The past few days and nights have been pretty croup-y! Samantha started sniffling and had a tiny bit of a dry cough on Monday, but she didn’t seem too bothered by it. I figured she just had a little cold and would get over it. By Wednesday, her cough had turned into a really wet, phlegmy sounding cough and she was sneezing all over the place. She still seemed pretty happy and was playing/eating/sleeping normally, so I again passed it off as a cold.
I was NOT looking forward to sitting with the girls in the steamy bathroom with the hot shower turned on all night but thankfully, it never got to that point. They had a few more coughing spells throughout the night and woke up a few times, but always went right back to sleep after we held them for a bit. We kept the girls in our room in order to keep a better eye on them (which pretty much meant no sleep for us!) and had the humidifier going non-stop. By morning, Samantha’s wet cough hadn’t gotten any better and she was starting to rattle in her chest when breathing, so we took her into the pediatrician.
When I called to make an appointment around 9:50, the receptionist asked if I could get there by 10:15. “HA…HA…,” I was thinking to myself, calculating the time it would take to drive there (10 minutes), call Jake to meet me there from work, and get both girls fed, changed, and in the car within fifteen minutes. The diaper bag was a crazy mess and I almost killed Bandit by dropping it on him on my way out the door, but we made it! The staff gave us a standing ovation as we flew through the door on time. A small victory!
Anyway, our ped said that the girls’ nightly cough sounded like classic croup, which we can’t really do anything about, but he put Samantha on antibiotics in case she has a secondary infection, just to be on the safe side. We haven’t really been out or had visitors the past few weeks, so I’m not sure how the girls got sick, unless they caught something Jake brought home from work since a bunch of staff at the firm have the same symptoms as the girls. That’s right, I’m blaming this one on Jake!
The rest of Friday was pretty terrible, with two cranky girls and two extremely sleep-deprived parents. The lack of sleep had apparently taken a toll on my coordination as I managed to shatter a glass, knock a bottle of formula over on my lap top, and spill a bottle of bubbles all over the kitchen floor, all in one afternoon. To add to this fun chain of events, after putting Amelia on the floor for a minute and turning around to pick up Samantha from her high chair, I turned back around to find Bandit licking the sweet potato I had just fed Amelia off her cheek! Disgusting! I flipped out and started yelling at Bandit, at which point the girls started crying because they thought I was yelling at them (they’ve been really interested in different tones of voice lately and always perk up if they hear a conversation that’s not baby talk). Good thing Jake was able to leave the office early and come home to help with the mayhem.
Ever since the girls got sick, I had been pulling laundry out of the dryer and sticking it in a basket after every load, promising myself I would get to it later. We go through A LOT of laundry in 2 1/2 days. It’s still there.
Friday night was more of the same croup cough, but the girls had a better night and we all got a little bit more sleep to get through Saturday. Amelia had stopped coughing completely by the weekend and, while Samantha still had that wet cough and noisy breathing, she seemed like her lively, happy little self again.
Last night, the girls slept in the nursery with the humidifier on and Samantha only got up one time to be cuddled and put back to bed. It sounds like she still has a lot of phlegm in her chest, but it’s breaking up, so I’m hoping she will be back to normal next week.
Poor little sick ducklings!
Lots of love,
I hope they get feeling better thats no fun for either of you! Chloee has had a runny nose for a couple days but thats it not too bad! Hope you get some sleep!