Week 32: The 2019 Voting with My Dollar Project
This is my sunflower patch. I planted it on a whim earlier in the summer because I — I mean the Easter Bunny — had given the girls a bunch of assorted sunflower seed packets. It has been a proud experience for me to watch it turn from dirt to delicate little sprouts to full-blown, glorious sun-worshipping flowers.
…along with my edible flower patch, which I planted in a similar moment of whimsy.
…and one of two flower beds directly in front of our house.
I have been very successful in attracting beauty, sunshine, and pollinators to my yard this summer.
This is my daughter, Eliza. She is allergic to bees, it turns out.
Apparently there was a posse of yellowjackets bunkered down in the corner of the yard, where my daughters decided to play with their baby dolls the other day. Suddenly, they were both rushing toward the house, screaming and crying. Both stung several times.
This is the kind of moment where it’s super interesting to have identical twins. While Phoebe was arguably more upset about the bee stings, nearly refusing to eat the popsicle I plied her with, Eliza cheered up quickly and thought it was hilarious when, about ten minutes later, she lost her voice. Then she started coughing. Then, the hives.
“Just to be sure,” I decided to drive “toward” the hospital in case it got worse. That’s how we ended up at the ER in the middle of the afternoon. Where I was told that next time, I should just call 911, and given an epipen to carry with us for the rest of eternity.
I have always called Eliza “my little toughie,” and she has now once again earned that moniker. She might cry wholeheartedly if I don’t correctly guess the color sippie cup she’s in the mood for, or if the ice cream place we chose doesn’t carry the right kind of jimmies, but confront her with a swarm of angry ground bees, and she’s tough.
Not once through this entire ordeal did she become even remotely foul of temper. She was delighted when she lost her voice, stoked on playing with Dad’s iPhone in the ER for an hour, and super chatty and in great spirits at 3am when she woke up because another round of Benadryl had worn off.
Incidentally, never google “how much Benadryl to give my kid” under pressure. You might, like me, inadvertently end up giving your kid a triple dose of Benadryl — three times — and not realize it until a “numbers person” checks your work later.
Also, mud is good for bee stings, apparently:
I welcome any advice about how to deal with a bee allergy in a child! But zero advice about keeping pollinators alive, because these yellowjackets must die.
What I’m eating:
Cucumbers. Full stop.
What I’m reading:
“Hey Moms, If We Could Have Done Better, We Would Have” on Renegade Mothering. Amen.
Also, the book Less, by Andrew Greer
What I’m listening to:
The girls and I have been working on finally memorizing the correct order of verses of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, such a classic.
What I’m working on:
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For Helpshift: To Automate or Not to Automate: The Benefits and Limitations of AI Chatbots (blog post)
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For Helpshift, I recently helped build out this extensive glossary
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For Eventbrite: How to Predict Event Success with a SWOT Analysis (blog post)
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For Eventbrite: Your One-Month Plan: Sell More Tickets in Just 15 Minutes a Day (gated ebook)
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For Box: Perkins + Will — Building an innovative, bespoke architecture experience (customer story)
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For Peltarion: The 7 levels of email purgatory and how to escape them (email teaser for gated white paper)
Aw, SO sorry about the bee stings — and the allergy!
your house!!!
[…] summer, my daughter was stung by a swarm of angry yellowjackets, precipitating a trip to the ER. This week, we finally had our […]