My Bad!
Isn't this a beautiful tree? 
It stands in our front yard...right at our front door.
Madison and I thought that it was so pretty that we chose to use its leaves for the outdoor playhouse that the kids were building for Ginger. I helped Madison cut the limbs off of it to hammer to the top of the structure for shade. We did a great job...even though Ginger would have none of it when we tried to make her hang out in it!
Madison woke up Monday morning with small bite-looking things on her fingers and hands.
They weren't bites.
By Tuesday I KNEW...I just didn't know where it came from. While I was standing at my kitchen sink doing dishes, I started looking closely at "the tree" and noticed something strange.
These are the leaves that we used for Ginger's playhouse.
Further up the tree, I noticed some other leaves that looked completely different.
Then it occurred to me that what we thought were beautiful tree leaves were instead POISON OAK leaves! The darker green leaves further up the tree were from the actual tree limbs. How could I have missed that!?! Madison is very allergic to poison ivy/oak, so we have always preached to her about staying away from anything green running up the trees in our yard. I know what poison ivy looks like, but his was poison oak. Thankfully, I'm not allergic to it because I had so much contact with them during the whole procedure that I would have been eaten alive by the stuff!!!
My poor Madison. It took a shot, three days of Prednisone, and an antibiotic cream to get rid of the stuff. She was MISERABLE!!!
Now, we have to strip our tree of the whole mess of poisonous leaves. "sigh"
It's too bad...it really was such a pretty tree the way it was!
It stands in our front yard...right at our front door.Madison and I thought that it was so pretty that we chose to use its leaves for the outdoor playhouse that the kids were building for Ginger. I helped Madison cut the limbs off of it to hammer to the top of the structure for shade. We did a great job...even though Ginger would have none of it when we tried to make her hang out in it!
Madison woke up Monday morning with small bite-looking things on her fingers and hands.
They weren't bites.
By Tuesday I KNEW...I just didn't know where it came from. While I was standing at my kitchen sink doing dishes, I started looking closely at "the tree" and noticed something strange.
These are the leaves that we used for Ginger's playhouse.
Further up the tree, I noticed some other leaves that looked completely different.
Then it occurred to me that what we thought were beautiful tree leaves were instead POISON OAK leaves! The darker green leaves further up the tree were from the actual tree limbs. How could I have missed that!?! Madison is very allergic to poison ivy/oak, so we have always preached to her about staying away from anything green running up the trees in our yard. I know what poison ivy looks like, but his was poison oak. Thankfully, I'm not allergic to it because I had so much contact with them during the whole procedure that I would have been eaten alive by the stuff!!!My poor Madison. It took a shot, three days of Prednisone, and an antibiotic cream to get rid of the stuff. She was MISERABLE!!!
Now, we have to strip our tree of the whole mess of poisonous leaves. "sigh"
It's too bad...it really was such a pretty tree the way it was!
posted by Sherri | Tuesday, October 02, 2007
6 Comments:
Poor Madison. I feel for her, having to get a shot and all. I remember Melanie and I looking for poison ivy in our backyard while we were learning about plants. I was relieved not to find any. That stuff is just horrible.
Oh no! It was a pretty tree . . .
Oh! i hope she is feeling better.
I wouldn't even know what poison oak looks like!
Oh no! Itching is NO FUN! So sorry that happened!
Bummer. So sorry to hear of Madison's run in with poison oak. Ugh. A mistake I know I would easily have made. Oh well.
Oh, how sad! I wouldn't know what poison oak looks like, either. I hope she's feeling much better!
Post a Comment
<< Home