Get Out of my Face!

My poor baby couldn’t catch a break this morning.

We have a morning routine. I hear her stirring (she sleeps with us), roll over to feed her quickly, then pick her up for some pajama snuggles. After we’re all snuggled out, I change her diaper, since it is usually saturated with pee.

It’s during diaper changing that I have a prime view up her nose. Yes, I admit it: I’m one of those mothers – the kind that hates boogers in her baby’s nose.

I could see a big one, so I got my bulb syringe and got to work. I thought it would be quick, but soon realized the booger was a little too dry to get out without the aid of some saline. My daughter was shaking her head back and forth and waving her arms in an attempt to ward of the “booger sucker,” and she grew more agitated when she saw the saline bottle coming.

I held her head still with one hand and squirted a few drops in each nostril while she yelled. Only a few sucks with the bulb syringe, and the booger was out. Freedom at last!

Or so she thought.

I noticed that she was wheezing. She’s had a cold for over a week, and was prescribed an inhaler because of the whistling, wheezing sound her breathing was making. I knew that she was already sick of me poking around at her face, but I wanted to get things done as quickly as possible so we could get busy playing with toys.

I shook her inhaler and attached it to the contraption the hospital sent home with us. Laying her down on my lap, with her head held stationary between my knees, I put the breathing mask over her face. I pushed down on the inhaler to release the medicine, then waited for her to take 10 breaths.

If only it was as easy as counting to 10. She thrashed, yelled, screamed, kicked, and did everything she could to knock the mask off of her face. If that wasn’t enough, the prescription called for two sprays from the inhaler, so we had to go through the whole ordeal again.

Needless to say, she wasn’t a happy camper.

Don’t worry, though. Five seconds later, I shook a rattle in her face, and she forgot the whole thing. Ah, the beauty in the distractibility of infants.

When your Child gets Sick on a Sunday

Does it ever seem like your child gets sick more often on a Saturday or Sunday than any other day of the week?

It has seemed like that at our house lately. Two Saturdays ago, I was sure our daughter had an ear infection, so I made an appointment for her. Luckily, despite the fact that it was Saturday, a pediatrician was available to see her.

We entered the nearly empty waiting room, and I questioned whether it was a good idea for us to be there. The only other people in there were a mother and teenage daughter, who was coughing up a storm, not wearing a mask like she should have been, and not covering her mouth.

This Sunday, after suffering from a cold for a week, she woke up with some pretty bad wheezing and whistling going on every time she breathed. I had never heard that from her before, and called the 24-hour nurse. She suggested giving her a steamy bath. If that didn’t work to relieve the wheezing, she said it would be good for us to take her in right away.

Take her in where? I knew that no regular pediatric office would be open on a Sunday.

After giving her a bath in a bathroom so steamy that water was running down the walls, the wheezing did not improve. We quickly showered, packed the diaper bag, and headed to the Emergency Room at the local Children’s Hospital (and by local, I mean the one that is 30 minutes away).

I felt a little silly walking into the E.R. with her, but we had no other choice. I also felt silly when they admitted her to her own room, and asked us to change her into a hospital gown.

This is a little off the subject, but have you ever seen an infant’s hospital gown? They are ADORABLE. Just like adult hospital gowns, only miniature.

Anyways, after listening to her lungs, the pediatrician decided to administer a breathing treatment to her, and sent us home with a prescription for an Albuterol inhaler. Thank goodness for Walgreens. Their pharmacy was open, and they were able to fill the prescription within 15 minutes.

Hopefully we won’t need to take her to the doctor again anytime soon. Just in case, I’m putting in a special request to my baby that if she feels a problem coming on, she puts it on hold until we can take her Monday through Friday.