Friday 7 February 2014

I'm Sick of You

We thought Molly was over the worst of her illness from this past weekend, but we were wrong.  On Monday her slight cough was keeping her up for a lot of the night, on Tuesday when we picked her up from daycare they let us know that she was coughing constantly, all day long and was lethargic.  Tuesday night I frantically called our doctor's office to see what we could do, then scheduled an appointment for Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, in the middle of yet another winter snow storm, we trudged over to the doctor who then referred us to a local hospital for chest X-rays because they were afraid it might be pneumonia.  With my heart in my throat we headed over to the hospital to await the test results.

toddler girl at playground
A healthier Miss Molly

Chris and I had several epiphanies as we blundered our way through yet another toddler health crisis over the past few days that I thought I'd share.

Baby Brain Can Extend Well Into Toddlerhood
I remember those long arduous nights in the early days when a lack of sleep turned our brains into mush.  Lack of proper sleep can impair your judgement and reasoning skills significantly.  This was proven by Chris' decision on day four with minimal REM sleep to hand his car keys to occupy Jack while they were grocery shopping.  Upon cashing out, Chris discovered that Jack had tossed the keys aside in favor of consuming granola bars.  After 45 minutes of questioning Jack about the keys whereabouts*, tearing around the store in search of the keys, while checking in with the cashier every 10 minutes a random store manager overheard the fifth inquiry with the cashier and tossed Chris the missing key ring casually as if it were a pack of gum and he hadn't been tearing the store apart looking for it.  I guess Fresh Co. now has revenge for the minion vomit incident circa 2013.  When I inquired as to why Chris had not asked the cashier to make an announcement over the PA system to help him find the keys he muttered something incoherent that might of been a curse under his breath.

Be Wary of Strangers in Vans
You know the cliche about creeps luring children into their vans with promises of candy? We don't need to worry about Molly getting bamboozled by the promise of candy, we need to worry about strangers and stickers.  After three medical examinations, a set of X-rays and half a day of waiting I learned that she will do almost anything if she believes that you will give her stickers.  After Molly's X-rays the technician asked me, "So how many other times has Molly had X-rays?" Answer: None.  The technician protested, "But she's only two and a half and she sat so still."    I explained, "You promised her stickers!"  As the day progressed Molly learned that if she coyly told people about her twin brother she could get two stickers instead of just one, because he needed one too.**

Croup is the "New" Colic 
After days of worry, sleeplessness and hours in medical waiting rooms it was determined that Molly has croup.  The good news is that it's not pneumonia, the other good news is that the doctor at the hospital gave us the go ahead to send her into daycare because she was beyond the worst of it (and that is where she caught it), the bad news is that the only cure is time.  We braced ourselves for yet another sleepless night.  At 11PM we heard that telltale croup seal bark and rushed up to grab Molly, except she was sound asleep.  It turned out that Jack had developed a different type of croup, “spasmodic” which comes from the same virus but manifests itself differently.  Thankfully we had him back to bed within an hour and he slept through.  I remember when Molly had colic how much I cursed it; The constant crying for no reason, the hours of pacing and walking, but after croup, I hate colic a little less.  With colic I never feared for her health and it never sent us to the hospital.   Sure it ruined a lot of evenings, it was exhausting but you could set a clock to it (7PM - 10PM) and we got so much vacuuming done!



*The only answers he provided Chris with were: "Keys!", "Bars", "Bear", "High-Five!"  and "Chocolate".
**Jack was not with us at the hospital and never received a single sticker from his sister.

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