So much for being the “healfiest.”

If you are a parent of two little kidlets, you understand that everything – everything – is a competition. Who can eat faster. Who gets to brush her teeth first. Who gets to stand closest to the door when you’re trying to go somewhere. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, there is always a winner and a loser. In between all the whining and yelling, I try to explain to whoever’s crying this time that me – I - am the loser when the situation degenerates to this point. But usually all I get in response is a sobbing, “What is ‘degenerate’? Mom, it’s not even FAIR. You don’t even UNDERSTAND.”

Straying back a little closer to my point…one of our frequent topics of competitive conversation is who is healthy and who is not. I frequently have to remind Gracie (in front of her sister, of course, because Thing 1 and Thing 2 can’t compete if they’re more than 2 feet away from each other) to take her medicine. Gracie has a preventative inhaler that she takes each night, an allergy pill she takes in the mornings, and frequently she has to put cortisone cream on an eczema breakout or use her nasal spray to tackle the tough allergy times. I have my own medicine regime and spurts of illness, so Bee, predictably, frequently feels left out of the loop.

“It’s not fair, Mommy. How come Gracie gets to take medicine? I need some medicine, too,” she’ll whine. And so I have come up with my own antidote. “That’s because you’re the healthiest, Bee. Gracie has to take medicine, Mommy has to take medicine, but not you!” Okay, so maybe I’m playing a wee bit into their competitive modes, but no one said motherhood wasn’t a dirty war. She would proudly declare herself the “healfiest” and crises were (mostly) averted.

Until Thursday night. Thursday night, my “healfy” child, my daughter who only got the sniffles if she was also coughing and spurting a fever, decided she would become incredibly super hyper-allergic all at once. At least, that’s what I think happened. I sent her outside to clean the windows that she and Gracie had muddied. I even let her have Windex because the windows were dirty enough that water just wasn’t going to cut it. I kept an eye on her and all was fine. 20 minutes later Bee came in for dinner, washed up, and all was well. At first.

At 10pm, before I went to bed, I walked Bee into the bathroom per our routine. Bee usually will scratch and itch casually if she’s mostly asleep, so I didn’t think anything of the fact that she was itching her hips pretty good. But I certainly remembered it at midnight when I brought her to the bathroom and she complained of lumps on her bottom. I turned the bathroom light on and saw she was covered in hives. Giant ones. Millions of them all over her bottom and thighs. I gave her Benadryl and sent her back to bed.

The next morning, her hives were no better. In fact, they had spread down one arm. I souped her up with more Benadryl and sent her to school, making sure to explain to the director what was going on so none of the staff would freak. Yeah, that plan didn’t work too well. At lunch, no one had told the teacher who relieved her regular teacher for lunch and she sent Bee to the office. The assistant director called because Bee’s face was swollen. Thankfully, it wasn’t anaphylaxis, but that didn’t keep me from freaking out when I picked her up that afternoon. Her hives had merged into giant welts that can only be described as sleeves. One hive covered her arm from her shoulder down past her elbow. One hive. She had similar welts on her thighs, back, stomach… they would calm down and go away with cold, wet compresses, only to come back hours later. It was cyclic. And really, really gross.

The doctor’s office ordered me to give her a double-dose of Benadryl every 4 hours for the entire weekend. No more going outside (in case the onslaught of spring pollen was the trigger). No getting overheated. No itching. And if her face got swollen again, we were to head straight to the ER.

Thankfully, we never had to find out how long the ER wait would have been. The Benadryl seemed to calm them down and the hives never got sleeve-y again, but they never went away, either. Saturday, the hives waited until afternoon to come back. Sunday, they would disappear in between Benadryl doses only to reappear the closer we got to the 4-hour re-dosage mark. And the hives like to come back out on whatever surface Bee sleeps on – hand, arm, her side, her face… they certainly like the heat.

So. Another call to the doctor is in order for today. We’re on Day 4 of constant Benadryl patrol and I don’t think this is a good plan to continue for all of spring. Either we need a new plan, or Bee just needs to get “healfy” again. Hey, maybe if I pointed out that Gracie wasn’t hivey at all, little miss Bee could will her itchies away. Heh.

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