Pain in the hiney...

Poor Rachel has had a serious pain in the hiney. Something she ate or a stomach bug caused her to have a scalded bottom. Wednesday morning she woke Andrew and I by padding into our room as usual around 7 am. Andrew habitually picks her up first thing, so he stooped to lift her. As soon as his arm went behind her legs, near her diaper-clad bottom, she began screaming. She screamed and cried until she was purple and shaking. He peeled her diaper from her only to see her bottom covered with #2. As we tried to wipe it off she continued screaming, crying, and twisting away from us. Finally resolved to help her as best we could, we sat her on her potty seat to rinse her off. What we saw was horrible. Her skin had blistered, peeled, and was angry-red. She had still not stopped screaming or crying. She was shaking so badly from the obvious pain that she couldn't or wouldn't even try to stand. I had dressed for work before the true depth of her problem was revealed. Without second thought, I clutched her to my chest and held her as I tried to relieve some of her pain. Later that morning, during a fit-into-the-schedule doctor visit, the doctor said that something she ate had probably made her #2 too acidic for her delicate skin to handle. He gave her some antibiotic cream and told us to coat her hiney after every diaper change with a barrier cream. Its been 5 days and she has made significant progress on healing, although the pain and raw areas on her hiney are definitely not completely resolved.

The good news of this spur-of-the-moment doctor's visit is that I got to have them measure her. She measured about 35" tall and weighed around 30 lbs. That is tremendous! This is in the 89th percentile for both weight and height. If she continues growing as she has, her adult height (according to some doctors' estimates) will be double 35" or 70" or 5' 10"! Of course, knowing her weight & height lead us to measure Simon at home. By our measurements he is about 42" tall and weighs 45 lbs! Again, that is tremendous! That puts him in the 94th percentile for height and 98th percentile for weight. Most of the child height predictors don't calculate for children in Simon's percentiles. However, the closest I can find indicates that he'll be well over 6' 2" tall! It's amazing that both of our children are predicted to exceed our height.





Rachel's hiney didn't stop her from enjoying the wonderful weather we've been having. She and Simon are huge fans of playing in the leaf piles. Simon is working on mastering riding his bicycle with training wheels, while Rachel is still struggling with pedaling her tricycle. My mom just recently got a play-set at her house, so the kids and I traipsed between her house and our house to play musical play-set! Her slide is a bit taller, longer, and slicker than ours, which prompted Simon to calmly tell her, "This slide is quite fast." She also has a toddler swing that Rachel adores. So the kids were quite well occupied this weekend!



This is NOT me, but a good visual.



Saturday, while they napped, I went down the road to our neighbor's barn to play with his horses. After grooming 2 tiny ponies my arms were already sore. That meant I didn't have the energy to try to harness them. :-( However, I decided to use the last of my strength to brush the 2 big horses. King, the Belgian, is truly a king-sized horse. His back is at least as high as I am tall (5' 6" or 16.2 hands). He is as broad-backed as an over-stuffed ottoman. While I was brushing King and his buddy, Golden, the neighbor came out. I broke the news to him that I was unable to harness his little pony team with him. I witsfully spoke of how much I missed being able to ride. Jokingly, I patted King's neck and wondered aloud what he'd do if I sat on him. That lead to me closing him into his stall and, using an overturned bucket, leaning across his back to see his reaction. Eventually, I gathered my courage (and strength) and clambered fully astride him. Although we were in a 14' x 14' stall, it was exhilerating to sit on an animal so powerful and huge. :-D I may eventually work up the nerve to ride him around!