Sooooo ITCHY!

After hoping that our kids had Matt's skin tone (so they don't fry in the sun) and my complexion (so they don't have to worry about dry skin when we live in the dry desert) we discovered that we didn't get either of our wishes.  Ryan has my skin tone and my complexion. He burns in minutes but has never had any issues like baby achne or eczema. It is miserable in the summer because he is rarely seen without a hat on or without the smell of sunscreen on his skin. 

Halle on the other hand has a darker skin tone like her dad which is great but she also has Matt's complexion. She was plagued with baby achne the first two months of her life and in the past few weeks she has developed a really bad case of eczema.  I feel so bad because it is literally dry itchy skin that shows up in patches. According to Matt, who has always had eczema, it can absolutely drive you nuts and many times the only way to remedy this is to just scratch it!  He has scrated until he bleeds on more than one occasion. 

It first popped up on her head and I thought it was cradle cap. This was about a week before Christmas. Then it started to get scabby and pussy and just really gross. On the 28th of December I took her in and found out that she had a patch of eczema that was now in the secondary stages which means that is was infected and now a fungus. A fungus on my little girl's head...yuck.  So we treated it with an oral anti-fungal medication and two topical anti-fungal creams (one of which was an athletes foot cream) and a medicated shampoo. It was supposed to be getting better in just a few days but we had to continue the medication for up to two weeks.

Well after one week, her head looked a little better but now she had patches covering her little body. It was so sad. She was waking up at night 3 or 4 times because she was so uncomfortable, she was ornery all day long, and she would turn her head back and forth and scream in her car seat because her head was so itchy.   So in short we took her in again yesterday and the fungus is hopefully all gone now and she is now on a steroid cream 2 times a day for a week. The scary thing is that the cream is addicting to kids if it is used too much.  We can only give it to her for a week at a time then we have to take a month of before giving it to her again. 

Here is the stuff you have probably all been waiting for...the pictures. I took these last night so the spot on her head looks a lot better than it did a week ago.Still gross and so sad though.

Other than this little trial in Halle's little life, we are doing well. Basketball season is in full swing so I am busy most days of the week with practice and games, Matt is taking his final test of his 4th year as an apprentice today, and Ryan is crazy as always but is a pretty good boy most of the time.