He Touched a Bug!

 One of my kids finally touched a bug willingly. Matthew picked up a caterpillar the other day. He saw it crawling on the ground and at first was grossed out. I was helping Nick try to find something in the pole shed. I walked by and Matthew was cringing away from the caterpillar. I explained to him that it was just a caterpillar, it wasn't going to hurt him, and I walked away. When I came back five minutes later, Matthew was playing with it. He even brought it into the house and I got these pictures:




I did make him take the caterpillar out of the house. I wasn't about to have a bug living in my house. Besides, I figured the dogs or cats would probably have the poor thing for a snack. Matthew brought him (or her) back outside, and it's happily living its life.

I never made Matthew wash his hands after playing with the thing, though. Matthew is really bad at keeping his hands away from his face. He was rubbing his eyes, and one of his eyes swelled up to the point it was nearly shut. He would NOT wash his hands, and I practically had to hold him down and wipe off his hands with a warm washcloth. He went to sleep that night with a swollen eye. The next morning the swelling was down, but he was still complaining that it hurt somewhat.

I took him into MedExpress that afternoon. Matthew hates MedExpress. They had stuck one of those q-tip things down his throat one time for a strep test, and he hasn't forgotten it. So when it came time to examine his eye, he had a meltdown. The nurse practitioner and I had to hold him down while she quickly examined him. His reaction turned out to be an allergy. Yup, the kid is allergic to caterpillars.

You know how there's pollen in the air that people are allergic to? Well, caterpillars and other insects carry something like a pollen on them, and Matthew is allergic to that. So we don't know exactly what bugs Matthew is allergic to, but we know for sure that Matthew is allergic to caterpillars, and as time goes on, we'll find out that he's also allergic to other insects. Delightful. At least it's not so bad right  now that he needs an epi-pen. I was told that he can get by with antihistamines.

So that was my excitement this week.

Until next week's dirt...

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