Hives

I've discovered that taking pictures has helped considerably in my mental capacity. Over a two week span I really didn't take any pictures other than the one day when Hunter woke up with hives. Other than that I can't for the life of me remember anything that happened. (I must have been abducted by aliens!)

Hunter woke up complaining that his feet were itchy. I looked at them and noticed they were red and swollen with what looked like little bug bites all over. We put anti-itch cream all over his feet and then stripped his sheets to wash them. I figured he must have somehow gotten bugs in his bed.

That night when he took all of his clothes off I realized that he had horrible welts and redness all over the bottom half of him. His fanny was the worst, and I could tell at that point...they weren't bug bites. We opted not to take him to minor injury and be up until 11pm. I called the phone line, but since school is starting all of the appointments were taken. I sent an urgent message to the doctor that he needed to be seen. I gave him a generic version of benadryl for the itching, covered the red parts with hydrocortisone cream and sent him to bed.

The next morning first thing I checked his bottom. It looked significantly better, so I figured that the benadryl worked and almost called to tell the doctor, "never mind". Hunter came back shortly thereafter and complained of itching again, so I looked at his back. The night before the redness was isolated to the lower half of him. This morning his back and chest were covered with similar welts and redness. I had him strip down to see what I was dealing with. His entire body was covered with blotchy welts and redness all over. Since the cream and the benadryl seemed to work in significantly improving his fanny, I first took pictures to make sure that I had something concrete to show the doctor and then covered him in the hydrocortizone cream and gave him more benadryl.

The doctor diagnosed him with hives. We're not sure why. He said there are hundreds of reasons why people break out in hives. I wonder if it wasn't the tunafish sandwiches.

I took the kids to the pharmacy to get more benadryl. Anytime I go anywhere now it feels rather like a three ring circus. While I was waiting in line Garrett was crying because he wanted to be held, I was trying to steer the double stroller one handed and the other three were playing Limbo with the retractable ropes. Elle was short enough (even with her hair) that she could walk right under the ropes, but she bent over anyway to play fair.

That same afternoon I had my six week postpartum appointment so I just stayed and let the kids play in the courtyard for a while. I had inadvertently left my phone at home so I couldn't call my neighbor who was going to watch them to tell her that I had taken the whole crew with me for Hunter's earlier appointment. I didn't want to dump the other two on her (especially one who's potty training) for the entire afternoon.

The children each got an "arm sticker" (i.e. temporary tatoos) at Hunter's appointment. Michael doesn't like pretend tatoos because he doesn't want to encourage real ones, so we call them arm stickers. There was another little girl, about 2 years old, in the courtyard with her father. Hunter went up to her and said, "Hey, you wanna see my tatoo?" Great. That's just what a father wants to hear some random boy say to his daughter.

They all played a rousing game of tag and then I gave them the trail mix snacks I had brought.

Since I didn't have my phone/clock we showed up 20 minutes early for my appointment. The appointment time came and went. Twenty minutes after I was supposed to have been seen the children were all but swinging from the ceiling from the boredom. I locked Elle down into the stroller after a screaming match with herself and several dirty looks from the nurse behind the counter. In protest she got a hold of a magazine and threw it across the room and hit some lady. Have I really become a terror?

Forty minutes and four children were my limit. I got up and left. I didn't really want them with me anyway. Besides, the scheduled the appointment for 6 weeks after my due date, not 6 weeks after delivery. I'll reschedule. If I stayed much longer I'd probably break out in hives myself.