Who Bloody Nose?

My kids are prone to odd maladies that lack medical urgency, yet still astonish and disgust everyone in their vicinity.

Take barfing for example. To this day Toby is the only toddler I have ever seen be personally delivered to his parents in the middle of church service by a gagging, vomit-covered child-care volunteer. If there were a barf Olympics I would enter Toby and tearfully cheer from the bleachers as he projectiled further than anyone in history. "That's my boy!" I would say and then I would reminisce about long nights spent on the couch holding towels under his chin and how worthwhile it was now that he was on the podium singing our National Anthem.

Last week we were outside for all of thirty minutes, wherein the absolute first mosquito hatchlings of summer congregated on Toby's shins for a celebration feast. It wasn't like I didn't know to hose the boys off in deet before subjecting them to the insect Hades of our backyard, but I hadn't checked my entomological calendar for the precise mosquito life cycle. One moment I'm dreamily sipping my Chai latte in Spring's sheltering arms, the next I'm digging through our medicine cabinet for the *AfterBite* cream and *Benadryl* because Toby's legs are swelling to the size of Redwood trunks.

I know what you are thinking. Lots of kids are allergic to insect bites and blah blah blah, but I kid you not, none of them (except B.A.D.) ever produced such hideous, colossal boils as what sprouted from my son's innocent flesh. Boils with eco-systems and lunar phases and fast food franchises. Part of me was a little excited to share this anomaly via Internet photo, and for that I apologize. In my defense, if your own child were capable of a grotesque reaction you would find the urge to shock your FB friends irresistible too.

Today I added "bloody noses" to my long list of *WebMD* queries. While my adoration and gratefulness for *WebMD* runs deeper than most consider prudent, there are times when I cannot convey the appropriate severity. "Bloody noses" are what happen when your brother throws a wooden train across the room, or when you go skiing in Breckenridge, or when you pick. Searching "Sudden failure of entire vascular regions while sitting quietly in Children's Worship" did not produce any valuable results.

What can you do? After four years of research I have learned there is usually nothing to worry about, and that just about anything is a symptom of cancer.

Anything except emetephobia. That is just a perk of mothering two uniquely gifted individuals.