Josiah, the Ruin-er

Josiah has this pesky habit of ruining special days with his medical needs. It goes back to the day of his birth with that pesky heart defect he decided to be born with :). What should have been a really happy, joy-filled day ended up being stress-filled and terrifying.

Today he decided that he didn't like that Nia was getting all the attention, you know, with it being her preschool graduation and all, and so he picked today to pull another one of his "medically needy" stunts. We had a nice leisurely morning planned. I had picked out nice matchy-matchy clothes for the boys, Nick was going to be wearing a tie, Nia was going to have her hair braided into a crown... it was all planned out. Being the diligent mother I am, I fixed a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs (with bacon and cheese), toast, apple juice and watermelon. We ALL sat down together and commenced eating at the same time-- a rare event these days. Josiah LOVED the scrambled eggs, so much so that I made everyone at the table give him a "tithe" of their eggs so I didn't have to make more. It was a happy time but then Josiah started wigging out. He was fussing, and rubbing his eyes and being all unhappy. It was clear he wasn't comfortable, but we didn't know what the problem was. It became very apparent about 2 minutes later when his face all of a sudden broke out in dozens of bright red hives.

I have never had a child with a true food allergy (Nia was sensitive to dairy, but it didn't cause any real "danger") so this began to freak me out a little. I ran to get the Benedryl and guessed at a dose (since they do you the disservice of not telling you what it is for a baby on the back of the bottle and I was too panicked to go look it up online). I didn't know whether to take him to the ER or just to his doctor-- so I called the dr. on my cell and they agreed to see him right away. We're literally 2 minutes from his doctor, so I was glad once we got there, even though I had walked out the door in such a hurry that I forgot my wallet and therefore without my insurance card or money to pay my copay.

Short story is, yes, he most likely has an egg allergy. He has to see an allergist to be tested to determine the degree to which he is allergic. The Benedryl worked and he's back to normal now. I got out of the doctor's office in time to get to graduation, but literally had 5 minutes to wash my hair and change my clothes. (I hadn't showered in like 3 days and knew I couldn't go without at least washing my greasy jungle hair.) Clothes were strewn all over my room by the time I picked something out to wear-- my hair was soaking wet and so, you know, REALLY beautiful. Nia never got her crown braid. Josiah never ended up getting any shoes on. Nico never ended up getting his good attitude on, so he was miserable. We forgot the teacher's gifts and Nick had to go back home for that later on. But we got there on time.

So much for a leisurely morning. Thanks Josiah. :)