Kevin and the scorpion

We had an interesting night last saturday. After a long and hot day at the Renaissance Festival (pictures to come later), we brought my nephew, Will, back with us to play with the boys for a few days. They were all having a sleepover in the boys room with blankets and kids laying all over the floor. Kevin woke up last saturday night at about 10:30pm crying. I went to check on him and he was laying in his bed holding his ears saying his ears were hurting. I figured he was getting another ear infection, so I gave him some motrin and told him to go back to bed. About 20 to 30 min later he was still crying, so I brought him in my room and put him on the floor and gave him some benadryl to help him sleep. I figured we would take him to the doctor in the morning to have his ears checked. But still he was just being restless and whiny. So about 10-15 min later, I got him up to go the bathroom thinking that might be the problem. As he was walking, he kept falling over and walking into the wall. I also noticed that he was shaking all over. Our first thought was that maybe he got heat stroke (confusion, restlessness) from being in the sun all day. I tried to get him to drink, but he couldn't really drink because he was shaking. It was really tough to know how much of his crazy-acting was just Kevin being Kevin and how much of it was to be concerning. But he was more unusual than usual, so I took him into the ER.

I didn't want to open the garage door and wake Darci up, so I stuck him in the back of the car with a seatbelt. The whole way there he was thrashing around, screaming he couldn't see anything, and just being real loud. By the time we got to the ER, he was really restless and thrashing around a lot. The admitting nurse took one look at him and brought us back. The Dr took one look at his eyes and said, "he's been stung by a scorpion". That has been my fear of living in this town and I can't believe that happened. I called Tad and had him check the boys room because there were still 2 boys laying on the ground. He didn't see anything.

Back at the hospital, Kevin was just really out of control. He was yelling, screaming, kicking, thrashing, just all over the place. They said that is pretty common with scorpion stings because it is so neurotoxic to kids. Luckily they now have anascorp - an antivenom that is being tested out. They said it has worked everytime. And amazingly enough, after about 45 minutes, he started to calm down and actually fell asleep. His eyes were still twitching around a bit so he got a second dose and then he was all better. It was like night and day. Poor little guy. He was all smiles when we walked out of there. He even scored a new stuffed penguin, which he calls Thomas. That day he was all better, no signs that he had been bitten. No pain from anything.

I searched for the scorpion that morning when we got home and couldn't find anything - we don't have a blacklight. Then when we got home from church, I took their room apart and found it on the floor next to Derek's bed. I smashed it real good and then took this picture. We were so lucky no one else was stung that night. I have no idea what the yellow thing is next to it...maybe a piece of candy. And the following morning Paige came into our room and said there was a bug on her wall. Sure enough, there was a darn scorpion sitting right on her wall. We caught that one and put it in a jar to test out our insecticide and luckily it died within an hour or two of being sprayed. We've sprayed several times since. I might spray again tomorrow too.

Playing at Grandma Toni's and Papa Pat's...

Other random pictures.... Kevin has decided that when he vacuums he needs to roll up the rug to do a good job.

Found this cute little wooden table at a yard sale and painted it up for our DVD and gamecube. Now they don't have to look all ghetto sitting on top of the TV.

Happy birthday to me.... 32 years old. Darci was pretty bummed that she didn't get a present.

My niece Ashley had her 10th birthday a few days after mine so we had a little combined party.

Other random things the kids have done..

Kevin said he wanted to buy me a gun for my birthday so I can go shoot a deer.

Darci climbed up on the table the other night during dinner and shouted "ta da!" That has been her new word since.