I've been to urgent care twice and the ER once in the past week with my family. Nobody died (though Beloved's going to have a scar), but after a long stretch of no doctors, we were due.
Yesterday morning the little angel woke up clawing at her neck, which was fiery red and covered with bumps. I immediately thought she'd gotten into poison ivy down at the lake. Hydrocortizone didn't work, so I reached for the only thing that saved me from insanity when I had chiggar bites last time -- baking soda.
As we drove to the pediatrician's office for early morning walk-in hours, she complained only slightly as large clumps of baking soda fell off her neck onto her clothes.
The examination room was decorated like an ocean, just like my girl's room. There were metal crabs hanging from the walls, just like hers. I wondered where they shopped. I liked the seahorse.
The pediatrician told us it wasn't poison ivy, just some sort of bug bite -- or rather, about 35 of some sort of bug bite. Just on her neck. Totally weird. What kind of bug? Did it really matter? No.
So she prescribed some steroid cream to put on it and recommended Benadryl or Zyrtec -- which I totally could've given my girl when I first noticed the bumps on Sunday. Could've spared her a day of frantic itching.
Now, I realize this doesn't make me a bad mother. I'm not beating myself up over forgetting Benadryl. But sometimes I wonder where my common sense went. Did it get stuffed down under Internet Volume or Job Stress or Why Haven't I Heard From Those Agents Yet Worries? Is it hiding under my swimming suit? Did I sell it at the garage sale last weekend?
Why didn't I think of this completely obvious solution myself? Damn.
Speaking of novels, I was totally jealous of Jane Austen when I read my last BlogHer Book Club selection, A Jane Austen Education. Review (and jealousy explanation) here.