Today, I was one of THOSE moms...

Austin woke up this morning with what looked like several mosquito bites on his right cheek.  I put some hydrocortizone on them and didn't think much of it since we have seen a lot of those little buggars around here lately.  Over the course of the morning, though, more "mosquito bites" started to appear and on several different parts of his body.  By noon, the entire left side of his face was red and swollen and I began to freak out.

He wasn't acting like anything was bothering him so I put in an emergency call to the pediatrician's office hoping to talk to a nurse.  Of course it was lunch time and they said they'd have to have someone call me back in a few minutes.  I waited about 3 minutes, took one last look at the red swollen spots on Austin's face, packed him in the car and headed down the road anyway.

We got to our doctor's office at 12:30, which is when they close for lunch, but the doors were open and a receptionist was at her desk.  I barged in scared and frazzled with my red, swollen baby in tow and the wonderful, wonderful people at Parkside were more than happy to help this terrified mom.  Of course all the medical staff were in a meeting, but the receptionist found Dr. M and told him the situation.  As long as Austin wasn't having trouble breathing, he said, I shouldn't be too worried and even though his next appointment wasn't until 2:30 that afternoon, he'd take a few minutes before he started back on his rounds to see us.  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE our pediatrician???

A few minutes later we were back in the exam room and as I took off Austin's shirt I noticed several more patches of these red, swollen bumps had popped up.  Dr. M was in shortly and those bumps finally got a name....hives!  Ok, so nothing terribly serious and certainly nothing which warranted our kind doctor giving up part of his lunch break to diagnose, but I swear those things were really really scary looking!!!

We don't know what's causing the hives, either something he ate, a virus or even a bug bite maybe....but for the 3rd time in the past 2 weeks we were back at CVS picking up a prescription....the only 3 prescriptions he's ever needed and all within days of each other!

So, we made it 18 months without anything more than a runny nose and all of a sudden wham, bam, ear infections and hives!  Maybe when these things clear up, however, we'll have another 18 months of wellness ahead of us.  We can only hope!

With that, I leave you with a sweet, sweet sight.  My precious little boy, infected ears, hives and all, but still sleeping peacefully in his crib.  And in case you're wondering, still totally loving the video monitor!!