Tummy Aches, Ant Bites and Self-Removal of Diapers

Saturday morning was quite a morning! Brannon had to be at his office by 8 am, so it was just the girls and I! Bella was very restless all night Friday night as she slept (or attempted to sleep). I couldn't figure out what might be wrong with her - until she threw up in my bed! Luckily, it wasn't that bad and didn't even hit the bed (although the sheets got washed anyway)!! That got us out of bed for the day! I went in to get Brooklyn out of bed and when I put her on the changing table to change her diaper, she didn't have one on!!! I asked her where her diaper was and she started giggling and pointing to the diaper on the floor!! She had not only taken off her own diaper but had launched it across the room and of course, peed all in her bed! So I washed everything from her sheet to her bedskirt (thank goodness for mattress covers that protect the mattress)!!! I guess we'll be limiting her wearing of nightgowns and be sure to keep some pants on her!!!!

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I assumed we were gearing up for a stomach virus to rip through our house. Bella got sick two more times before 9 am (the last time being in the truck)!! And she kept saying "I don't feel so good, my tummy hurts"! Poor thing. We had to go to town to get the oil changed in my truck and pick up some ginger-ale and crackers! She finally ate some crackers that afternoon and has been ok since!! We think what caused Bella to be sick were ant bites!!! We were at Nana and Pop's on Saturday night and Bella started showing us all her boo-boos and we noticed she had 5 on one foot, 3 on the other and one on her hand (or something like that - she had a lot!). She only weighs about 25 pounds - so that's alot of ant bites for such a little girl!!!

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She is fine now and did fine at school yesterday! And so far, so no more self-removal of diapers for Miss Brooklyn!!!

Another Outbreak...

Poor Bella - she's going to have to deal with this her whole life I guess. When she had her first outbreak at 5 months, the pediatriac dermatologist we saw had hoped that since it was such a bad outbreak - she might not get it again or that she might outgrow it. Doesn't look like that is going to happen.
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I noticed her finger on Thursday, May 8th. I called the pediatrician that morning to get her the anti-viral medication - we had discussed the issue with the pediatrician at her 2-year well visit and she said that whenever she had an outbreak to just call and she would call something in. It was nice to not have to go to the doctor - especially when we know exactly what is. She took the medication like a champ - almost too well!! (Now she is constantly saying she needs her medicine and if you know us- we aren't big on giving them anything)!
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I found these cotton finger covers that worked so much better than the sock. She wasn't too into wearing the sock this time - it is hard to use one's hands when it is covered with a sock! So these little covers worked great. And I used band-aids (a favorite of Bella's) to keep it in place on her finger.
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It is mostly healed now - and she is always looking at it saying "my boo-boo all better now"!!

And please don't be alarmed that she has a band-aid on every single one of her fingers on that hand!! She insisted that she had boo-boos on ALL her fingers but it is really just the middle finger!! This child loves Band-aids - she went to school one day with about 10 on her legs and they asked if there had been some kind of accident!!

In case you're wondering....

The lack of posts is due to work being crazy busy and a sick little girl at home! Brooklyn seems to have an ear infection. We will hold off on taking her to the doctor to see if we can self-doctor it (we use garlic ear drops) before taking her in! She started running a fever Sunday night around bedtime and we tried to keep a cool wash cloth on her (which she did not like at all) and keeping lots of water in her. She continued with the fever yesterday and had a slight fever this morning(only 99.6) but has been fever free since! We gave her a bit of Tylenol to help her get some rest last night (won't be doing that again - we'll stick to the Motrin as I think the Tylenol is what "wired" her for the night given she's never had Tylenol). She got to stay home with Nana (Brannon's mom) yesterday and Nana came back over today and kept both girls at home!!! She seems to be better today! Last night was ohh so fun with a little party between the hours of 12 midnight and 3 AM! Both girls were up and did not want to go to sleep. I finally put Brooklyn in her bed and she cried herself to sleep (I felt horrible for this given she is sick) - she only cried for a few minutes! Bella finally gave in and fell asleep as well!

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Thank you Nana for taking such good care of the girls!!!

Finger Update

It's been 5 full days since the finger outbreak! Bella is being great about taking her medicine and letting me put ointment on her finger (most of the time). She is wearing the sock like it is the latest fashion statement! It seems to be getting better (at least it isn't any worse and is nowhere near the first time she had it)!

This one is not the best picture - but you can see how swollen the blister is. We are actually keeping it pretty moist with the ointment, in hopes the blister doesn't pop and create a big sore for her.

It's Back!

Please remember that I don't keep baby books, so I post things just for my recordkeeping purposes of things with the girls! That is what this post is...

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It's been 9 months since Bella has had a flare up with her finger, but it flared up last night! It came up so quickly too - she was fine all day long and when we got home she kept telling Brannon "boo-boo" and holding up her hand. That's when we noticed it!

At least now we know what it is and don't panic as much as we did the first time it happened (December 31, 2005 - she was almost 5 months old). When it first happened we were in the ER New Year's Eve, the pediatrician's office that following Monday and again Wednesday. At the Wednesday visit, the pediatrician sent us to Scottish Rite ER to see a Pediatric Dermatologist because from our Monday visit to our Wednesday visit, the tip of her finger had turned almost black and the blisters were spreading from her finger to other fingers and to the bottom of her hand where your fingers meet (if that makes any sense)!! Turned out the Pediatric Dermatologist wasn't concerned and agreed with our pediatrician that it was Herpes Simplex Virus. They swabbed the finger and ran the test just to be sure and that is exactly what it is! Basically, her finger gets very swollen and she has blisters - it is the same exact thing as getting a fever blister on your lips - it just settled in her finger and it returns to the same finger every time (her right middle finger).

She's being a trooper - she doesn't like to take the medicine, but is...She especially doesn't like me putting ointment on it (Red Marine Algae ointment is awesome for fever blisters)! But with a bit of bribery (usually a lollipop) she gives in! She is wearing a sock over her hand because I don't want her to rub her eyes or other body parts and it spread. And I also don't want her touching every toy and then Brooklyn going behind her and putting them in her mouth (which is where everything goes)! On a little side note: She just brought me one of her baby dolls and told me the baby had a boo-boo like her's and I had to put a sock over the baby's hand!


Here are some pics!

These are from the current "flare up"!

These are from when it first happened in December 2005/January 2006.