Tuesday, May 29, 2007

A house and a rash

We took a family drive on Sunday along the Mississippi to visit little river towns and Laura Ingalls Wilder's birth site. This log cabin was built on land previously owned by Charles and Caroline Ingalls. The site is very low key, it is just along the road and marked with a sign describing the site.



We made a few other stops, including one at Lark Toys in Kellogg, Minnesota. They have a beautiful, new, hand carved carousel. The animals are gorgeous and all are so different and unique. This photo does not do it justice.



Lark toys is full of all sorts of toys to purchase as well as vintage ones to look at. It was quite a trip down memory lane. There was even a children's bookshop. The books there were not shelved in the ordinary way but were all arranged facing out. This definitely decreased the number of different books they had, but increased their appeal immensely. I think I am always more likely to pick up a children's book (well, really any book!) if the cover art appeals to me.

Sunday afternoon we brought dinner over to some friends who had just moved. I made Ina Garten's Lemon Grilled Chicken and Szechwan Noodle Salad both from The Barefoot Contessa, a little salad of arugula, and chocolate chip cookies. They were so glad to have a home cooked meal and we proceeded to eat along with their one year old boy. I asked our friends if their son had eaten peanuts before as there is peanut butter in the noodle sauce and they said he had. Not long after, we noticed he had a rash all over his chest, chin and hands where he had handled the noodles and wiped the sauce on himself. The rash turned into white welts, literally within seconds. It was so frightening, and I felt horrible! His parents immediately put him into the tub and we gave him some Benadryl and within about 1/2 hour the welts were completely gone and the red rash was mostly gone too. What a relief! I know peanut allergies are very serious but I had never seen one in person, or a rash develop so quickly.

My in-laws are coming today for a few days and the computer is in the room where they will be staying. I am sure you see where I am going with this. I will be back later this week, most certainly with a review of The Shuttle which I am nearly finished with. I just cannot wait to find out how it all ends.

4 comments:

Cornflower said...

Rash apart, what a lovely trip that sounds.
I'm looking forward to reading your review of The Shuttle!

Iliana said...

Lark Toys sounds like so much fun. And, I'm surprised the log cabin site is low key. I would think that would be such a big thing. Anyway, glad to hear the little boy's rash went away. Scary!

Jill ONeill said...

Well, sneak a few pages of The Shuttle in to soothe you each night and you can write about it when the house has calmed down.

Tara said...

Karen, it was lovely. I love exploring places like this and hopefully it will get easier as my daughter gets older.

Bookgirl, Lark Toys was fun - I could have spent more time there. My husband actually couldn't believe it when I said "There it is!" in regards to the cabin.. He was expecting a big touristy site. It is nice that it's not like that though, you can just be silent and listen to the sounds as I'm sure the Ingalls family did.

Jill, I was able to do that and it was such a relief at the end of the day!