Whispering the Hallelujah Chorus

(I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this sooner, but Thursday night I got it into my head to try to give Bee some Zyrtec to see if having a continuous amount of allergy meds in her blood stream would be more effective than something like Benadryl that peaks after two hours and wears off every 4. And then I tried to give her some, and realized why I might have stuffed that idea way down at the bottom of my unconscious, under that dirty, mismatched sock.)

(Bee – she don’t like no pills. No way, no how, uh-UH she is not taking that pill. It has to do with what I affectionately call her alien gag reflex. It took that kid months longer to learn to eat baby food because any sort of texture made her gag. She couldn’t eat spaghetti until she was four. Any time she has a hair in her mouth, I’ve learned to just believe her and give her some water to drink to flush it out. If I don’t believe it, I usually end up washing the throw-up off the floor and giving her water anyways.)

(Pills trigger the same gag reflex it turns out. But! Bee hadn’t tried swallowing one in almost a year and she’s grown up so much this year. So Thursday night I gave her half a Zyrtec and asked her to try. I gave her half a cup of orange soda to do the dirty deed and bribed her with chocolate if she succeeded. After negotiating the number of chocolates, she gagged once, twice, three times and she was done. And most of her orange soda had been spewed all over my kitchen floor. I threw the soggy, slimy pill away, gave her a hug, and cleaned the floor. Then I had a brilliant idea: I could crush the pill! I poured more soda, dumped in the powdered Zyrtec and told her she had to drink the entire thing. A few slurps later…she dropped her glass on the floor I had just washed. Soda was everywhere. “At least the glass didn’t break, Mom!” Gracie piped up. Indeed. And that was the end of the Zyrtec experiment for that night.)

(Friday was a bit of A Morning and so I didn’t mess with it. Saturday morning, I crushed up another Zyrtec, dumped it in some orange soda [I absolutely forbid you from judging me 17 days into Hivesapalooza and after the week I'd had. She had half a cup of soda for breakfast - deal] and fed it to her. She drank the whole thing.)

(Not a single hive all. day. long.)

(She didn’t break out mid-morning when her Benadryl wore off, or that afternoon when she pitched a fit and got overheated, or that evening when she spent two hours outside at her friend’s party, jumping in the bounce house. I did find three teeny tiny stray hives at 7p, so I dosed her with Benadryl before she went to bed because night time is always the worse. She gets hundreds of hives on the side where she’s laying – something about the heat draws them out. But wouldn’t you know – not a single hive popped out all night. I was so happy I almost wept.)

(Sunday came and she stayed hive-free all day again. So I did a quiet little happy dance in my head – where the hives couldn’t see, you understand – and just watched her all day. I made the mistake of not dosing her with Benadryl last night and she had some hivies on her leg when I woke her up for a potty run at midnight. But still – that’s far fewer than she would normally have. I dosed her with Benadryl and sent her back to bed. This morning she had one or two teeny tiny hives and that was it. I gave her some Zyrtec and sent her off to school.)

(I think maybe…possibly…that Bee’s hives might be gone. HOORAY! Now shoooosh – I don’t want the hives to hear from whatever rock they crawled under and come back to the party.)

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Tags: allergies, hives