Aly's Toe. . . another injury

Well we were getting over the chemical burns on the hands incident and had another. Aly was playing by the fireplace and wanted to see if there was something in her stocking so she pulled on it. When she did the 4 lb snowman stocking holder came down with it and smashed her toe. She couldn't even scream, she turned blue and almost passed out. We took her to the bathroom to check it out and it wasn't good. We had her elevate it but we couldn't get it to stop bleeding. We wrapped it up pretty tight and put her to bed. Surprisingly she slept really well.

We kept it bandaged up and on Monday Shannon took her to see the podiatrist. Her sister Christi works at one in snellville and they looked at it for us. They took some x-rays and found that it was broken. They didn't want to clean it or touch it because at her age their is a good chance the nail will reattach its self so they wanted to let it do its own thing and heal on its own. We have to keep it wrapped with a band aid and ointment. 

She is doing pretty well with it, honestly better then I would be. It defiantly could have been a lot worse. I think if it would have hit in the middle of her foot it would of broken her whole foot.

I have a few pictures but they are pretty gross so beware, but Shannon took a few at the dr. so those are here too.

Getting X Rays



 

 

 

 

 

Update on Aly's hands and the situation

This is the easiest way to get the info to everyone so here is where we are. On Monday I sent an email to Belk from their website asking someone to provide me with an email address to send the pictures of Aly's hands and an email to explain what happened. I got a call from the Snellville store manager a few hours later. She had told me that my email when to her instead of corporate which I was trying to reach. We talked for a minute about the situation and I asked her how something like this could of happened. She said she really didn't know. She claims their soap containers come pre packaged and they just drop the soap containers directly into the dispenser so there is no pouring or a chance that they could have put the wrong thing in. She was very adamant that they did nothing wrong. I asked her if they removed the soap from the dispenser that Aly used as a precaution and she said no. I was beside myself. She said it was an isolated incident and she didn't see the need. I'm sure you can imagine my response to that. I think it’s sad and says a lot about her personal character, that she is more worried about an admission of guilt by changing it then the safety of the customers and employees that use that soap.

I then called Betco Corporation who is the manufacture of the soap and told them I was interested in switching to their soap here at the shop and asked how the soap came to the vendors. She told me they are only sold in Gallon bottles and refill bags, not replaceable containers (so i'm still not sure how Belk is getting the refill containers. . . ). I then hung up and called again and spoke to another rep and told her the story about what happened. The lady I spoke with was really nice and she has done a few things for me. They are sending me the data sheet of the ingredients so I can have the pediatrician look over it. She also contacted the Atlanta distributor and they are looking in to it as well. So as of now, Belk could really care less but the manufacture is taking steps to look into it.

We still don't know what happened and probably never will. I'm so disappointed in Belk's response that it will result in me not shopping there anymore. I think is sad that as a society we can't get anything accomplished because everyone is worried about getting sued. When I went to the store on saturday, after this happened, I was trying to accomplish 2 things: make sure we could ensure Aly's safety in the future and make sure they could ensure the safety of their customers and employees but it looks like neither of those happened since they are so uncooperative.

Aly's hands healing pretty good. The cream the Dr. gave us is working good. She was able to go to gymnastics on Tuesday and do everything so that is a good sign. She still knows how to work the system and when we ask her to do something she doesn't want she pulls out the "my hands hurt" card like a pro!!!! Until we can determine 100% that this wasn't an allergic reaction we are not going to use public soap and just carrie our own and rely on sanitizer.

Thank you for your care and concern!

Another eventful weekend

Well, we had another one of those "crazy things that happen to my child" event! On Friday afternoon Shannon and Aly went to the Belk store in snellville. Aly was washing her hands in the bathroom and started screaming that it was burning. After checking the water Shannon realized it was the hand soap and rinsed it off. Over the next few hours her hands got worse and developed a few blisters and her fingers were red and swollen. We treated her at home on Friday but then took her to the dr. on sat. morning. They said it was a chemical burn. We are not sure how it happened but we are talking with the manufacture of the soap and with belk trying to figure out what happened. We are thinking either when the cleaning staff refilled the soap that maybe they put something else in there, or maybe were trying to dilute it and put something wrong in there. Maybe someone else tampered with it and put a chemical in there, we don't know. It drives me crazy to think that maybe someone tampered with the soap and now that has to be something we have to worry about in this crazy world.

From now on we are going to carry our own hand soap to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Having a 3 year old with chemical burns on her hands isn't easy, so if we can make sure it doesn't happen again, we will.

Friday night was pretty rough for her. I was going to take her to the after hours pediatrician but they were closed?????  The poor kid wouldn't go potty all night and finally around 9:00 when I asked her again, she cried and said she didn't want to have to wash her hands! :(  We were able to wrap her hands with some pads and put socks over them for the night so she could sleep and we let her sleep with us. Me and JV didn't sleep much because every time she moved we both woke up trying to keep her from hurting her hands. She slept fine though. Saturday morning when I took the socks off it was nothing short of many answered prayers. They looked so much better. She was able to use them on sat which was a huge improvement.

 She has heard us talking about it several people so she knows whats going on but I'm trying to make her understand that it won't happen every time, it was a bad soap and just a weird thing, but again, she's 3 and that's not easy.

