While out playing in the pool today, my poor little kiddo was stung by a bee/wasp for the very first time in his life! Now I’ll preface this by saying that my kid has a freakishly high pain tolerance, so when he starts screaming in that make-every-mom-for-a-mile turn-her-head-to-look voice, I know something is wrong.  Daddy scooped him up and brought him inside still not sure why the terrified look and grasping at the sides of his head.  We set him up on the counter, through tears and whimpers he told us a big bug hurt his ear.   We looked behind his already red swelling ear and sure enough a perfect little hole where a stinger had been.

As we often do, the hubs and I kicked into team work mode, he mixed childrens benadryl and Motrin into some chocolate milk, I cleaned the ear, coated it with benadryl cream and started an ice pack, all the while changing J out of his pool clothes.  Within 5 minutes we had a dry kid who was no longer wailing but definitely hurting and as the ear swelled it occurred to me…this kid was adopted, I have no clue if he’s seriously allergic to bee stings.  J’s birthfather is unknown and without that medical history and I was glad to live only a minute from a hospital with a shiny new emergency room.

Thankfully, as I’m quite allergic to bee stings myself, we knew exactly what to do and snapped right into action.  As a mom there’s nothing worse than seeing your kid hurt, nothing that makes you feel quite so proud as seeing them tough it out and return to smiles, and as an adoptive mom nothing more terrifying than not knowing if a mushroom, bee sting, or strawberry could send your baby to the hospital.