Vernal

 

Certainly time to discuss the birds and bees!

In fairness, it's always time to discuss the birds. And frequently worth discussing the bees, although mostly it's "when is the beehive coming back to the bee garden?" during the winter months. 

Anyways, all the big fluffy bees are out. The bees haven't returned to the bee garden but if we follow them on Insta (yes they are on Instagram) we can get updates on when they will. 

All that to say, this is a time where the birds are getting horny and the bees are getting... well honestly mostly the bees are just visiting flowers and connecting plant gonads by the miracle of highly allergenic evolutionary processes (hey, nature is fine, it's my stupid body that's the problem here). 

Everything and everyone seems to be in the brightest most showy of plumages!

Only a little less so on rainy days. 

Rainy days are big deals in my world because they tend to take at least some pollen out of the air and make it safer to go outside. This means that a good rainy day is garden day. 

I'm not a gardener or remotely interested in becoming one. But I'm not about to let blackberries and other invasive devil weeds take over the yard without some pushback. So, Tuesday was a messy, muddy day. It was pouring and I had a spade. It got intense and the mud will never fully come out of those clothes or garden gloves.

 Allan helped "torture" the evil invasive plants. We mostly just filled a giant bag of yard waste without making an apparent dent. Most of the heavy action was really just trying to dig down deep enough to get all those danged roots. Spoiler alert: I didn't fully succeed. So, stay tuned for a sequel. I swear blackberry and dock goes down straight to the core of the earth.

For now, the blackberry has retreated, the dock of various kinds is mostly dug out, and a bunch of yard waste from last season has been picked up. I'm still watching a ton of plants to see whether they'll come out for good or evil, but damn, that is allergenic business. I still felt pretty awful for the next day and change. I miss Mt Vernon, where we had this fantastic yard guy who just stopped by when he felt like it and made our yard nice. 

Did I mention it's rained a bit? 

Love that for us!

In other news, it's nearly Easter. And this year, I'm pretty prepared. The plastic easter eggs are already full in fact. After filling specific Easter candy requests, I was given permission to recycle the Christmas stickers (birds) and candy. 

Yeah, we still have a ton of leftovers from Christmas. Yes, part of the is me overdoing it in an ever escalating stocking grand prix! But also, part of that is despite being quite excited about acquiring it, Allan's consumption is significantly more modest. She's a bit more of a candy-hoarding dragon than a candy fiend. 

Even prior to the appetite suppressing ADHD meds, I have never met a kid this apathetic about eating. I know a lot of people who get into their hyperfocii and forget to eat, but eventually the hunger leaps out. Occasionally Allan gets excited about the idea of candy or sweets, but less about eating them than having them. Sometimes she remembers she wants dessert at night, but not every night. 

With regular food, there is a perilous window in which it must be consumed or else it is no longer considered food - a peanut butter raisin waffle gets a forty-minute window, and then it might as well be bug butts. Some foods get less before expiration. Meanwhile she is often distracted or busy when the food arrives, making it quite challenging for the food to actually appeal within the window. And heaven forbid the food look slightly different or randomly emit an unacceptable smell that only she can sniff. We make it work, but it definitely takes some creativity (and several larabars strewn about the bedside night table, the car, and my purse). I have found that feeding her in the car is often the most successful way to do it.

Which will make this week interesting, since Andrew is gone for at least this week and possibly the week after. Meaning there's no human garbage disposal to eat up whatever's left over! Single servings all around! I have a few meals that usually work but eat them too often and she may never again, so it'll be an adventure.

To update my most hug hearted sad face emojied post of late: My Xolair prior auth was actually approved by the new insurance with the new doctor. Alas, I'm still using the same pharmacy, which is not necessarily always brilliant, but at least I think this is a doc who could give me a sample to tide me over if necessary. 

Little downside is that the new insurance requires me to get my Xolair at an approved site, after two to three years of being free to self-admin at home. The receptionist framed it as "for the first three" so I don't know if there's some hoop jumping that leads back to self-admin. Given that they're having the Xolair delivered to me instead of the clinic, I think so...? 

On the bright side, the new allergist is only twenty minutes away versus 35 to 90 minutes.  I guess the 35 base drive wasn't terrible, but it's particularly sensitive to traffic in a way a trip to Burien rarely is. When I first started Xolair the West Seattle bridge was still out of commission and it was a positive nightmare getting to Bellevue.

Augmenting that downside is that I was told I will have to wait at the clinic for two hours for the first three visits. This is customary when somebody starts Xolair, since it has a 0.1% to 0.2% risk of anaphylaxis (because medications are nothing if not ironic with their side effect profiles). About 60% of anaphylaxis incidences happen within the first three shots and of those a large percentage happen within the first hour, so the two hours is padding I guess.

 It's possible to have random xolair induce anaphylaxis after this, but significantly less common. In my opinion, I paid my dues with double two hour waits about six years ago. But apparently it has to happen again. Well, probably. I did ask if the receptionist can talk to the doctor about this since I'm now four or five years in to using Xolair and have my EpiPens at home if need be. 

Sigh! But on the other hand, at least I'm getting my Xolair. Maybe. Probably. Eventually. It's... complicated still. I have to admit that the pill is sounding a lot more appealing if I'm not allowed to self-admin. Them again the pill carries a risk of "bleeding" that sounds kind of unpleasant (vomitting and urinating blood was listed next to easier bruising, for instance), but the other shot - dupixent - has an adverse effect of eye problems that I feel almost sure to get given I already have eye issues. So, who knows. 

Always an adventure. This weekend was a bit whacky for reasons I don't have full energy to write about yet (I got this far before Saturday and then my momentum got knocked off a bit)

But I will say that Allan ended up having her very first sleepover with her oldest bestie Yael. It went remarkably well. I'm surprised she was willing to leave, but when she left it was with handfuls of stickers, a cute blank book she'd drawn in, stray furs of a few very cute kitties on her clothing, and big smiles. I'm proud and impressed. 

Also, because she was up late and stayed there a while she didn't take her vyvanse on Saturday and because she unsurprisingly slept in pretty late today, we decided to skip it entirely. So there's been a ton of exuberance and giggling. The cat is not amused, but at least she's getting some attention in Andrew's absence!

It's almost Easter and Easter is at least as big a deal hereabouts as Christmas. More so, because instead of getting gifts from a ton of people, I pretty much provide all of the excitement. I mean the Easter Crow does. With the Easter Bunny. And plenty of help from See's, Reese's and whoever else!

Happy winddown to Easter!