Excitement

 

 

Two exciting tidbits from yesterday.  One awesome, and one not so good.

 

As I was entering Turbotville yesterday, sailing along while listening to the newly released Selah album (oh my goodness-- if you love hymns, you have to get it!), I saw Jason passing me in the truck going the opposite direction.  Right about then the phone rang, and it was Jason, telling me that he was on the way to the ER with Joshua.  My heart nearly stopped.  Apparently Josh had been playing in the neighbor's yard when something bit him on his finger, and by the time Jason saw it, the finger had swollen to twice the size it should have been.  With any other child, we'd have probably put ice on it and kept an eye on him.  But with an anaphylactic reaction history, Jason did what he thought was best, which was to get him in the direction of care as quickly as possible in case things got worse.  I told him I would gather up the girls and be right behind him.  I thought I would call our pediatirician just for some advice, though.  They recommended, since he was having no other issues with breathing or other systems being impacted, to give him a good dose of Benadryl and to watch him for a while to see if the swelling got worse or better.  Since Jason was closer to Turbotville than to Lewisburg, he turned around and brought Josh back to the house for Benadryl.  Thankfully, nothing new developed, and with some ice the swelling in his fnger went down as the evening progressed.  I will admit to getting up to check on him about 19 million times through the night, but you have to do what you have to do.  We have no idea what bit him- a spider, a bee- no clue.  But we could have done without the excitement.

 

I had told him that if he was feeling strange at all after the Benadryl that he needed to tell me.  God bless his heart, Joshua is about as analytical as they come, so all we were doing while I was making supper was analyzing everything he was feeling in his body.  "Mommy, I can feel my heart beating.  I don't think it's going faster than it should, but do you?"  "Mommy, my throat feels a little dry.  Do you think that's the bite or do you just think I'm thirsty?"  After about a half hour of this, all through our supper, I decided we needed a distraction.  So out into the yard we went.

 

My goal for the summer was to help Joshua learn to ride a bike without training wheels on it.  I don't know whether we are behind or ahead of the curve on this, but it just seemed to me like it was time.  Josh seemed to be most comfortable working on it on his own, so he has been, for the past few days, working at getting going on his own without any help from us.  He was so proud to show me that he has mastered it, and made several trips around our neighborhood last evening without any wrecks.  I was so proud of him, but even better, he was so proud of himself!

 

I still owe everyone a great big post with a million and twelve pictures from our weekend in Poe Valley.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  But given my recent track record, I'm not so sure I'd hold your breath.  I try.  I really do.