Well, Alex had two big milestones this week. The first just happened about 10 minutes ago. I was sitting on the chair blogging away while Alex played with his toys on the floor. I look up and he is standing in front of the ottoman looking at me! He pulled himself up, let go to grab a paper of mine, and promptly fell over a few seconds later. Not bad for 7 and a half months! I fear walking is not too far in the future...
The second milestone isn't a good one. He had his first visit to the emergency room Sunday night/Monday morning. He woke up Saturday night, around 2am, with a fever of 101. He was sick all day Sunday, and cranky, but not terrible. I put him in bed with me Sunday night to keep an eye on him. He woke up crying at 2:30am, and as soon as I touched him, I knew he had gotten much worse. I took his temp under his arm and it was 103.4.....but you're supposed to add a degree or two...so it was either 104 or 105. Grant and I decided to take him down to Children's, since we weren't able to give him another dose of Motrin for another couple hours.
While we were getting dressed, he coughed once. It was a really nasty cough, and only gave us more confidence in our decision to take him. We got to the hospital and checked in. When the first nurse checked him, she said it was probably croup, but couldn't be sure. The resident checked him 20 minutes later and said, yep. It's croup. By the time the attending doctor checked him 20 minutes after that, he had the strider noise in his breathing even when he wasn't coughing and needed a breathing treatment. It was amazing how quickly he progressed from his first cough at home to full blown, can't breathe croup an hour later. Poor little guy was just miserable and cried harder than I've seen him cry in his whole 7 months. The nurses and doctors were great, and took great care of him. They even brought in a "distraction station" for his breathing treatment. It was a 5 foot tall tank of water with fish that swam all over and lights that changed color. He watched the fish and didn't make a peep during the whole thing. We had to stay for him to be monitored for three hours, and got home around 8:30am. What a long night!
Thankfully, his fever broke at the hospital and hasn't returned. He has a slight cough and runny nose, but is back to his normal, happy self. Hopefully we won't have to repeat THIS milestone anytime soon.
