There's Only One Guarantee with Children

And that guarantee is....?

That they give you HEART ATTACKS at every turn!!!

It was Lexi's turn this time. My SIL came over this morning and took the 3 youngest to the beach. They've been wanting to go for a long time now, and she'd taken Chloe out for her birthday last week, but the weather was downright shitty.

So she took them out to Mickey D's and to the beach since it was such a nice day today (almost no clouds, warm... not your typical English weather, that's for sure!). They weren't gone very long (darn! ) but they were in a really good mood when they came back.

They'd gone out to the back garden to play for a while, and then Lexi came in and asked me if she could take her jeans off. Off?? I couldn't understand why, until she said that her legs were itchy and the jeans were making them worse.

So she pulls them down a bit to show me, and I saw a couple of welts that looked like she'd been bitten by something. Then, suddenly, the jeans fall all the way down to her ankles, and I see that both legs are entirely covered in red patches and these white welts. I was absolutely shocked.

But she didn't seem all that bothered by it - aside from the itching - so I didn't think TOO much of it.

A little while later, both her and Chloe decide to come back in, and sat down on the couch next to me.

They promptly fell asleep.

They weren't asleep long, and when Lexi woke up, she started scratching her arm. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and turned to look. The rash had spread to her arms!!!!

I ran and got their dad, and had him look. The only words out of his mouth were "take her to the hospital." (Man, it's a good thing we're only a 15 minute walk from the hospital!) So I did.

Come to find out, it was nothing but an allergic reaction. The first thing the nurse said when she looked at Lexi was that that's what it looked like. They gave her an antihistamine right away and sent us to the waiting area to wait for the doctor. It was an absolute madhouse in there, so it took quite a while for her to be seen. But about an hour later, I thought to look at her arms and legs to see how they were doing.

The rash was gone!!!

So I asked her what she touched while she was out with her aunt. Did she touch any plants or flowers? No. Well, what did she touch when she was at the beach? "Big rocks and this prickly thing." Prickly thing? What did it look like? "A crab."

AHA!!!

Turns out it was a crab leg (according to my 9 year old). And a LOT of people have allergies to shellfish, which a crab is.

PHEW!

We waited to see the doctor, because even though the rash was cleared up by the antihistamine, I wasn't sure if the doctor would want her to have some more or not, or if there were any other things I needed to look out for.

I needn't have worried. The doctor said that if she ever had another reaction like that, I could give her any over-the-counter antihistamine, but that she should try to avoid touching whatever it was she did touch ever again, because the reaction could be worse.

I swear, kids should come with a warning label. Warning: this child will give you a head full of grey hair - if you have any left - by the time they're 5 years old.