Croup

I think it was her first winter.. that would make Thing 2 9 months old or so… she got croup. She woke us up in the middle of the night having trouble breathing. She might have been in her 2nd winter, I’m not sure. Anyway, she was little. I knew more about this than Hubby did, but I kind of panicked that what would happen if I took Thing 2 to the hospital and she had another choking fit in the car. I’d be driving, who would help her? So we woke Thing 1 up too and had a family visit to the hospital.

Thing 2 has always been really good about taking her medication. In fact giving her some just now reminded me of this story. When we got to the Emergency room they looked her over and spent a while explaining to me about croup and how driving around with the windows down on a cold winter night is usually enough to cure whatever croup she has. All this time they are talking to me I’m holding her hand she’s wheezing and I’m thinking to myself “SHUT UP AND FIX HER!!!”

They gave her a breathing treatment, which was basically a little tube attached to a machine that pumped out a little medicated steam. She was supposed to have two doses of this, each about five minutes long. The nurse told me to just hold it in her face and he’d be back.
Thing 2 loved it. She took it in her mouth and sucked on it, laughing and giggling. She got mad when I took it away. She played with in, letting the mist on her lips, and then sucking the steam out of it, and just playing with it like it was the funnest toy.
The nurse came back and watched for a while and was just amazed. He said he’d given this to a whole lot of kids, but he’d never seen one take to it like her. He said, “She’s like a dog playing in the sprinkler!”