sick baby, croup edition (part deux)

Will has croup. He was a little sniffly on Sunday, had a little cough when we put him to bed that night, and woke up a few hours later with a full-blown seal-bark cough. Since I’ve had dealings with croup before, I recognized it for what it was immediately, and I turned on the cool-air humidifier in his room and began the night-long process of rocking him in the steamy bathroom, then taking him outside to breathe in the chilly night air. By the time he got an oral steroid at the pediatrician’s office yesterday, he was already greatly improved.

He didn’t sleep for longer than 10 minutes at a time all day yesterday, and he didn’t sleep at all on Sunday night, so he was just as miserable and pathetic as you’d imagine. Aside from a cold when he was a few weeks old, this is the first time he’s ever been really sick, so whenever he’d cough he’d give me this look like, “OMG, why does this hurt so much?” Whenever he gave me this look, I died. Several times over.

He did seem a lot better by last night, though, at least well enough to help his brother destroy the kitchen after dinner:

Of course, then he proceeded to not sleep a wink for the second night in a row. So I’m functioning solely on a couple of gallons of coffee today, but really? It could be worse. I know croup, and I know what it’s like to NOT EVER SLEEP for SIX MONTHS STRAIGHT. BRING IT.