Spots

Last Friday night the kids went to the hot air balloon festival with my parents. By the end of the evening, Logan was exhausted and complaining of a stomach ache. He had spent most of the day in the sun at a water park, so I figured a day in the sun plus a night eating junk food equals tired and ill. He never threw up or anything and felt fine Saturday morning so I didn't give it another thought.

Saturday was very hot and humid. Logan had a baseball game at 9:45am. He complained a little that his legs were itchy, but they only appeared a little red in the areas he had been scratching. I was hurrying around, preparing for Kaylin's birthday day out with her best friend Zoe. We were making brownies and doing some last minute room and car cleaning before picking Zoe up at 10am. I grabbed some lotion for Logan's legs and he felt a bit better. He DEFINITELY wanted to go to his game! Gene and Logan headed off to the ballgame, Kaylin and I left to get Zoe.

Kaylin's original plan was to spend the day at the fair, but it was miserably hot. We headed down to the riverfront farmer's market instead. Kaylin's "lifelong dream" was fulfilled when we were unexpectedly picked up by a "limo golf cart" and driven from our car to the market. Kaylin and Zoe had a wonderful time looking at all the craft tents and were especially interested in the hand made jewelry. They wanted me to buy them matching bracelets, but at $30 a pop I passed. Zoe then had the brilliant idea that we should go to the mall! Not only would it be air conditioned, but Claire's has an entire display of best friends necklaces and bracelets. Whooo Claire's! The girliest girl store ever. A store that's probably been around most of my life, but one I never set foot in until Kaylin was magnetically drawn to the sparkly, shimmery displays of girlyness when she was maybe 2. Ugh.

We bought some cinnamon rolls and cookies at the market, then headed for the mall. The girls were determined to find the perfect best friends necklace as well as matching bracelets. The necklaces they wanted were the ones that look like they're broken in half and one side says "best" and the other "friends." They found a set that stuck together magnetically! That way they could walk with their heads touching and Zoe all hunched over (she's WAY taller than shorty Kaylin) so their necklaces could stick together. Fun. Ok, are we ready? Moooom! We need to find bracelets! (My eyes glaze over and I die of boredom.) The first "perfect bracelets" they found were regular size multicolored dice strung together on an elastic band. They looked like something a crazy old lady would wear with her purple polyester pantsuit on her trip to Vegas. I stifled my laughter. "Fortunately," the only person working at Claire's was piercing someone's ears so we had a long wait to pay. The girls put back the dice bracelets and found some best friends bracelets with charm letters spelling "best" and "friends" instead. By the time they made their final decision, we waited for yet another ear piercing. We were in Claire's well over an hour and were starving. I was hoping for a good restaurant NOT in the mall, but Auntie Anne's Pretzels called to the girls.

We couldn't think of anything else to do so we headed home so the girls could play for a while. Gene and Logan were home from the ball game and Logan seemed fine. We eventually decided to take the dog down to the river and then go to the playground on our way back. Sadie had a great time swimming while the kids looked for shells. We spent a little time at the playground, but there were too many other people for Sadie to be off leash and she wouldn't stop whining so we didn't stay too long. We went back home to cool off and play a little more before taking Zoe home at 4pm.

At 5:30pm, I was trying to get everyone ready and out of the house so we could stop somewhere to eat before Bowling for Rhinos at 6:30. Logan was once again complaining of being itchy. But this time his face was covered in spots. I made him strip down and found his entire body covered in hives. Yikes! Bowling was sort of an obligation for me, so Kaylin and I left for bowling while Gene took Logan to a prompt care doctor. The doc first thought food allergy, but then settled on sun poisoning. That had been my first thought, but Logan didn't have a sun burn. Logan got a cortisone injection and a script for pred. He was told to take Benadryl if his symptoms flared. The injection helped so much that Gene and Logan showed up to bowl! Logan even complained bitterly when we left after the second game (his first.) Yeah. It was 9:30pm and had taken us THREE HOURS to bowl two games! None of the rest of us could handle a third. We (the zookeepers) ended up raising around $1000 for rhino conservation. Not bad for our first year and almost exclusively zoo people!

Back to Logan... He spent the week at camp trying to stay out of the sun as much as possible. That's a tough task when they're outside 90% of the time! We got lucky this week that they went to a movie and bowling one day and their big weekly swimming trip was to an indoor pool. Yesterday was fishing in the morning and the (no shade to be found) fountain in the afternoon. I slathered him in sunblock. By the time we got to camp his legs were covered in red bumps. It looked like he had 1000 mosquito bites! He took a Benadryl and I decided to work as hard as I could, leave work as soon as possible and pick him up as early as possible. Fortunately, I had an intern and we knocked out my cleaning work by 1pm. The only things I had left were making diets and cleaning the kitchen, both things my intern could do on her own. I made arrangements with another keeper to feed and put away my animals at closing and took off to rescue my poor boy from the fountain. I assumed we'd spend the afternoon at the doctor. His legs were fine! The zillion angry welts from a few hours before were GONE! His legs looked normal. What? I took the kids home and plan to keep them home today. Otherwise, I have no idea what to do??? Does he need to go back to the doctor if one Benadryl knocks out the hives and itchiness? Will this go away on its own? Does he need more pred? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! (And yes, I'm TOTALLY wondering if he's reacting to the sunblock!)