I think it happens a lot, I am probably over reacting.
It doesn’t help that he is not a huge fan of wearing shoes on a regular basis.
Which is funny cause he loves shoes, he always wants to buy them.
This past weekend, on a Friday afternoon, he got stung by a bee. Again. He was stung the week before on his finger.
We were swimming at my mom’s house, and I was on a lawn chair feeding Baby Sid. Ian left the pool and was walking the grass. I was watching him, he got about four steps in the grass and stopped. While looking at his feet he brought his right foot back and kinda shook it. Then he put it down and started crying.
While this was happening I was calling to my mom, who was in the water, that Ian was getting stung by a bee.
She rushes out of the water and brings him back to sit on a chair while she gets the stinger out and washes the venom off his toe.
The bee stung him inside the big toe on his right foot in the joint between the metatarsal and phalange. My mom put a poultice of baking soda and water on the site of the sting.
On a side note:
Growing up we had a pool, the property behind our house was home to a farmer who also raised honey bees. He thought the far end of his property, next to the cedar trees would be a great place for his bees. Since that area butted up against the back of my mom’s property, we didn’t really agree that it was a great place for bees.
The bees were constantly coming to our pool for water, which meant we got stung all the time. Luckily none of us had any bad reactions to the bee stings. Every time we got stung we would make a poultice of baking soda and water, just like our mom taught us.
Poultices have been used forever as a way to draw out toxins from the body. Making a poultice out of a neutralizing agent also helps draw out the venom from the site of injection. Some claim mud works just as well.
A paste of baking soda and vinegar (mainly apple cider vinegar) can also help with bee stings. This is an endothermic neutralization reaction, it will bubble up some when they are add together. It is said that the vinegar helps with the pain, but I haven’t tried it, so I don’t really know if this is true.
You may have heard to make a poultice with meat tenderizer, supposedly there is an enzyme in the unseasoned meat tenderizer that helps to break down apitoxin.
I suspect the best would be a paste would be made with vinegar and mixture of baking soda and meat tenderizer.
After a while the pain subsided and he was back to his normal self, ready to tackle the yard filled with clover flowers and more bees.
About 12-15 hours later, at 5 o’clock in the morning, he woke up in tears telling me his foot hurt.
Ian: my foot hurts. I got stinged by a bee esterday.
Me: I know honey, do you want some medicine to help the with the pain?
Ian: ok….No mama not my mouf, I need medicine for my foot, not my mouf. My foot still hurts
Me: I know honey, this is medicine we put in our mouth and it makes the pain go away.
Ian: but it still hurts. I needa band-aid
I had given him some Tylenol and he eventually went back to sleep, still thinking he needed medicine on his foot.
When he got up at a more reasonable time his foot was swollen and still hurt. It was red up to his ankle and on the ball of his foot, which was also hot to the touch. He didn’t have a fever, nor did he have any trouble breathing.
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I wish I had a comparison picture for you to see how bad it was.
Since this was a Saturday I called our pediatricians advice nurse. She told me to give him some Benadryl to help with the swelling.
We had a birthday party to go to, so while the Benadryl made him a little slower, the swollen painful foot didn’t stop him. He couldn’t put any pressure on his big toe so he was walking on the outside of his foot and limping around.
After the party we went to my mom’s house for my Aunt’s birthday dinner.
His foot continued to swell and turned from red to a purplish color. His foot was still hot, so the purple color was not from lack of blood circulation. He was also starting to complain about the pain again. He could not bend his toes, they were huge!
He had a bath to soak it and we added another baking soda poultice, thinking it might help draw out more venom.
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My family had me convinced I needed to take him to urgent care, which was now closed.
So I called the advice nurse again.
She told me watch for a fever, if he starts to have trouble breathing, red streaks going up his leg or his face gets swollen. If any of those happen then I need to take him to the ER, otherwise we could wait to see the pediatrician the next day.
The next day was Sunday, so our Dr wasn’t there, but one of his partners were. By the time we got to the Dr office Ian was walking and jumping on his foot. It was still red and swollen, but not as bad as the night before.
What Ian had was a local allergic reaction to the bee venom as opposed to a systemic allergic reaction. This means he is not allergic to bees. If he was allergic to bees he would have had hives, difficulty breathing, or swelling in the face. Any of those symptoms can indicate an allergy.
If he had any streaking up his leg, that would have indicated an infection.
The Dr said it could take a couple of days to a week for his foot to be back to normal. And it would probably start itching.
Since my husband was out of cell service on a fishing trip, he know about it until he got home Sunday night. To which he replies “I used to swell like that when I got stung as kid too.”
Would I have still been panicking the night before if I had know that?
Because, let’s face it, he is half the reason I am here.
I really wanted to post a picture of us, preferably from when I was little, but I don’t have my hard drive hooked up right now. So hopefully I will have some time to later.
But I wanted to take a moment to tell you I love you.
“Dad, I love you”
I would now like to wish my husband a happy father’s day. You have given me these two wonderful boys that have made you a father and me a mother. For that, there are no words to express how thankful I am.
There is no greater sound then when I hear you and Ian laughing at whatever game you are playing.
Ian & Dad just chillin’
I don’t really see the point of buying my husband something for father’s day. It would be different if the kids wanted to get him something, but they are too young still. I do however love the homemade gifts they give.
Typically the kids make something in school, but my boys are not in school yet, so I had to help them.
Have I ever told you how much I love hand print art?
