We’re in Georgia now, about 3 1/2 hours away from our destination.

We stopped for dinner last night at Pizzeria Uno’s near the Potomac Mills mall in Northern Virginia. Our hope was to fill the boys tummies up with nice warm food, and have them sleep through most of the drive. Pizza was a unanimous vote, and the idea of melted cheese on bread sounded like a good soporific.

We got seated and ordered. J climbed into my lap, and drank a little of his lemonade before falling sound asleep with his pizza still on the way. Suddenly, S was crying and saying that his foot was itching and hurting. There was a small bump, but nothing else obvious. But, he was crying more and more and saying how uncomfortable it was, so dad ran out to the local drug store to collect antihistamine and topical cortisone cream.

Our food arrived, and S was still sobbing. The waitress was concerned, and found some spray antihistamine/antiseptic/analgesic. She kindly sprayed it on S’s feet – by now, he was complaining that the itching was spreading to both feet, and his cheeks and upper lip. She then sprayed some on a napkin, and left that with S to apply to any spots that came up wo more itching. I coaxed him to try eating his pizza to get his mind off the itching. It didn’t help much. He was miserable, and kept saying “This is the worst day of my life!” (Slightly hyperbolic sentiment).

Finally, Dad returned with OTC remedies, and we offered a dose of Benadryl, since whatever started this itching spell, it appeared to be a systemic reaction. Well, much to our amusement, S is one of those kids who responds paradoxically to Benadryl, and rather than being sedated, he got totally hyped, talking fast (and loud, even for him), and nothing could stop him. But, at least he wasn’t itching anymore.

We got both kids in the car, J still sleeping, and S didn’t go to sleep (he stayed up until almost midnight), but fortunately, he was able to focus on the movie we had for him, Madagascar 3, and he stopped rambling nonsensically!

We drove until 4am, and finally stopped for a few hours sleep in Santee, SC. Hurray for the Quality Inn, with a delicious complimentary hot breakfast that got us off to a great start!