Gah, not again

I was just about to pat myself on the back for managing to keep my child hale and hearty for a pretty long stretch of time now.

Until.

Until 6:11 a.m. That's when I sprang awake from some bizarro dream to hear William coughing. In my post-dream addled state, I thought he might have been throwing up at first, but it was just a cough.

But it became a barky cough. And we all know what that means. The Croup. Dum dum dum.

Luckily, it seems to be a fairly mild version. David immediately began the now-standard regimen of albuterol, in addition to the regular doses of Flovent. And when he listened to William's lungs, they didn't sound wheezy at all. So whew and Thank God for that.

The runny nose has arrived again, too. However, now when we wipe his nose, William also wants you to wipe the nose of whatever stuffed animal he happens to be holding. So after his (long) afternoon nap, I dutifully wiped Mimi Bear's nose, then wiped William's nose. And he was happy. And so David and I were happy, too-- if a bit snotty. We both discovered remnants of William's faucet of a nose on our sweaters this afternoon. But hey, at least it wasn't vomit. All I could think of this morning when I was worried that William might be throwing up was that he ate almost a quart of strawberries last night, and can you imagine the stains on his bedding? Yikes. I would always rather deal with a cough and a runny nose than vomit. Isn't that optimistic of me? Hee hee.

In the meantime, we'll continue giving him albuterol several times a day, until the cough goes away. I'm grateful that at least he readily accepts taking medicine through his air chamber since he already receives two doses of Flovent every morning and evening. He always looks a little startled that he's getting extra doses--like he's thinking, 'Wait a minute, I don't usually get this much, and I can count'--but it's usually not a problem. We just have to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" a couple of extra times. No problemo. He needs to learn all the words by Opening Day in a couple of months anyway. (We're root, root, rooting for the Braves and the Red Sox, of course.)