Don't Say Things Like That

This past Friday David had an incident with a hanger.  I won't go into the details, but it was gross.  I thought for sure we were going to the ER.  But he was ok.  And then he took a face plant on our train table.  But he was fine.  I was on the phone with my mom later that day and said something along the lines of "I can't believe we have never been to the ER with my kids.  I'm sure David is going to make us go there quite a bit"

David has had a fever and a cough since Sunday afternoon.  The fever has gotten high.  But it is responding well to medicine.  I still took him to the doctor on Tuesday morning.  He said that he was wheezing some but not enough to do anything.  The doctor wanted us to let him know if things changed.

By the afternoon, David was wheezing more and just generally miserable.  You could see his stomach heaving as he was trying to get air.  And his fever was just persistent.  So I put him in the tub to see if it would make him get any better. 

 

It just made him shake and get cold but didn't take his fever down.  I put him to bed and he fell right to sleep.  I told Ryan I was a bit concerned about his breathing and I was just going to call the doctor to see what he said. 

 

One piece of back information is that my pediatrician is very low intervention.  He rarely prescribes anything.  He is a proponent of letting the body do what the body knows how to do.  This is actually one of the reasons we love him.

 

So when I called him last night and he said that we needed to take him to the ER, I was shocked.  But I also knew that we needed to go.  When he jumps, so do we.  We dropped Ainsley off at Grandma's house for the night and off we went. 

 

It was a fairly easy experience. They gave him a breathing treatment and did a chest X-ray. He lungs were clear.  It was viral and we just needed to wait it out.  We were home by midnight with an inhaler and instructions to keep up the Ibuprofen. 

 

Serves me right to say things like that. 

I am a Mom

Over the past couple of days I have been trying to get onto the computer to type a new post. On Wednesday I wanted to write something about work. On Thursday I wanted to write something about being married for 9 years (Happy Anniversary Ryan). On Friday I wanted to write about anything. Today I realize that I can only think of one thing in my life right now - my sick baby girl and my need to take care of her.

Ainsley woke up on Thursday morning sounding hoarse and sick. It came on very quickly. I quickly reshuffled schedules and brought her over to Ryan's mom's house. I called Leah and told her to look into finding a place for Logan for the afternoon. I went to work and tried to concentrate. My mind was one place - home with my baby. I left an hour early and came home to find a pathetic looking child who needed to see the doctor. We went to the doctor and were informed that she has croup. We were told to keep her sitting up and bring her out to the cold to help her breath. Make her sleep in her car seat sitting up. Mostly the instructions were to just let it run its course.

So here I am on Saturday afternoon and I haven't left the house since Thursday afternoon. I have spent time just cuddling and holding my baby. She has been sick before but nothing like this.

As I have held Ainsley a realization has really sunk into me for one of the first times. Prior to now I really felt like she could be happy with anyone. But now I know...I am her Mom. I am the one that she wants when she doesn't feel good. I am the one who is there to take care of her. I am the one who will let her cough so hard she throws up on me. I am the one who will hold her as she cries. I know I am many other things too. Those other parts of my life are important. But right now, I am only one thing...a Mom.