And Then There Were Three: Sick + Six

This seems a bit too familiar...

Well, we all knew that teething is terrible. (That's been evident on and off over the past six months around here!) Now we also know that croup is crappy.

This week has been really hard for Emma Vance. It started out with her being way, way cranky, and when she finally let me feel her gums, I realized the reason for her bad attitude. Four fangs and two molars were bulging, ready to emerge. (That's SIX teeth at once, people! To put that into perspective, when they all emerge, she'll have DOUBLE her current number of teeth!) I was glad to have figured out why she wasn't acting like herself but sad to think that the next few weeks were doomed to be characterized by a whiny baby with a mouthful of aching gums.

Thus, when she was SUPER fussy Thursday, I assumed her teeth were about to break through soon. However, as the day wore on, she got worse and worse, to the point where I barely recognized my child. Typically E.V. cries, like, rarely, but all day Thursday she was full of tears and complaints. Ryan and I attributed it to her teething, put her to bed and prayed for a better day Friday. Yeah right. She woke up all throughout the night, crying out with a raspy voice, coughing violently along with scary, labored breathing and a feverish forehead. By the time 8 a.m. rolled around, we were desperate for the pediatrician to see our wheezy, miserable baby.

Upon entering the dreaded exam room (you know, the one where they place all the sick kids? the one where you KNOW it's just covered in other kids' germs...), it took about ten seconds for the doctor to declare that Emma Vance had croup, which I'd heard of but knew nothing about. Basically it's baby laryngitis--a kid-to-kid virus that causes a sore throat, loss of voice, dry cough and fever. (That's what I get for taking her to the gym daycare!) He said that it'd be two to five days before the laryngitis "broke" and that we'd know we were in the home stretch when she became phlegmy.

So began our miserable quarantine. They gave her an oral steroid at the doctor's office, which normally I'd refuse but she was so miserable I'd have said yes to any treatment at that point. We were sent home with the advice to rest and stay inside, which we've been doing for a few days now. It's been hard because of those dang incoming teeth, which didn't let up once the croup came on. Not only have we been dealing with a sick baby, but also six teeth coming in--simultaneously! Seriously?!?

Overall, we've just been snuggling, eating a lot of cheese and bananas (soft stuff), and resting as much as possible. Poor Emma Vance has been waking up throughout the nights, ravenous for a few sips of formula to soothe her dry, scratchy throat. (Poor Mom, too! Those newborn-esque nights are tough a year later!) The really difficult thing has been that even during the day all E.V. really wants is a bottle of formula. She asks for it ("Baba?") constantly. It seems to be the only thing that really soothes her, and since we had almost completed the bottle-to-sippy-cup and formula-to-milk transition, it's been a big set back. But, really, what do you do when your kid is hurting? I figure we'll get back to the big girl stuff once the little lady's feeling like herself again. "Two steps forward," right?

The good news/bad news is that although she awoke this morning sicker than ever, it was at least accompanied by a cough proclaiming that we've officially entered the phlegmy stage. Although the yucky cough and runny nose have made for a day full of Pixar movies, pajamas and lounging (where ever the tiny patient wants--including on the dogs), I believe that we've survived the worst of it. It's only a matter of a few days, now, before she should be back to herself again. Well, at least back to her teething self again. Ugh. Why didn't God design these things to happen one at a time?