Here are her hands on Friday night:

and Sat. Morning:

Little Gym

So Aly had her first gymnastics class at The Little Gym last night. We took a break from the mommy and me gymnastics class we were doing in Dacula to try soccer in July. She did the 8 weeks of soccer but didn't really like it. She had some good days but most of the time she wasn't really interested, but we tried and we finished it!!!

So we decided to start gymnastics again. The place in Dacula didn't have any classes for her at this age that would work for us and work schedules so I started looking around. Shannon's daughter goes to the little gym in Snellville and they are really happy there so we thought we would give it a shot.

She is in a class called the Funny bugs and there are about 13 kids in there. She has to do this one without me so I wasn't sure how that was going to go but to my surprise she did awesome! She went right in, listened and followed directions and had a great time. We can sit outside and watch through the window. She ran over to the window a few times to tell me how good she was doing!! It was precious!!! They have themes each week with things to do and this week was the construction site. So they had to pick a tool to use and Aly picked the saw and they built a pool!! It was really cute. I like how they are engaging other skills with the gymnastics! I think it’s going to be a great place for her!!!! Here are a few pictures I took last night:

 

 

Charleston Sept. 2012

Well as most of your know, my sister and her family moved to Charleston, SC in June of this year. We were all so so sad to see them go but we were all excited for the change and new adventures it meant for them. They are all doing really well. Alex started kindergarden and is loving it (they have a super big sand box, LOL) and Asher is doing well at his new school too. Paige is liking her school and the new material teaching regular ed this year. Brandt is at a body shop down there and is doing well, but still wanting to work on his cooking.

We planned to go down there over labor day weekend so we could have an extra day to catch up. We got there Friday afternoon after a pretty good, short 5 hour drive and had lunch in charleston before we headed to their house (we went to a place called Fuel Charleston, it was on diners, drive ins and dives, it was really good!). 

We got to paiges and got unloaded and waited for them to get home. The boys were so excited to see Aly, Alex ran right past me and went straight to her. They all missed there cousins!! They did so great all weekend playing together. We let Aly sleep in there room too so it was a pretty cool treat for all of them. Saturday night we had a baby sitter over to the house so the adults could go out and have some fun. We went to a place called Reds for dinner. It was a huge bar on the water and had really good food. It was the first weekend of college football so there was plenty of football on and tons of people around watching it. We drove to down town Charleston after dinner and went to another bar and just had some drinks and chatted.  Sunday we went to the beach in the morning and let the kiddo play. It wasn't a super sunny day but it was good to get out to the beach one last time for the year. They have found a pretty secluded spot so we had a good spot on the beach to our selfs. Sunday afternoon Paige and I took the kids to a park to have Tarah (brandt's sister) take some pictures of the kids all together. We went to dinner that night at Gilligans and ate a ton of hush puppies, and Aly ate her first corn dog (because thats what Alex had and she has to do everything that he does!).

We made breakfast at the house Monday morning and then got all packed up to head home. It was a great weekend and we all had a blast. It was hard to leave and say goodbye (and it turns out I've turned into quite the cryer in these situations), but we made it home in good time and had a safe trip.

They are coming here for christmas this year so I'm not sure when we will go back but we definatly will!!!!

 The kids doing push ups

 

Panama City Beach, July 2012

This past weekend we took a family trip to Panama City Beach to visit dad. Since Aunt Cheryl's birthday was on Sat. we thought it would be cool present to invite her along. Dad has bought at 32 foot RV that we stayed in at the shop. It was kind of close courtiers at night but it was nice to save the hotel money. And with staying at the shop we had 2 extra bathrooms so that was nice too! We drove down Thursday night and got in late. Friday morning dad made breakfast and then we went to Anderson State park to go swimming in the lagoon. We had heard that the beach had a double red flag so we wouldn't of been able to get in the water there so we went some where we could. We were there for a few hours and then left for lunch.  It was a cloudy day but the rain held off ( I decided since it was cloudy not to put on sun screen, that was a bad decision, I got so burned, it was horrible!). Then Friday night we went and walked on the beach and let Aly collect some sea shells.  

Dad had planned a deep sea fishing trip for him and JV on Sat. morning. They had some issues with the boat so they got a late start but by lunch it was all worth it. They caught 10 huge grouper fish that they brought back and JV caught a very large Amber Jack (they did have to throw that one back because you couldn't keep them till Aug. 1). It was a great 1st trip deep sea fishing for JV. While they were doing that Aunt Cheryl and I took Aly to Shipwreck Island water park. Lisa, who works with dad was able to get us free tickets which made it even better. We all had a really good time. Aly played on the slides and in the wave pool and Aunt Cheryl and I had a blast watching her have fun.  We left there around 2:00 and went to J. Michaels to have Aunt Cheryl's birthday lunch and took lunch back for the guys.

Since everyone was so tired after the busy morning we took naps and then later went to Pier Park. Aly and JV rode the farris wheel. I couldn't believe she rode it but she did and loved it. We rode the Merry go round twice. We were having fun making faces at Aunt Cheryl and Dad as we went by. Then Sunday morning we went and got breakfast and then headed home. It was a quick trip but a good one. We are looking forward to going back soon and doing some other things that we didn't have time to this time!!!

 JV and Aly on the ferris Wheel

 Breakfast Sunday Morning

JV"s Amber Jack