Croup...There It Is.

Addie's been pretty darn healthy the last two years, so maybe you won't blame me too much when I was totally surprised at her wicked bout with croup on Wednesday night.  It was one in the morning, and she came stumbling into our room gasping for air.  E. got her first, then I realized what was happening and got up too.  She was understandably panicked at not being able to breathe, so while he got the nebulizer set up, I held her face in my hands and tried to calmly explain what was happening to her, and how crying only made it worse.  It took a few minutes, but she finally got calmed down, but didn't fall asleep for a few hours.  She doesn't have any infections to go along with the croup--at least, she didn't when we were at the doctor's yesterday--so that's a good thing.  It appears to just have been triggered by the cold that Nolie was nursing for a few weeks.  But she does feel pretty puny and sounds like an old-man smoker, and had to stay home from school yesterday.

That makes five days of missed work for me in the last two weeks.

Also, E. has developed a wicked snoring habit.

Also, and this is the worst thing of all, Nolie is staging another sleep-strike.  A maddening, horrible, exhausting sleep-strike.  She is throwing a tantrum that lasts pretty much all night long.  We can get her to sleep fine, and she'll sleep for a few hours, and then she gets out of her bed every five minutes after, screaming and yelling about nightmares and growing pains and us being the woost pawents evah (still with that one).  She will not listen to us and is ferociously stubborn and there's nothing we can do.  She really wants us to let her sleep in our bed, but I just won't do it.  I won't go back to that.  So we fight all night long about her staying in her room and consequences and respectfulness and responsibility.

By 5 am this morning, I just hid under the blankets and willed myself back to sleep.

I've been weepy and shaky all day.  I'm short-tempered.  I'm mad.

I don't know what to do to help her at this point.  If I had any ideas, my brain is too tired to process them.  I'm returning to the age-level of a five-year-old myself at this point.  I want to say that it's not fair.  I want everyone to leave me alone.  I want to abandon them all and go stay at a hotel.  I feel chubby and low-energy and unproductive.

I hope things turn around as we head into this holiday week.