Eat your peas, dammit!

The things you'll do when you're sleep deprived...

Jonas woke up at about 1 am with every mother's worst nightmare: That seal-like barking cough that can only mean Croup. Not such a big deal, eh? No, not until you factor in his tendency toward asthma, and the fact that the Claritin he takes for his allergies further dries out his throat. So, that barking cough turned into a full-fleged wheezing, can't breathe, panic attack for him. And, of course, I'd have to face it alone with him, since less than an hour before Wil had been called out to service a patient's oxygen equipment.

So we sat in the bathroom with the shower steaming and we rocked and sang and otherwise tried to calm down. At one point I was so worried that I was about to take him to the emergency room. Probably the only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that I probably would have had a wreck and killed us both while trying to drive and pay attention to him in the back seat at the same time.

After about 30 minutes in the steamy bathroom, the wheezing had calmed some, and I went and dug out his nebulizer, only to realize that I had thrown out all of his neb medicines because they were getting old. He hasn't needed them in a long time. *knock on wood*

So I call Wil, ask him to stop by the pharmacy on the way home and pick up nebs, and hurry home with them. The pharmacy tells him that the prescription they have on file has expired. Go figure.

He and I took turns throughout the night keeping an eye on the dozing J-man. He'd sleep for an hour or two, wake up coughing, and settle back to sleep. Fortunately, he didn't have any more of the wheezing spells. I felt a lot better with Wil home, knowing that we had a truck full of oxygen in the driveway if needed. :)

When he woke up this morning he was in bad shape again, so we tossed on some clothes and went to the doctor's office without even brushing our teeth. We drove there with the windows down in the car, and the humid air must have helped because by the time we arrived he was much better again. Still a little wheezy, but not gasping.

By 9:30 we had our diagnosis- exactly what I suspected. Croup. And we were sent on our way with steroids in both oral form and nebulizer. He's feeling MUCH better now, and the steroids have him bouncing off the walls, but I'm sure that tonight we'll go through the barking routine again. What is it about croup that makes it so much worse at night?

In other news, J's favorite fish is sick. Now you don't have to give me the lecture about it being "just a fish" and that I could easily replace him with a look-alike and J would be none the wiser, but still... I'd like to make him better if I can. So, in doing research today, it appears that poor little Spaz has "dropsy". Either that, or gas. Sort of funny to think of a goldfish that just needs to fart, isn't it?

Most of the reading I've done suggests adding some fiber to their diet in order to help them get better. So, J's fishies are now on a green pea only diet. Didn't know fish liked peas, but they most certainly do! They come to the top and snatch them right out of my fingers! Cute in a goldfishy way.



Don't know if I can "cure" him or not, but I'm giving it a try.

And finally, I finished J's little clogs yesterday. They're still a little damp, but he's allowed me to slip them on his feet, and they fit perfectly! Can anyone spot the glaring mistake I made? Ok, well maybe it's only *glaring* to me now that it's felted, but I wish I'd caught it before I'd tossed them in the machine.



And I'll leave you with a cute picture of J playing with his Rescue Heroes. He's really starting to use his imagination and create little conversations between them. Usually it goes something like this: "Mama, woof-woof, ball... yes! Oh cool! No swipee, phone." Where the other will answer: "Car...vroom! Airplane, helicopter, juice, choo-choo, GO!" I suppose it makes sense in a two-year-old's world.