Croup

Last night was rough. Jeff brought the kids back home. Henry fell asleep in the car. Grammy reported that he had a coughing spell that lasted an hour. Miss R spent time with Aunt Carolyn again. She's keen on her.

Miss R was wide awake. I decided to do her hair for school the next day. I braided her hair. This is my third attempt, and it came out pretty well, if I do say so myself. It is interesting working with her hair b/c the texture is so different from my own. It took me about a 1/2 hour to do her hair. With practice, I'm sure that I could do it in under 10 minutes. She's small and only requires four rows of braids. I got her barrettes to hold the braids in place.

Miss R went to bed. But Henry was making noise. Jeff checked on them. It turned out that Miss R was kicking him purposely while he slept. Sigh. Then, either she or Henry was up every hour thereafter. Wanting a bottle. Wanting a diaper change. Wanting a hug. Wanting to be tucked in with the blanket again. Wanting another bottle. Both kids were coughing at different times (mainly Henry; Miss R's coughs were few and far between). Henry had a lot of drainage preventing him from sucking his bottle very long. At one point, I was holding him and I could feel his breathing and stuffiness by putting my lips to his head.

I got up at 6:45AM this morning, hoping that we'd be able to take Miss R to school. At 7:15AM, Jeff woke up Miss R. We attempted to feed her breakfast, but she refused to eat. Then, she coughed. She sounded like a seal barking. That ended any hope of having her start daycare today. Meanwhile, Jeff called Dr. Bianchi's office. He made an appointment for Henry at 9AM. We got the kids dressed. My mom said that she'd meet me at the pediatrician's office. Henry wanted to play with the toys in the "well" kids area. He was mad that I wouldn't let him touch the toys. Sean weighed him. He was 25 lbs 13 ozs, down 1 lbs 5 ozs from June 2. Given that he isn't eating or drinking, it isn't a huge surprise but disappointing nevertheless. I asked Dr. Bianchi about examining Miss R too. He agreed. While he checked out Henry, I went to the frontdesk to check Miss R into the system officially. She was weighed at 22 lbs. and some ounces. That's up from her first visit in April. When we got back to the exam room, Dr. Bianchi said that Henry's lungs were clear, which is a relief. Given his mottled color, I requested a pulse-ox reading. It was 99%, which is great (better than mine actually). Miss R cried throughout the examination. She didn't like the stethoscope. How Dr. Bianchi could have detected anything in her was a miracle given the racket she was making. She gets so testy when things don't go exactly her way. Toward the end of the examination, she gave a seal-like bark. Dr. Bianchi asked if that was the sound she'd been making. I said "yes." He said "Croup." He asked if Henry had been making similar sounds b/c of course Henry wasn't making the sounds now that we were in the presence of a doctor. I said "yes." He decided that the best course of action was an oral dose of steroids for both of them: decadron. He thought that they'd be better this evening. If they don't show any signs of illness tomorrow, they can start their daycare on Wednesday.

My mom volunteered to take care of the kids today while we work. She'll also be taking care of them tomorrow.

The new beds will be delivered today. So that's one good thing that's going on. We haven't bought mattresses yet though. Jeff is in charge of mattress purchases. To go green on mattresses or not to go green, that is the question. The green mattress company is in Phoenix, which means that we'd either have to trek up there is test the mattresses or take a chance.

That's all for now.