We have been noticing for the past few weeks that Emilie and Rebecca are getting bitten by bugs. The bites are about the size of a nickel and look sore, though the kids don't seem affected by them. One day Rebecca woke up with 5 or 6 bites on one arm and sometimes there are bites on both of their cheeks. Rebecca often has a bite on her back, right where pajama top meets pajama bottom. At first we thought that they might be bites from the bugs we see outside in the evening, or even bugs flying into their room at night. German homes don't have screens and our windows have been propped open to allow fresh air in. The thought had occured to me that there might be bugs in the rental mattresses we had been using until this week. I have killed many spiders in our home, but haven't noticed any other bugs.
Today, Rebecca woke up and had another large red bite on her cheek and several bites on her arm. Then at about noon, she came downstairs and her right eyelid had ballooned to the point where she could barely open her eye. It looked puffy, nasty and red, but she didn't seem bothered by it. She looked like Rocky Balboa in the ring.
David took her to a clinic where the nurse said, "Yup, it's some kind of insect bite," but she couldn't tell what kind of bite it was. She gave David an antihistamine prescription and a child's suppository, which he kindly let me give Rebecca later. Germans believe in using suppositories to by-pass the stomach so there is less vomiting with medicine.
Now the problem remains of where these bugs are coming from. They were in the rental furniture, are coming in from outside or else they came over with our furniture in the moving container. We changed all the bedding and looked around but didn't find anything.
By bedtime, her eye looked better, but I can't get the image out of my mind of some nasty creature crawling around our house at night, stalking my tender little children.
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