Reactions

Between our children's sensitivity to lotions, creams, soaps, detergents, and fabrics, their food allergies and crazy reactions to both hot and cold weather, neither of them have ever had what people refer to as baby-soft skin. Both of them have some sort of eczema patch, rough bumps, rash or scaly thing somewhere on their bodies at all times. We have pretty much given up on determining the culprit behind these things - you can play the "what did he/she eat/do/wear" game all day and never really figure out the source behind the rash or gross rough patch.

So when the daycare called on Wednesday to ask about a rash that Elise had on her back, arm pits and buttocks, we were both fairly nonchalant about it. It is no exaggeration that Elise almost always has a rash. What's new, Lady? But the more we thought about it, we realized that she has never had a rash so big and gross looking that the daycare actually called to find out if we'd had it diagnosed (and to make sure the other kids weren't going to get it). And she's had a lot of big, gross looking rashes. We thought long and hard about what could possibly have caused a rash so terrible (since we are relatively careful about staying away from foods that give her bad reactions) when we realized that she was just coming to the end of her bought of antibiotics from her ear infection. Marty is allergic to penicillin (and Elise is allergic to so much of her own stuff) that it wouldn't be out of the question that she'd have a reaction to the the anti-biotic.

We took her into the doctor who told us that it did appear that her very big, angry, disgusting rash, was in fact a reaction to the amoxicillian, but she labeled it as a "medicinal"reaction, not an allergic reaction. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that it is completely safe for us to give her antibiotics when she needs them but we should just expect that she will always get this big gross rash on her back, butt and arm pits. She's gonna love that when she's 13! Lucky kid! Let's just hope she stays healthy.

Speaking of reactions, Lucas has a new favorite word of the week: "Uh-oh!" This usually comes right after he has thrown something on the ground, usually from his high chair although it's certainly not limited to that. He also enjoys pushing things onto the floor that were on coffee tables, pulling things out of other people's hands and throwing it onto the floor, pulling things out of drawers, and even getting the step stool, moving it to the nearest kitchen counter and pulling down anything his hands can find. Uh-oh is right! He was into this action-reaction phase several months ago, but the addition of a word to go with it seems to have breathed new life into the "throw stuff on the floor" game. Lucky us!