A-B-P-nut

A-B-P-nut.JPG
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

This weekend, after a morning at the Boston Children's Museum, we gathered for lunch at the attached Au Bon Pain with the Portland cousins and Nicole and her family. Mandy and Chris split the Mediterranean Wrap as they did the last time we had lunch there. It's hard to go wrong, as far as Chris is concerned, with hummus.

When she split it in half, Mandy asked me what I thought the dark sauce was. I figured it was just the sun-dried tomato salsa and brushed off the question. A little way into lunch, Chris starts coughing a little. We assumed it was nothing at first, but it just got worse and he was reaching into his mouth.

Afraid he was going to vomit, I rushed him to the bathroom where I realized he was breaking out in hives around his mouth and starting to rub his eyes. I washed his face and hands as best I could and he seemed to be more comfortable pretty quickly.

When we got back to the table, he asked for more of his lunch. Given that he was reacting to something, we gave him some benadryl. It was apparent that his eye was starting to swell up. Mandy took him this time to clean up some more and get some fresh air.

While they were gone I was nervously nibbling on the remaining food at the table including their wrap. I immediately figured out that I was wrong about the dark sauce. It was clearly peanut flavored. Apparently, someone behind the counter didn't bother to read the sauces or thought the Thai peanut sauce would compliment feta and hummus nicely.

The manager was only moderately apologetic and offered to make us the proper wrap or get us something else. We went with the banana he's eating in he picture. After saying something about how similar the sauces look in the squeeze bottles, the manager refunded the cost of the wrap, but not without subtracting the banana first. Apparently, he was offering to sell, not give, us something else.

Although this manager was not too concerned to see one of his young patrons getting puffy around the eyes, the company responded a bit better. We sent them an email that night and got a call form the regional VP on Sunday morning.

Chris seems fine now and there's no real harm done, I'm just upset that Chris might have to deal with being allergic to lots of things. I've been telling myself that he's just going to outgrow the egg thing. Now I'm not so sure. I'm picking up an epi pen from the pharmacy on the way home from work.

Full House

full house.JPG
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We had a busy week here in Hopedale. The Portland clan showed up Wednesday night and left Sunday Morning. The grandparents stopped by Saturday night and left today. It was great fun, but we are all exhausted. We went apple picking on Thursday, visited the basketball hall of fame on Friday, and toured the Boston Children's Museum Saturday morning. My folks helped with the boys as we tried to recover yesterday. They also arrived with a truck full of my crap that I had abandoned when I left home. Now that we own a place, they no longer have to store my stuff.

Videos

interview
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

I just put up some new videos on flickr. Most are from this weekend, but there is one from this summer (embedded here).

Ready to roll

ready to roll
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Alex keeps getting bigger day by day. He's always been a strong little bugger, but he doesn't seem to be the explorer that Chris was at this age. This means that he is strong enough to roll over, but just hasn't bothered to do it yet. He came really close this weekend.

hot dog vendor

hot dog vendor
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Chris seems to be developing a fake smile for the camera. It's too bad, because I like his normal smile much better.

I started posting this while Chris was still asleep upstairs. I heard an awful noise coming from his room and went to fetch him expecting a boy with a cold so bad that he sounded like a duck when he yelled. I found a happy boy with a kazoo.

Look, it's Alex!

alex
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

It's been a while since I've posted anything about the boys. I haven't even uploaded pictures since August. We've reached an important point, I think, and it bears mentioning, even though the month is only 1/3 over. There are more pictures of Alex this month, than of Chris. That hasn't happened before.

Mostly, Alex has looked just like Chris did, so there have been fewer moments where we just had to go get the camera. Recently, though, you can start to see Alex (and not just another Chris) in the pictures. So I've been taking the camera out more. Also, I noticed just how uneven the picture count has been and I started feeling guilty.