Reality, rashes, and Woodticks

Our special guy!!
Yup, it's woodtick season. Last night I awoke to this creepy crawly sensation on my leg!!! Yieiieeeeee!!!! I hate them, abhor, them, itch for hours after, and then I could't sleep till the wee hours of the morning. I wanted to strip the bed, vacuum, but I couldn't do it to my poor hubby who had to get up at 4 am...so I flushed that little bugger down the toilet and got about 2 hours sleep....where did it come from? Me or the dogs(yes, our furbabies sleep with us), it's finally outside weather here in Minnesota...or maybe from the clothes my dad in law brought into the house...(sorry Dad, I also found ticks in the office)...but after I changed the sheets I found another crawling on the bed, UGH!!!! Why do I feel like I'm camping inside the house? Anyway, everyone gets checked before getting into bed tonight!!!!

I also wanted to share the joys of parenting 2 under 14 months:) Yes, I love my babies, estatically delirously joyful about it and I'm so very glad it worked out this way-Irish twins-but I am very, very tired. They just don't quit those two. From taking each other's toys, screaming for attention, wanting to be held at the same time, double diaper blowouts, Mikey pounding his sister with "his" toys, I feel like my day is just feeding, picking up after them, and changing their diapers. So needless to say, not a lot gets done-sometimes I get to blog and read others, my little break from reality. I just basically try my best to play with them, love them, and make sure they appear reasonably clean...can't say my house is:) But we are such happy folk. Even when the brand new van gets a ding in the wheel well because some driver doesn't seem to know his own cars depth and decides to leave you a dent for a present in the parking lot. And yes, even having to forgive myself for leaving the van door open and driving into the garage-this is what sleep deprivation does), taking out a piece of the garage and putting a dent in the molding as well as scratches on my van...thank God our builder left some moulding and my hubby and Dad where able to fix it!! So just in case you thought having two beautiful kids was all fun and games(I know you didn't) I just wanted to share our very little trials. It pales in comparison to what others are going through, on the way to visit John today, I saw my neighbors house was burned. The garage looked demolished, the roof was gone, but part of the house still stands. I hope their dogs are okay as the kennels were part of the garage-those were still standing. I see this and I think, I have nothing to gripe about-I saw them weeping looking at it with the insurance adjustor...I have everything to be thankful for, even the ticks and my babies buggery noses. I hope to go help them somehow this weekend...

As for Phoebe & Michael, we got their lab results back from the IA doc. Michael passed with flying colors! A little sensitivity to the ppd he got(to be expected-he had the BCG and a ppd just 6 months ago) but otherwise he is good to go!!
Phoebe was negative for all the scary ones, HIV, Syphilis,Hep B, Hep C,no giardia or parasites, or TB!! Yeah! However, she is a little anemic and her iron studies showed she doesn't have much. So now she's on an iron supplement. Her TSH is high-it correlates with her low iron levels, and her thyroid is normal so that is good. We'll have to get her rechecked in about 4-6 weeks. She is positive for Helicobactor Pylori-the bacteria that causes ulcers and linked to gastric cancer-but since she is so young and asymptomatic, we'll just watch her rather than treat her. That is not surprising knowing that she came from an orphanage. The one thing that we really are working on however is her rash. We noticed when we got her she had these little bumps on her little diaper pee area. Both John and I were perplexed. It certainly didn't look like scabies which was the first thing John wanted me to look for when I was changing her at the orphanage. It remained pretty dormant until we got home. We though maybe it looked a little like the herpes simplex virus but it wasn't painful nor did it bother her so we weren't quite ready to give her that diagnosis. Our pediatrician looked at it and he thought it looked like bug bites. So we tried a little hydrocortisone, it didn't get any better. Then one day it decided to get a little more red..we had an appt with the IA doc and he said, not scabies, but maybe contact dermatitis or fungal. So he recommended some zinc oxide, new diapers(we already did that) and then try the antifungal. Well, after the zinc oxide, it decided to go full blown little bumps and red all over!! Trip to the dermatologist...well, keep the hydrocortisone creme and add another more broadspectrum antifungal than the OTC stuff we were using. Result? Not getting any worse now and so we wait and see. We have also let her go au natural for bedtime. I am washing her little waterproof pad and little shirt every day now just like cloth diapers to see if we can't stop this thing. I can believe that it is fungal-it was so warm in the baby house and there were so many clothes on her. So now we wait and see, I'll keep you posted, hopefully it'll go away...like those woodticks....oh great, it seems like I've misplaced my camera, I'll have to wait to post the outdoor photos till it reappears...
We'd snap a pic and then they would crawl off!