Her party theme is Tinkerbell, and I was able to find a place that has a Tinkerbell bounce house for $115 for six hours.  That is much longer than we’ll ever need, we’ll probably not even need it for three hours.

But anyway.  I still need to get plates and stuff, and order a cake.  The last couple of years I got half sheet cakes… this year, even though there will be more people at the party (most likely), I’m going to go with a 1/4 sheet; that seemed to be enough at the CEC parties and there were a lot more people at those than what I’m planning on having at the Kiddo’s party, so it should be sufficient, particularly if we include ice cream.

I also need to get some stuff for the goodie bags, which I may go shopping for this weekend while the Kiddo as at her Grandmother’s house for her monthly overnight stay.  AND I still need to figure out what we’re going to be feeding everyone.  I’m thinking maybe just four or six $5 footlong subs from subway…  Cut each of those halves in half again and that should be a good variety of choices, you think?

I think I may consider her party her gift though, since the bounce house itself is costing a pretty penny, plus I just recently got her a bunch of new clothes, too, so technically she’s already gotten quite a bit from us.  Unless I can find something inexpensive to include as our gift, but at this age I don’t think she is really going to notice whether or not a present has “from mommy and daddy” on it or not.

It kind of sucks that her birthday is less than a month after Christmas, but ah well.

Yesterday at daycare, the Kiddo had a #2 accident.  Sometimes she doesn’t tell anyone when she’s done this, so unless the teachers are instantly aware of what happened, minutes can pass before it is discovered.  That was the case yesterday, they did not notice right away nor did she say anything to them that she’d had an accident.

Well, some if it fell out and messed her shoes.  She really only has one other pair of shoes she can wear to school right now that fit since sandals are not allowed for safety reasons, and since we are trying to watch our money, I really don’t want to have to go buy another pair of shoes right now.  These were $16 so there is no way I’m just going to toss them out if they can be saved!

When we got home, I opened the baggie that her soiled underpants, shorts, socks and shoes were in and discovered they had not discarded the, um, leavings, but had left it in her underpants. (Thanks very much, by the way.  It’s already a load of fun having to wash these soiled garments, much less have to also discard the lumps of waste you people can’t seem to handle doing while you’re changing my daughter!) Yeah, gross.

So I scrub away the ick on her clothes and set them soaking and turn to the shoes.  One of them is hardly touched at all, maybe an itty bitty speck if anything, so I set that one aside.  I look at the other, and it took the brunt of the accident, but still wasn’t realy that bad – it was all on the outside of the shoe.  So I got out an old toothbrush I use exclusively for cleaning icky things, lathered it up with soap, and scrubbed away.  Then I rinsed off the shoe, and decided now that this one was less dirty looking, that the other shoe may as well get scrubbed, too.  I cleaned it and then set them both outside on the back porch to sit in the sun all day today to dry and air out.

When I get home later today, if they are dry (which they should be, since it is still supposed to get to the mid 90s today), I will inspect them and give them a sniff test, and if they pass, then she’ll be wearing them to school again next week.  If not, then I may have to admit defeat and probably visit a thrift store to get her another pair of cheap shoes until she can grow into the other two brand new pairs that are just sitting and waiting for her feet to fit them.

We picked her up, drove home and dropped off my husband and then went straight to the store for some groceries.  Within a couple of minutes of being there, she started to scratch at her sides, so I checked and sure enough, little patches of hives.  So far, this is the only thing in common with Sunday.  But NOT with Wednesday, as we had been at home all day before she started to break out.

I think next on our list would be to start a process of elmination.  It doesn’t seem to be any foods that I can determine, and the environment has only been the same twice out of the three times.

I think I may start with the laundry detergent.  When I dropped her off at daycare and told them she’d had another breakout after school, they started asking if we’d made any changes recently – clothes, laundry detergent, foods, etc.   Her clothes are the same ones she’s been wearing for at least a month.  There have been no new foods.  The laundry detergent… Well, we use the same BRAND, but previously I had been using the dye & perfume free version, this time we got the scented/color version.  But why, if she’s wearing an item of clothing that was washed in that detergent, would she NOT break out within moments of it being put on? Why wait until the end of the day?

Still, I will go buy another bottle of the dye/perfume free version and wash her clothes in it this weekend and see if that makes any difference.  And just to make sure it isn’t some food issue that, even though she’s been eating the same stuff for quite a while, something didn’t just change in her system and start reacting funny, I will track what she eats, too.

I just don’t want her to end up having to be a benedryl junkie just because she has hives break outs for no apparent reason.