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Unrelated. It’s the first word that strikes me for this post. I have two totally unrelated items to share. The first of which involves hives on Kind Sir’s sweet face (neck, one area on his back, hands and forearms). We first noticed them, I want to say when I picked him up at school. My eyesight is for shit, so to me, his red cheek just looked flushed, as if he’d just been running or was hit in the face with a dodgeball (this happened to me more than once in my adolescence). I didn’t think much of it. Then we went swimming in our backyard. I mention that it was our backyard and not the main country club pool because our backyard pool isn’t heated, so we braved it in frigid waters. When he swam into my arms, and I held him, I felt bumps on his face, tried to inspect them, but he wiggled free. I left it alone. Then came a clean bean bubble bath. Phil came home and noticed the red, too.
Upon further inspection, I realized that it had gotten much worse. Now the bumps were hives, some skin colored, some red, growing in size. I went over the food he’d eaten that day: matzoh made at school, almonds, ten mini chocolate chips, hummus, carrots, milk, rice cereal, turkey. Nothing unusual for him at all. We called his teacher, who assured us he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. But you never can tell what he’s stuffing into himself—our boy’s signature self-soothing comfort move is to suck his thumb while picking his nose, single handed. We’ve tried to break him of the habit, but until he really wants to stop, we’ve found that it’s become pointless to constantly remind him not to do it. It’s just not working, at all. Though this is most likely unrelated to the hive situation.
We medicated him with Benedryl once he became really uncomfortable, scratching. The hives cleared up quickly after that. The following day, Phil took the kids swimming in the heated country club pool, and once again, Kind Sir broke into a bad case of hives. Mind you these two instances were the first times he ever had any type of allergy to anything. And he’s done a lot of swimming, and we’ve never had this happen. But I know we can develop allergies, and maybe there’s something about this time of year in Florida? I don’t know. Phil took the kids to Pirate’s Cove, a playground near our home, that has a splashpad / sprayground. Where once again the hives returned. I wonder if it’s chlorine related.
Unrelated to swimming, yesterday we went for Sunday brunch, a buffet of dreams consisting of sausage, bacon, bagels, waffles, French toast… you name it, they have it from pecan pie to creme brule; it’s a food orgy. As we finished brunch, Lucas climbed into Phil’s lap, and Phil noticed that the hives were coming back. Not all of them, but some were starting to form and grow. Lucas began to scratch. Benedryl yet again came to his rescue. He’s been fine. But I’m now scared to take him swimming… or anywhere.
I google, a basic nightmare, with underlying causes that rhyme with anemia. Perhaps he’s allergic to the cold? So I take an icepack and hold it to his forearm for five minutes, but no hives. I’m getting his ass to the allergist, but I fear they’ll tell me “it could be anything. There’s not much we can do.” I also realize, of course, that this is the least of it. That it could be so, so much worse. I just looked, he has a hive that’s popped up on his wrist just now.
In unrelated news, I received an interesting email about a new series “Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture.” It airs tonight on Anderson Cooper 360°.
“A white child and a black child look at the exact same picture of two students on the playground.
The pictures, designed to be ambiguous, are at the heart of a new study on children and race commissioned by CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°. White and black kids were asked: “What’s happening in this picture?”, “Are these two children friends?” and “Would their parents like it if they were friends?” The study found a chasm between the races as young as age 6.
Overall, black first-graders had far more positive interpretations of the images than white first-graders. The majority of black 6-year-olds were much more likely to say things like, “Chris is helping Alex up off the ground” versus “Chris pushed Alex off the swing.”
They were also far more likely to think the children pictured are friends and to believe their parents would like them to be friends. In fact, only 38% of black children had a negative interpretation of the pictures, whereas almost double – a full 70% of white kids – felt something negative was happening.”
Anderson Cooper 360° airs at 8 &10 pm ET on CNN. Video link from tonight’s segment will be available after the show.
