Happy Boy, Sad Girl

On Tuesday afternoon, I had the pleasure of watching Isabella and Isaac for an hour or so while Sierra got a haircut.  It happened to be a warm-ish day, so we got to play outside for a bit.  After a long discussion about which boots Isabella would wear (she wore her fancy shoes to our house, and our backyard is a bit muddy after the feets of snow melted), we bundled up and made our way outside.  Charlotte, of course, would not be put down and cried as if her little tiny world was coming to an end.  I couldn't hold both her and Isaac for very long, and while I'm sure he would have been happy to sit in the grass, the mud problem mentioned above made that less than a good idea.  I tried putting her in the Ergo, thinking it would be an epic fail, and then she calmed down right away!  I wouldn't say she was totally happy, but at least she wasn't crying :)  I found out that Isaac loves the swing, and he REALLY loves when Isabella pushes him in the swing.  He was laughing so hard he was snorting, which is pretty adorable :)

On Tuesday night, Charlotte started coughing again.  She had had a cold for a couple of weeks, which then turned into an ear infection, and she had *just* finished a round of antibiotics on Monday.  The coughing had stopped Monday, and I'd even had the audacity to tell my mom that both kids were healthy (after many weeks of that not being true).  The coughing kept her awake most of the night, but the next day it wasn't so bad, so I figured it was just a resurgence of the cold.  By Wednesday night, she was coughing every 45 seconds or so, so Michael called the nurse line for our doctor to see if we could give her some Benadryl or something ~ we'd already tried a steamy bathroom, humidifier, honey, honey water, and later Chestal Honey, all with almost no effect on the cough.  She couldn't recommend anything, but strongly suggested we take Charlotte back to the doctor asap.  I called as soon as the office opened on Thursday and got in pretty much right away.  I fully expected the doctor to give the old eye roll and tell me it was a virus because she had no fever, no icky colored anything, no diarrhea, no vomiting...just a cough.  But, after listening to Charlotte's chest, told me that she heard wheezing and she wanted to do an albuterol breathing treatment!  Eek!  I mean, obviously this is not the worst thing in the world, but I was so not expecting it to be anything!  The probable diagnosis is RSV (this is the 2nd or 3rd time Charlotte has had it).  Poor thing!  We're doing home treatments with an inhaler now, and the girlie is a trooper!  The first time I did the inhaler, she said, "again!"  This morning when I got it out, she said, "MY medicine!" (in case anyone mistakenly thought it was for someone else :)).  The inhaler does seem to be helping, though it is making her a bit crazy on top of her typical hyper self...apparently the albuterol has the same effect as caffeine, which is exactly what every one-and-a-half year old needs!

Now some pictures of our adventures :)

 

Maya and Isabella were pretending to skate on the little bit of ice left on this step from a climbing toy :)

Isaac and Charlotte, both being held at the time of these shots.  You'll notice that Isaac looks interested and inquisitive, while Charlotte looks angry and snotty.  That's real life, folks ;)

 

Ya, ya, this is a lot of pictures of Isaac in the swing...but I loved them all!  He looks so happy!