The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

When I think back on the past week, the words that come to mind are the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I'll start with The Good

Kenley is very into make believe and pretending these days. She is almost never herself. Often times she is acting out a character from a show, movie, or book. Other times she is pretending to be different family members. It would be one thing for her to just pretend to be someone else, but she reassigns all of us to be different people as well. If she's Rapunzel, then I'm Mother, Mike is Eugene, and Sophia is Maximus. Her favorite is to pretend to be her 2 month old cousin, Declan. If she's Declan, than I'm Aunt Jessica, Mike is Uncle Matt, and Sophia is Declan's big sister Livia. This gets tricky because she gets frustrated if we address Sophia by her actual name.

Me: Sophia, bring me your cup, please.
Kenley: That's LIVIA!
Me: (sigh) Livia, bring me your cup, please.

...nothing...

Me: Sophia -
Kenley: NO! That's Livia!
Me: Declan, she doesn't understand that! She only knows herself  as Sophia!

Earlier this week she decided to be Mary. She walked around with a blanket on her head caring for her baby Jesus.

She spent a lot of time wrapping Jesus in swaddling clothes,

rocking him, burping him, and laying him down in his manger.

Eventually she decided she wanted to be Jesus and asked me to wrap her up in swaddling clothes,

and lay her in a manger.

I love her imagination!

The Bad started Tuesday night.

The girls were in their pajamas, just about ready for bed when we decided to go check on the vegetables in the garden. We were standing outside talking about the cucumbers and tomatoes while Sophia wandered around peering over the small garden fence, checking things out.

The next thing I know she is screaming out in pain. I look over to find her covered in wasps. I scooped her up, and ran out of the garden and into the house. As I ran across the patio I felt a sharp sting on the palm of my hand, and we got out of there as fast as we could.

Sophia was hysterical when we got inside. She had one bright red sting mark on her forhead, and we found three more on her hand, and one by her ear. My hand was throbbing so I couldn't even imagine what she was feeling.

Mike had a little medicine stick for stings and bites nearby, so we searched her body to treat all of the areas we could find, all the while watching for signs of an allergic reaction. Her hand swelled up pretty quickly, but it had three stings all in close proximity, so we gave her Benedryl and continued to keep a close eye on her breathing and swelling. She seemed to be okay.

Mike later went out and found a nest that she had knocked when she put her hands on the fence. We went on to find dozens more nests all over the yard. We have double sided fencing around a third of an acre. I guess the idea behind this is that there isn't a "bad" side of the fence, no matter which side you are on. This particular type of wasp chews wood to make their nests. The few inches in between the two panels of fencing were the perfect habitat for the wasps. Mike spent hours pulling down one side of the fence, finding multitudes of nests spanning the entire perimeter of the yard.

We now spend time every day checking the yard for nests, and removing them as quickly as we can. The image of my 18 month old being attacked by wasps is not one I will soon forget.

The Ugly is what happened in the days to come.

Sophia woke up a little swollen and red, but seemed to be okay. In fact, her stings didn't seem to be bothering her at all.

My hand was perfectly fine, too. It was the first time I had ever been stung by a bee or a wasp, so I was glad to know we all seemed to escape that nasty allergy.

However, by Wednesday evening my hand started to swell and had a large red splotch around the site of the sting.

I woke up several times that night finding myself scraching my hand in my sleep. By the time morning came, my hand was huge.

Sophia was also much more swollen the next day.

I felt like maybe I was having an allergic reaction, but it happened two days after the sting. I could barely move my hand, so the two of us went to the doctor to see if there was anything that could be done.

She determined that most likely the sting on my hand had gotten infected. My palm was burning up and the red splotch was spreading to the other side of my hand. She prescribed antibiotics and steroids. I spent one miserable day with ice on my hand, trying to relieve the itching, stinging, and swelling. Sophia's stings looked okay, so we bought Children's Claritin so that she could continue to get antihistamines during the day. (Benedryl knocks her out.)  By Friday the swelling had almost completely gone down and my hand had returned to its normal color. It still itches from time to time, but otherwise has completely healed.

We are now very much on guard for wasps and will avoid them like the plague, but I am so thankful that Sophia is okay and didn't react too badly to the attack.

We have one more week of summer before I go back to work. I'm hoping for a week of good!