Just falling from my head...

Today while serving breakfast which involves a lot of back and forth between the kids and the pan of steel cut oats, I noticed that Dallas' face looked pretty red. Doug was working from home and standing a the counter on his computer and I asked him to check Dallas out too. His cheeks were red, the bridge of his nose was red, his neck was red too. There was no way he could have ingested any allergens yet since he had only eaten some freeze dried peas, a common snack here and his steel cut oats with raisins, coconut oil and OJ and we eat this all the time. We took off his clothes to see if maybe he was reacting to a spider bite or something and his arms were red and so were his legs and the trunk of his body was splotchy red. I was very concerned.

I haven't ever turned red like that but have had hives before but for me it has always been accompanied with difficulty breathing. I have gotten hives as a reaction to antibiotics. Dallas had no signs that he was having any trouble breathing. Doug has had hives that have turned his body red before due to stress. He said it looked just like what Dallas had. For Doug, he was taken to the emergency room and they gave him epinephrine and Benadryl. In my case just Benadryl. We don't use medications very often but I do keep Benadryl in the cupboard because once you have your throat start to close up on you, you will not want to be without the antidote for it. I go to find the Benadryl and it turns out we have a bottle of hard tablets and a bottle of liquid that expired in May of 2002, both only for adults. We decide to get the kids ready to go to the store, we would buy and give him some Benadryl and if he didn't turn back to normal we would go to the hospital.

I had stop getting the kids ready to nurse Warren and I got the idea to pump some milk for Dallas and see if that helped. I pumped almost two ounces and put it in a sippy cup for Dallas. He was happy to drink it down and within two minutes the redness in his face and the trunk of his body started to fade. By the time we were able to get everyone in the car his arms and legs were also back to normal color. I wish I knew what caused it and if it was the breast milk that cured him or if it was coincidence. I feel like I helped him either way and I'm so glad he's ok. I do wish I knew what caused it. He didn't sleep well the night before so that could have been it I suppose.

Today was the last day of a three day weekend for Doug. Warren is just over three weeks now and we finally heard from Doug's parents. They live in Bothell, just over an hour away. They didn't want to make plans to see him but talked to Doug about Linux. I am at peace with it. My kids can learn how grandparents are usually more interested by hanging out with friends who have involved grandparents. They got to see a fine example of what a grandma is like on Friday when we met Victoria and her mother-in-law Irene for a trip to the Seattle Childrens Museum.

I'm grateful for:
✿ Having reptiles, life wouldn't be complete without them
✿ Car carts at grocery stores - how lucky are kids these days
✿ Skagit Valley Food Co-op's cloth diaper section. If I still lived in Lynnwood I wouldn't know where to go but Bellevue to buy a Snappie when I misplaced the only one I hard or buy a daiper cover when it turns out all the smalls I had are missing
✿ Costco having a growing selection of gluten/dairy/soy free snacks. Today there was a bag of jalapeño chips for Doug and a bag of Veggie Crisps for the kids and I
✿ Freddy Land - The playland at Fred Meyer. Robin has such a good time playing there and the attendant always puts on Mary Poppins per his request. When we got there today A Bugs Life was playing. He said to me "Mama, this is a bad movie and it's scary so she will turn on Mary Poppins for me and I will be happy." I don't remember A Bugs Life being scary but I have not watched it since having kids to try and see it from their perspective. He was right though, as soon as he was in, she changed the movie for him.