Veeping and Vailing

I have been wondering how many of my posts contain the phrase "poor Aaron" - out of interest I did a search on the blog but there were so many posts I couldn't count them, and then ended up getting distracted reading about the boys when they were little, and they funny things they did and said and what we got up to on the island.  Started reading out a few descriptions to Nick and the boys while they are here in the lounge having a game of Scrabble on the floor, but got the giggles and no one could understand what I was saying.  So, to save reading them aloud again, I'm going to copy and paste a bit from seven years ago - Caleb at four years old and Aaron having just turned three:

"This evening I did some weeding after supper while the boys sucked water from the hosepipe and spat it at one another. They also did a bit of weeding, which means poking a screwdriver at the weeds until the leaves fall off, then throwing the leaves into the nearby bucket of water. I know you’ll laugh at that because it’s quite a funny description, but in fact it’s rather annoying! Although I am laughing too as I type this. Caleb prayed such a lovely prayer at bedtime tonight, something like “please help us not to do naughty stuff, but you still love us even if we do naughty things.” A lot of the teaching really sticks. Tonight I was telling them how we must do things that God tells us even when it’s difficult, like coming to St Helena was difficult but we did anyway. So Caleb says that sometimes he gets sad because we came here. So I told him that it’s nice being here because his nose doesn’t run anymore, and he and Aaron have this lovely big house to run around in. Caleb’s reply? “We may not run in houses because we’ll bump into the glass doors.” All this while Aaron was sitting on the other side of the table playing with a tape measure…pull it out, let it run back in, pull it out, let it run back in, pull it out…you get it. He is still stuck on the Ark of the Covenant, although we’re into the New Testament now with devotions…his prayers often revolve around the box, and that Jesus mustn’t splash blood on it. What a mixed up theology."

Yay for an extensive family history, neatly contained in a web-log!  

Anyway, here we go again:

Poor Aaron was stung by some sort of insect on Thursday afternoon, accompanied by loud wails and a large volume of tears.  He was certain it was a wasp so I removed the very large sting and applied vinegar (good thing that Bicarb for Bees and Vinegar for Vasps is firmly adhered to the walls of the otherwise void caverns of my mind where regular people store medical knowledge and information), but also googled to confirm and found that a copper penny applied to the sting site will help - no one seems to know why (not in my quick search anyway, which presumably led to the every-man answer; I didn't consult any scientific journals) but the copper reacts with the poison to neutralise it.  People claimed to have had absolutely no symptoms the next day and couldn't even see where the sting was.  Worth a try, I thought, and Aaron happened to have a 10c piece conveniently in his pocket.  He was loathe to let me touch his foot at all though, let alone get near enough to lay a coin down, but a bit of trickery and sneaky doctor timing got it on.  Taped it gently in place with a bandaid, and left it there for the duration of tea.  Half an hour later we took it off and were surprised to see that the coin had gone black in parts.  Obviously something was working, and the immediate swelling was down and redness gone.  The next morning there was no mark at all so all looked good, but his foot swelled...and swelled...and his ankle swelled...I should have given him an antihistamine at the time I guess, along with the coin.  I will write a mental memo and place it carefully next to the Bicarb and Vinegar post-it.  He is fine though, and the swelling is subsiding.

In this same post I can say that Caleb was also stung, two days later, by the same-looking brand of insect.  He was sure it wasn't a wasp though, so we just went straight for the copper coin and Zyrtec.  He barely flinched, didn't cry, and hasn't swollen up.  Such different reactions from the allergic and non-allergic children I have!