Clover can be hazardous to your health and party plans

Well, after my last post about how great summer is around here we were reminded of the fact that there are some unpleasant things, too. Like wasps.

Last Thursday afternoon, after patiently filling up his paddling pool with the water hose Finn happily ran across the lawn and stepped on a wasp (or bee, I'm not quite sure) and got stung in the sole of his foot. Fortunately our neighbour was home and in his yard, so I could hand a screaming Finn to him over the fence to get some tweezers. We got the stinger out and cooled his foot in the cold pool water, since Finn couldn't handle an icepack. After some ibuprofen and a two-hour nap the swelling had gone down and Finn seemed all right.

Friday morning, however, his foot was red and swollen to the ankle, Finn couldn't walk on it and said it hurt very much. So off to the doctor we went, one of three visits in 24 hours. To make a long story short: after they drained some pus they got the infection under control, Finn doesn't have to take antibiotics, but his foot is sore and itchy, especially at night, which means little sleep for all of us. (Oh and Lily is teething, too, so they took turns getting us over to their bedrooms.) After Finn saw his doctor this morning (where he got the cool green bandage) Finn took some of the medicine he was prescribed and slept for 4.5 hours. After all, he needs to be rested for tonight's ordeal!

Oh, and in case you wondered about the title for this post: we have lots of clover patches in our yard, and the bees and wasps seem to like the nice little white clover flowers A LOT. And no matter how often you cut them off, they seem to be back the next day. The clover grows about 20 times faster than our grass, so I guess from now on I will ask Neil to "go mow the clover, please". As for the party: we were invited to a farewell-party in Munich today, and had really looked forward to going. Let me tell you, if that silly wasp wasn't dead already it would be now.