Croup times two!

I think last week was maybe one of the hardest weeks I've had as a parent since the girls were little babies.

What is harder than one sick baby? Two sick babies. What is harder than two sick babies? Two sick babies while your husband is out of town AND you are supposed to be working and don't have back up child care. (Single mothers, I don't know how you do it.)

Darren left Sunday for a work conference. On Monday when I dropped them off at daycare, Anne mentioned that croup was going around the daycare and two kids were now sick with it (out of eight).

First of all, I've never even really heard of croup (other than my cousin's son getting it). It's one of those thing that you sometimes hear about and sounds kind of scary but I didn't really know what it was. Let me enlighten you. It's a bad cough (just viral) that sounds kind of like a barky seal that needs to run its course. In most cases, because it's viral, you don't even need to go to the doctor unless your child is having trouble breathing.

So on Tuesday the girls both had a low grade fever (99.7 and 100.4) so I kept them home from daycare. The cough started shortly after. We were very lucky in that it was never so severe they needed to be hospitalized (look at croup on YouTube and you'll find some pretty awful cases). So from Tuesday- Thursday I was on my own without Darren, trying to "work from home" while taking care of two sick babies who both just wanted to be held by mom. I noticed when either of them would get upset and cry really hard (ie, mommy left the room for ten seconds to make their bottles) they were start wheezing which scared the shit out of me. We did a several steam sessions in the shower (closed door, water on high and hot) where we just sat on the floor of the bathroom. This seemed to help. Used the humidifier in their room too. Seemed to get worse at night. They coughed all night long poor babies.

But we survived. Darren came home Thursday night just as the girls were going to bed. We kept them home Friday again but they were on the mend by then (just a lingering cough, and doctor said they weren't contagious anymore and lungs sounded clear). They still have a slight cough today but much better. Everyone made it to daycare this morning!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HIQr_kmj1Y