Well, I will tell you now.
“I LOVE hand print art, more than chocolate covered peanut butter.”
Since Ian went on his first fishing trip with his dad recently, I thought it would be perfect. Plus I could add Baby Sid’s hand print as another fish.
Turns out, I should really think these things through before I begin.
Since Ian was ready to paint, I didn’t want him to change his mind, and I quickly painted his hand and put it to canvas.
Ian & Baby Sid’s hands
I had let Ian pick out the color of the fish. Again, should have thought that trough first.
fished product
Since the water was blue, we should have done a contrasting color. And yes, I should have painted the water first, which was the major problem with this picture.
My mom helped me with Baby Sid’s hand print, but I should have waited until he was asleep. Cause his is the one on top and it looks bigger than Ian’s.
I think they looked more like birds then fish.
Ian was very happy with the picture, but the perfectionist in me couldn’t quite enjoy it.
Ian really like making his hand prints, so while I was trying to finish the painting he was making more hand prints.
I decided to use these hand prints and make something else.
Even though the painting didn’t turn out the way I saw it in my mind, Ian gave it to Dad anyway. Ian was very proud of the picture and really liked it. It just won’t be going up on the walls of the living room.
The pacifier, the binky, the mouth plug, the whatever you call it…
As parents we love them and hate them.
We love how they calm our babies down and gets them to stop crying.
We hate how dependent they become to them, how they look blocking that cute little smile, and how it can be a nightmare to wean the baby off them.
This would be such a sweet picture of Ian, with out that binky!
We, as parents, can also become addicted to the pacifier. It is a quick, easy, fail safe way to sooth an upset child.
Some parents are totally opposed to them, some insist their children have one, while some just let the infant decided.
The American Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that pacifiers, among other steps, might help to reduce the instances in SIDS for babies who are more vulnerable to it. They recommend introducing it only after the first month if baby is breast-feeding and for no longer then 12 months. They also say not to force your child to take one; my nephew would have nothing to do with one.
When I was pregnant with Ian, I had decided I would not force the issue one way or the other.
Ian was four weeks early and had a hard time nursing. He wouldn’t/couldn’t latch on. But he wanted to suckle on something so I had asked one nurse for a pacifier. She flat-out refused me. She told me it would only make things worse for him and eating. (She was also not very nice about our issues breast-feeding) So I waited until shift change and asked the new nurse.
She brought Ian one of the Soothie pacifiers that they give out at most hospitals. It is designed more like a bottle nipple and made out of one piece of silicon.
For about a week I had to pump and then feed Ian with a syringe, tube and a finger in his mouth. This is not really doable with one person. So instead of a finger I would have him suck on his pacifier, while I plunged the syringe releasing milk in his mouth. It was these two actions together that helped him figure out how to suckle to get milk.
However, Ian became increasingly dependent on the pacifier to calm him and to help him to sleep.
I became more dependent on it so he wouldn’t cry in public.
I figured I would wean him off the pacifier around two-years old. But we had a lot of new things happening to him, we made a trip out to the east coast, he was getting a sibling, his dad was working out-of-town, he was changing to a toddler bed and getting potty trained. So I figured I could let him keep his binky.
Ian and Baby Sid. Both with a binky…
I decided to wait till he turned three. I am not sure why we are dependent on some kind of mile-stone to in order to make this type of change. But that was the one I chose.
When he was approaching his third birthday we discussed what would be different about this age. One of the things I told him was that he wouldn’t get his binky anymore. I should note that after the age of two I didn’t really let him have it unless it involved sleeping or sickness.
I decided that we would go to Build a Bear and he could pick out a stuffed animal. He would then have to say good-bye to the binky and place it in the stuffed animal. That way he would always have it, just not in his mouth.
Shortly after his birthday we were going to the mall for Easter Bunny pictures and he decided that he was ready to trade his binky for a stuffed animal.
He decided on a penguin, he loves penguins, from the movie Happy Feet. It has a bow tie on that lights up.
The employee had him give his binky a kiss, say good-bye to it and place it the penguin.
It was great that she had him put it there, so it didn’t appear to him that she was taking it away.
He went to sleep the first night without any issues, but he wanted his binky when he woke up. He was pretty upset when he couldn’t get it out of the penguin. When he was more awake, he didn’t find it quite so upsetting.
I would give him his penguin and explain again how his binky is inside it, because he was a big boy and didn’t need it in his mouth anymore.
He has only asked for it a couple of times since. I thought it would be an issue because his brother now uses one, but he understands that Baby Sid is a baby and that is why he gets one. Although, Ian does like to take it away from Baby Sid when he wakes up. Ian says “Baby Sid not need dis, he awake now” and then puts it in the baby crib.
I have decided that I will take away Sid’s around his first birthday. By that time he no longer needs it to learn to suckle and needs to learn to sooth himself with out it. Plus I feel he is too young to put up a protest about it.
Baby Sid’s first Halloween, with a binky
I also think it will be easier on Sid because he doesn’t really depend on it like Ian did. In fact when he was younger he didn’t really like it. I am also trying to limit the amount of time he has it.
There is a book written by Melissa Burnett called The Paci Fairy. It is a story book designed to help wean your child off the pacifier with some tips to help you. On her website you can download a form for your child to write a letter to the Paci Fairy. I have not read this book, but I do know someone who has used it.
Whatever your feelings are about the pacifier, make the choices that are right for you and your family.
I Tri and Craft 