May

It was a busy May. We didn't get to get outdoors nearly as much as we'd like. Most of the month was spent running our household and Athena's operation. Here's the pictures from the month and some more description of what we've been up to. Warning, although I didn't think it was too bad, others might. I had poison ivy the last couple weeks and several of the pictures are of the reaction I got.


As parents it is one of the greatest feelings to see your kids laughing and playing together!

Aviendha doesn't take a bottle, but she loves to play with them. She takes little sips sometimes but mostly likes to use it as a teething aid and chews on it as she pulls it out of her mouth. She surprised us by being able to hold her own bottle so well without practice almost from the beginning.

My girl, taking her leisure. She's her Daddy's little girl! (She loves her mom dearly. Many times she isn't totally at ease unless Mom is around.)

Aviendha's first try in the walker she inherited from her brother.

Matrim helping Avi with her bottle. He's such a great big brother!

Here's the original breakout (2nd day) of poison ivy I got from getting my disk from the "rough". The first day it was only a few little bubbles that I didn't even notice was a bubble until I scratched and broke it.

A close up down the leg later the 2nd night after getting hit. We thought the blister was encompassing hair until we decided to tug on one and see what would happen to the blister. As my hand got closer to the hair and began to grab it, it increased the itch tenfold. When I pulled on it, it stung good enough that I let go quick.

A close-up of day 3. I've never had poison anything in ALL this time of hiking, camping, etc. and wearing shorts! I'll be keeping my eyes open for it from now on. It itches like mad and the center stings since it's damaged to the point of pain. It feels/reacts like an itchy burn. This day I tried moving a hair again and it surprised me by falling right out. The hairs weren't in the blister at all, they were on the surface. The hair in the middle is the one that hurt so I avoided it. ;)

As I cleaned the spot several leg hairs fell off into the wash rag. I'm beginning to wonder how far this is going to go. Everything we tried to research/find out about poison ivy was different from about every other source. We checked with people we know, the internet, multiple doctors, and the pharmacy and every one of them had a different treatment.

Damn, now I have to carry around a paper towel to catch the dripping leaks from the blisters to try and keep it from spreading.

The beautiful Mann women are taking a nap.

There's THAT much fluid in there...! Day 5 or so and I'm still an itchy, dripping mess. (Luckily I can resist the temptation to scratch fairly well. If this had hit Athena or the kids, they'd be covered head to toe from scratching!)

Avi is able to hold herself up in a sitting position now. She can start working off her little buddha belly. :)

Scabby, semi-infected mess...

And since I sleep on my side, I spread it right across to the other leg back in night 2. Luckily it never got this leg as bad. At one point we tried baking soda and water (among other remedies) and it ended up spreading it further down my leg when it dripped, instead of helping at all.

Just about to turn the corner to start healing. I never thought this would be such a lengthy, irritating process to heal from.

Mom got Avi a new hat. Man, she's adorable!

The kids are hanging out together, watching an episode of Go, Diego Go!

The view from the front. They love spending time together. What great kids!

And since we haven't really mentioned Athena going in for surgery to about anyone, I figured we'd mention it here. Our family is now a complete unit! We have our 2 wonderful kids, a boy and a girl, and we have both reproduced ourselves in having 1 kid per parent. Between us feeling that our family is complete and the fact that this is such a messed up world that is out of space for more people we felt this was the perfect time. (They don't just do it the same day you have your kids any more. They make you come back...) Everything seems to have gone well and Athena is well on the road to recovery (she went back to work Tuesday after the Thursday surgery).