Don't Let the Bad Bugs Bite

Yesterday I decided to walk behind the fence line of our house down to Uncle Neighbor Cuz Billy's house. He was out there with his mother and our Aunt Tooty who is in town. He was showing us his plans for his back yard and behind the fence. Amelia was enjoying herself, bending down to pick pieces of bark off the ground to examine them, touching leaves on plants, sitting down to rest on old railroad tie. I was remarking on how much she was enjoying exploring nature and took a cute picture of her. I was really patting myself on the back for finding an outdoor activity we could enjoy in the shade that would get her out of the house and away from her addiction to the TV.

Just a few minutes after this picture was taken she wandered over to an area my cousin had made out of railroad ties to make a horse shoe pit. She climbed in the middle of it and was stuffing things down the pole and having fun when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was bending over with her hands on one of the railroad ties and her hands were covered in ants. I quickly grabbed her and me and Aunt Tooty started patting her down and brushing ants off of her. She had them all over her shoes, shirt, hands, legs.

I scooped her up and ran home, threw her at Todd, ran and got some Cortisone cream and had him slather it all over her while I went up to the drug store to get some Benadryl. (I had taken a bottle to the beach which was not capped properly and the entire bottle leaked out on everything). She never cried. She never itched the spots. She seems entirely unaffected by it. But she looks like a red hot mess right now.

School starts tomorrow and I have not picked out an outfit for her yet. I wonder if I should send her in pants...and mittens.