Saturday, January 03, 2009

itchy and scratchy

Well, it appears that y'all cannot wait to hear about the hives my baby decided to get last week, so I'll indulge you with the whole, fabulous story. It's a doozie. (Warning: this story will probably only be even mildly interesting to other mamas - so don't feel compelled to read any further if you don't really want a dull story about my kid's skin).

Hazel, Mark and I went to my parents' house on Friday (the day after Christmas). My brother and sister-in-law joined us on Saturday and we had a lovely family Christmas celebration together. Mark headed home on Sunday, but Hazel and I had planned to stay until Wednesday (sounds like she and I sat down together and talked about it).

My dad has magical, boring, put-baby-to-sleep arms - so he does a lot of the putting-the-nut-down-for-naptime when we visit, because she hardly cries at all and it gives me a bit of a break. She was snuggled in for a nap on Sunday afternoon when she woke up a bit prematurely - and very sweaty (and unhappy about it). She'd been wearing a cute little fleecey outfit and had a heavier than normal blanket on, so it wasn't weird or anything... but I was trying to cool her off and make her feel better when I noticed a couple of hives on her face (on the side where she had been sleeping). Closer inspection revealed hives on her arms and shoulders... angry, warm, red itchy bumps. Poor baby. I did what any good mama would do... I got on Google and tried to figure out if I should be worried or not! (The answer is no - not unless your baby/child is having trouble breathing as well).

A dose of Tylenol quickly cleared them up, and she went back to being her usual happy self... but for the rest of our time at Nana & Papa's house, they'd flare back up again... usually when she'd been sleeping. We're still not really sure what was causing them - we ruled out food allergies, although there's a chance she's developed some kind of sensitivity to my sister's cat (which would be terribly sad, since he's awfully cute and doesn't like being cooped up away from people). Really - (according to Wise Old Google) most of the time no one knows why kids get hives. It could have just been a virus and hives were the only symptom, and they flared up when she was warm/sleepy. The baby Tylenol kept clearing them up, and she usually didn't seem too bothered by them (except at nighttime when they kept her - and me, by extension - from sleeping very well).

She hasn't had any since Wednesday, and I've been getting great joy out of looking at her beautiful, smooth, hive-free baby skin since then.

Thanks for reading - I'll come up with another doozie of a story about my life soon! :)

4 thoughts:

Phoenix Rising said...

crazy. But glad to hear she's back to the same ol' Haz. Hope to see ya tonight at Riv.

Julie said...

Huh, Jamie had hives or a rash like thingy last week too. His first time. So weird. Glad Hazel is doing all right!

Kaycee said...

Glad to hear it was not a major problem and Hazel's okay! Too bad you couldn't figure it out so it won't happen again - but that seems to happen often with babies doesn't it? We are currently trying to figure out why Madison won't sleep!

his wife, their mama said...

Aren't wee ones just amazing?! I am glad to hear that she is just fine and hope that the cat wasn't the cause of her hives. I chuckled when I read you googled hives because I do that same thing, especially when we're out of town! Sometimes I feel like we keep google up and running ourselves! Oh, glad that you're back to your blog, too, things were getting a little dull around here!