sickness and sun

allie had her one-year well baby visit last week.  as the doctor put it, she’s apparently following her genetic line and is quite a petite little girl.  for the first six months of her life, she was in the 25-50th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight.  she’s now evened out and has settled in the 10th percentile for both– 27 inches in height and 18 pounds 4 ounces in weight.  i was just glad to hear she’s a healthy little girl overall.  the best news was that both of her ears were clear and had no lingering signs of fluid or infection.  yahoo!

no sooner did the doctor say, “well, allie gets an A+ for this visit and hopefully we won’t see you around here for another three months!” did allie catch mikey’s cold.  complete with a lovely, hacking cough and constant drippy nose.  just as mikey was getting better, allie kept getting worse.  last night was the worst as she kept waking up every hour or two screaming crying and gasping because she was having difficulty breathing.  she only settled down when i held her upright against my shoulder and rubbed her back.  made for a very looong night for me as i kept popping awake at every little sound she made (i kept her in our room so that mikey wouldn’t be disturbed by her crying all night).

it occurred to me at 6:30 this morning that allie might have croup.  so i called the clinic and got an appointment for this morning.  and yup, she does have croup.  her cough last night was definitely a harsh bark and her breathing has been very raspy.  the doctor determined that her croup was moderate to severe as she had stridor (a raspy, vibrating sound as the child breathes in and is a noise that occurs as the airway becomes more narrow) even when she was just breathing regularly (not crying or coughing).  so she got a dose of an oral steroid to help open up her airway and hopefully that will mean a better night of sleep for both of us.

great, her first cold ends up in that crazy double ear infection episode and now her second cold ends up with croup!  i’m not too anxious to find out what her third cold will bring… 

but looking on the bright side, it’s absolutely beautiful out today!  the temp is currently a sunny 74 with not a cloud in the sky.  so after lunch, i took my two sickies with their lovely hacking coughs to our neighborhood park to enjoy some sun time.  no jackets, wahoo!  we avoided the playground so as not to come into contact with other kids, and took a walk instead.  mikey happily discovered that his favorite little waterfall is running again.  he hardly knew where to look first as he raced around trying to take it all in all at once.  and without missing a beat, he resumed throwing sticks into the waterfall even though it’s been months since he last got to play with the water.

there’s just no way to describe the joy of feeling warm again after such a long, cold winter.  everyone out in the park today seemed to share the same sentiment as strangers would smile and comment on how good the sun feels today.  it actually even felt HOT today and i regretted not having shorts on.

though we’re not quite out of winter yet as it often snows well into april.  and the forecast says we’ll be getting thunderstorms for most of this week.  which is why every lovely day must be taken advantage of! 

edit:  oh my!  it’s now 81 degrees (at 5pm)!  it looks like mikey has officially outgrown his need for a nap as he’s been awake in his room for the last 2 1/2 hours doing who knows what…  guess we’ll head outside for a little more sun now!