2:30-3:00 a.m.

I can’t sleep.

I could simply blame mefloquine for my racing brain, but I won’t. I could blame the air conditioner in our room that doesn’t actually cool the room, but I won’t. I could blame a too small bed, but I won’t.



So, at 2:30 in the morning I’m up and about. My eyes are heavy, I really do want to sleep, but if I lay down it’s seconds before my eyes pop open and I’m reduced to tossing and turning, adjusting covers, checking the a/c, staring at the ceiling, all while thinking thinking thinking.
Most of what’s causing my insomnia relates to the kids. Three of the four have a large number of red spots on their lower abdomen. A few of the spots are sprinkled further up on Katherine, a dozen or so are on the upper legs of Rebecca and Jonathon. A few of them hurt, most are the size of pencil erasers with some quite a bit bigger, a scattered few quite a bit smaller, and many have a hard white dot in the middle.
I’ve looked up shingles/chicken pox, schistosomiasis, Tumbu fly myiasis and boils. Doing a search for “red spots” doesn’t come up with too much useful, but even so, nothing matches what they have, and absolutely nothing matches to the specific location. I thought, maybe I did something weird in that wash cycle since the spots are just about all covered by underwear. But only the front side? And if it’s to blame on the wash, why isn’t the same thing happening on feet or backs, since I wash underwear, socks and t-shirts all together. And why not all six of us since I wash all our clothes together? I recently washed the girls’ sheets, but I didn’t do Jonathon’s at the same time. The only thing the three of them have in common is the placement of their beds with Rebecca by the outside door and the other two by windows. Could something be creeping in, climbing under the covers and PJs, straight to their tummy? Seems unlikely. Last week they asked for a bath. Jonathon, Nicholas and Katherine shared one, followed by Rebecca. We were at the beach last week. Could it have been something in the water? No one laid in the sand, and the kids promptly showered off and changed back into dry clothes, and they all used dry towels. Could it be something from touching the puppies? They didn’t have puppies on their stomachs. And wouldn’t there be something on their hands instead?
And the biggest question of all, why does this stuff always creep up on the weekends?