worse Nadia woke up and asked to use the bathroom half-way through Ian's nap. Thankfully she went back to sleep after I took her back to her crib, but that cut my nap super short.