Our poor children

They've inherited their allergies from their Dad (everyone but Nathan, that is) and they are all (Jonathan, too) having a very rough week this week. Caleb, in fact, started having trouble several weeks ago and just wasn't getting better. That, coupled with a rash on his leg and something on his feet, we decided it was time for a trip to the doctor today. The cough is just allergy related which is the good news but the bad news is that since it's not getting any better, that means the OTC Claritin isn't working any more. So, now we switch to prescription Zyrtec. The good news there is that our kids have complete prescription coverage so we don't have to pay anything for that. The bad news is that Zyrtec will be OTC within a year, the doctor said which, of course, we'll have to pay for. We found out the hard way that the kids (Caleb, Elizabeth, and John) are allergic to something in the generic brand of Claritin so we have to use the name brand which runs $10 a bottle. With 3 kids getting a tsp every night, we were running through a bottle every week. So, this will lighten that load some, at least for a little while. The rash on his leg is excema which we know how to treat. On his foot, however, is athlete's foot. I've never heard of a child this age getting that! No one else in the house has it so why does he? Where did it come from? We don't know....but, we'll treat it and hope for the best. He just has sensitive skin.

Speaking of feet, though -- could someone please tell me how to keep my children from wearing out their shoes so fast??? Caleb and Nathan are both in desperate need of a new pair and John and Elizabeth really could use one as well. Elizabeth, in fact, could use church shoes, too, as she's out grown all her dress shoes except for 1 pair (which happens to be black -- all the ones she out grew are white or sandals). We used to save shoes for hand-me-down play shoes but now that Nathan and Caleb are starting to wear shoes longer because their feet aren't growing as fast, they're not leaving us much of a chance of saving them. Oh well, comes with the territory, I guess you can say!