CRAZINESS!!

I absolutely hate moving! It is so overwhelming and I spend the majority of the day looking around at all of our stuff instead of actually packing it away. Then you throw in the fact that Brent is constantly at my feet, it makes it difficult to pack things in boxes when he is pulling them out as fast as I can get them in. Scott swears that he works best "under pressure" (meaning running around like a crazy man the night before we need to be out). Luckily things are moving along and Saturday will be here before we know it.

I kid you not, since Brent has been born he has NEVER had one single bad night. That's what happens when you give birth to a baby the size of a 3 month old. They are born ready to sleep through the night. When he was tiny he would wake up once in the night to eat, and immediately fall back asleep. Before he was born we bought a nice glider/rocking chair because I envisioned spending many nights rocking a sleepy baby. But it never happened. In fact, the glider in his room has hardly been sat in. Because of our good luck, I have just been waiting for the day that I would wake up at 2:00 a.m to find vomit in his crib, or wake up to a cry and find him with a fever. I hate to be negative Nelly, but come on... he is 13 months old- I knew his time was coming!

Last night was that night. It finally happened. I have never been more scared in my life- we heard him coughing before we were asleep and thought it was strange. I commented to Scott how it didn't sound like a normal cough. It was just weird and something didn't seem right. I went and checked on him and he was a little fussy. I gave him his pacifier and he went back to sleep. An hour later he was screaming bloody murder- I went up again, gave him his pacifier, and he fell back asleep. Scott and I finally got in bed and that mothers intuition kicked in. He sounded weird on the monitor and I woke up Scott and asked him if he thought it sounded weird. He told me "I don't know.. it just sounds like he's snoring." Well, I knew it was more than that so I went to go check on him.

Augh! My poor little man. He was sitting up in one corner of the crib, hunched over, and breathing really rapidly and shallow- almost like he couldn't get a good breath. I immediately grabbed him and called for Scott. By this point lights had turned on and Brent was crying and the breathing was getting worse. The only thing we could think to do was turn on the shower and sit with him in the steam, so Scott took him in the bathroom. Our insurance has a 24 hour nurse line, so I called and talked to a nurse. (Which, by the way, the nurse was a moron. He was asking me questions like "Does his abdomen hurt??" I paused and was like "Umm.. not that he's told me. He's 13 months old". The nurse would pause and follow that up with a question like "Has he been complaining of chest pain?" Another akward pause by me followed with "Umm.. again, not that I know of.. he can't talk.")

Anyway, to make a long story short the nurse had me hold the phone up to Brent so he could hear him breathing. He immediately said "It sounds like croup." He told me several things to do and said if it didn't get better to take him to the Emergency Room. Scott went and bought a humidifier at 1:30 in the morning and popcicles. (The nurse said to give him a popcicle to reduce the swelling of his larnyx). Brent would have nothing to do with the popcicle and we ended up just laying with him till after 3 in the morning. It was horrible. I decided to just ride it out until morning and take him to the pediatrician first. I took him and the pediatrician confirmed it was croup and he is on steroids now twice a day. Oh the fun of it all.. just what we need in the middle of moving! a sick baby! I just hope he starts feeling better- he is so pitiful when he is sick and it makes me so sad for him. But the steroids bring me to the next thought...

HE WALKED TODAY!! Believe it or not, he took about 4 steps to me. Scott got it on video tape and I immediately started cheering for him and hugged him. What does he do? Leans down and BITES my stomach. So on tape, for him to watch later in life, is his first steps with cheers from mom and dad IMMEDIATELY followed up with me yelling "BRENT! NO! NO BITING! THAT HURTS MOMMY!" Scott thinks he was trying to bite his little sister. :) I hope this isn't the latest thing because he bit me the other day and left a bruise on my arm. Anyway. He hasn't taken any more steps since then, but there is actually hope that he won't be crawling to kindergarten. He actually might start walking one of these days! We think the steroids gave him the added umph he needed!

I'm off to go pack more boxes. Yuck.