Oh, croup.

Last Tuesday, I drove home from work thinking, "Wow...thanks to Labor Day, I have six days off in a row now! I wonder what we should do?" I'd like to take this opportunity to notify the universe that that was NOT, in fact, an invitation to fill that time for me--with general misery for the entire Bear family, no less!

Tuesday afternoon, Keira came home from preschool with a fever. By bedtime, she had a yucky cough and bad congestion, and we busted out the Vicks vapor night light, the Children's Tylenol, and the humidifier. We spent Wednesday and Thursday consuming mass quantities of anything involving cartoon characters on TV.

Friday, Ellie came down the the same cold and fever. Another Vicks night light, the infant Tylenol, and another humidifier were mobilized.

By Saturday night, Keira was feeling a bit better, and Ellie was sounding much, much worse. Her fever lingered at 102 even with Tylenol, and her breathing sounded like Darth Vader. I sat up all night with her as she got worse and worse, and knew she must have croup, but there was no "cold night air" to take her out to breathe. Four a.m. found me standing in front of the open refrigerator like a 17-year-old boy, except with a seriously unhappy baby on my hip, but that didn't seem to help.

Around 5 a.m., I noticed she was occasionally struggling and then crying out in her sleep, like she couldn't breathe at all sometimes. Long story short, she was admitted to the hospital on Sunday, where Auntie Lisa is a pediatric nurse and had the (mis?)fortune of being the one to put in poor Buggy's IV and get her started on a steroid for the swelling in her airway. Although this is against Auntie Lisa's policy (she prefers to stay Nice Lisa and not Mean Needle Lady when it comes to children who are her relatives), she did it so quickly and almost painlessly that Ellie barely cried at all.

Here's our little Bug in the iron crib, where she spent about as long as it took to snap this photograph; the rest of the time, she slept on me in the hospital bed. That white hose blew cool mist into our faces the entire time we were there, and was not unlike the Smoke Monster from "LOST." We hated that thing, but it did its job.


Hospitals should have their own time zones. Fifteen minutes in a hospital bed with a sick toddler, a loud Smoke Monster in your face, and wet, cold blankets thanks to said Smoke Monster, is equal to about 4 hours in Outside World time, and every time I dozed off for a second, I swore it MUST be almost morning. Nope...11pm. Nope...11:16pm. Nope...11:56pm. Are you kidding me?! Buggy slept well, though, and woke up Monday morning in a great mood.

Here she is, having a snack in the high chair and sporting her IV hand and E.T. toe. She even yelled "Cheeeeeese!" when I snapped the pic:


Monday afternoon, Grandma W. and Pap picked us up from the hospital, and Keira (who'd been with Bear or Grandma and Pap the whole time Elliana was gone) was stoked to have her sister back. She held her hand in the car, and said, "I was so worried that Ellie-Bug was gonna get ouchies at the hospital!"


So, we're back home now. I've got a souvenir sinus infection from the whole experience, Keira has a lingering cough, and Elliana is on an antibiotic that upsets her stomach (newborn-style diaper blowouts? Hello, old friend!) and a steroid that turned her into 'Roid Rage Baby for the first couple of days. Here's a small sample of our little pink Hulk, wandering around yelling for no real reason.

Part of me wishes I had video of the hour-long scream-fest she had on Monday, or how she sat in the middle of our living room randomly yelling and swatting angrily at mid-air (or us, if we got within arm's reach) on Tuesday. It was a tiny bit funny considering what a ridiculously cheerful child she usually is, but I'm glad cutting back the steroid dosage seems to have mellowed her out again! Now, she's more likely to look like this...



...which is exactly what Bear and I feel like doing after this supremely wretched week. I can think of a million ways we would rather have spent the holiday weekend, but many worse ones, too. My 6 days off turned into 13, since I ended up not going in at all this week, and we're all looking forward to ridding ourselves of the cooties and getting back to normal ASAP!