Kid fights and spider bites

Aside from saying goodbye to my best friend, Cozette, and her family, there were two aspects of our trip to Washington that were not a whole lot of fun when compared to the rest of the trip which included mountains, nights on the town, and a bit too much to eat.

The first downer was the fact that we all rode together everywhere in Cozette’s huge SUV. This saved on a car rental and allowed the incredibly witty adults to freely converse, but it also placed the four children in our space every time we wanted to go anywhere.

My two are bad enough in the car. She is 7 and he is 12 so they don’t like each other. Cozette’s daughter is 5 and son is 10. The even spacing of ages is almost adorable.

Female 5 was the whiner and cried about everything which is what 5 year old girls do. My female 7 was the tattle-tale, but she also liked to throw colossal fits which would be embarrassing if they weren’t incredibly funny. She became very angry when I laughed at her for falling off a log. I wouldn’t have laughed if I didn’t know she was okay. I’m not a monster!

Male 10 sang and made random noises all the time. He was the background music to the continuous insanity playing out around him. Also, he was the frequent victim of his 5 year old sister’s attacks and the one I always lost.

It is a good thing I only had two children because one more is just too much for me to keep track of.

Male 12 wanted to interject himself into every conversation because he believes life is and should be all about him. He felt Washington was his state since he was born there and he would not shut up about Big Foot even though his sister, female 7, was terrified of the creature. After we came home, she was still crying before bed, hung up on Big Foot! Thanks big brother!

What we needed at the time was a trailer to pull behind the SUV; something like a horse trailer with individual “kid stalls,” but with glass windows so they stayed dry. They would’ve been fine.

The second aspect of our trip which turned nasty was my spider bite. I say it was a spider bite, but in reality I don’t know what happened to my right elbow pit (the anticubital area to be technical).

I had a little pimple-looking thing which I popped because that’s what I do, even though I know I shouldn’t. The pimple then grew quite large. I didn’t mess with it anymore until I got home.

It was very painful when I went to work and showed the doctors in the ER. In fact, my arm was getting red above it and I had a hard nodule under my skin near my shoulder.

It turns out a lymph node near my armpit swelled to the size of a golf ball and I had to check in as a patient for 4 days to receive IV antibiotics, which was miserable to say the least. I don’t think many nurses make good patients. I felt like I was in prison and at work, but not really working.

Was it a spider? I’ll never know. It was probably my daughter seeking revenge for laughing at her.

Either way, we are back to two kids in our vehicle and a mostly healed arm; almost normal.