Croup!

The other night Scott and I were knitting or polishing our muskets or whatever it is we do after Henry’s gone to bed when we heard a sound coming from his room. It sounded like there was an animal in there. Like the animal was dying loudly and painfully. That animal is going to wake up Henry, I thought; that animal should keep his suffering to his own self. “Is Henry moving the furniture?” asked Scott. Then I realized what it was: CROUP! The dreaded CROUP!

“Turn on the shower!” I shrieked as I ran to save my toddler. “Yes!” replied Scott as he ran to the bathroom. “Orp! Orp orp!” barked Henry, who was standing up in his crib and waving his arms at me. “Orp!”

Next thing I knew, the three of us were crammed in the steamy bathroom, our hairs becoming frizzy, our clothing damp. The child was none too happy. One minute he’s sleeping peacefully, and the next he can’t breathe and he’s forced to take a shvitz with these crazy people. “What do we do now!” Scott asked. “Um!” I replied. “Get thee into a steamy bathroom” was the only directive I recalled about what to do with CROUP! I had rather thought the minute we steamed him up, Henry would calm down and commence to breathing. Instead he continued his barky tirade while we tried to sing him songs (he wasn’t having it) or tell him stories (he now saw that our stories lacked a compelling narrative thrust).

Finally we found some books he would tolerate and we read as we watched the paint mildew and the towels become sodden. And lo, the child did breathe. And there was much delight. Actually there was much fatigue, and the child awakened every couple of hours to let us know that he was still pretty miserable. At one point he woke up and attempted to comfort himself back to sleep by singing—and I wish I was making this up—“You are My Sunshine.” There is nothing more pathetic than a toddler with laryngitis croaking, “Please don’t take my sunshine a-waaay.” All we needed was a shot of a deflated ball wobbling across an empty playground, and we would have an excellent public-service ad for, well, something or other. Do I have to think of everything?

Also, did you know that if you leave an inch of water in the humidifier and then pack it away in the closet, things will grow in there? Did you know this is an exceedingly stupid thing to do? While I was in the bathroom reading Cars and Trucks and Cars on top of Trucks to Henry, my husband was in the kitchen, scrubbing the humidifier with bleach and vinegar and cursing. I tried to think of someone to blame for this stupid move, but probably it was me.

Last night there was more CROUP! And oh, was Henry weary of the steamy-bathroom routine. He was not enjoying the fun-adventureness of it. The change-of-routine appeal was entirely lost on him. He just wanted to bark in peace in the comfort of his bed.

Right now the child is at the doctor with his father, while I am hard at work. And as soon as I finish this and make myself more tea and then after I check my email a few times, I am so going to start working, I swear it. My deadlines are demanding that I work more than blog for the next couple of weeks, so if posting is light(er), I beg your forgiveness in advance.

In conclusion: CROUP!

In which I don't bother coming up with a conclusion.

Today Henry woke up to find that his nose had turned into a cascading waterfall of goo. Besides the runniness and the sneeziness he seems relatively okay, but he has also been squeamish lately about strange substances on his skin, so every time he sneezes and mucus shoots out of his nose, he screams “Get it off me! GET IT OFF!” and I have to run and wipe him before he enters The Freakout Territory From Which It Is Difficult To Exit Gracefully. You’d think such a fussy child would learn to wipe his own nose, but when the tissue is used and it becomes infused with the goo, then his hands must be wiped. It's an exhausting process. A few times he just lunged forward and wiped his nose on my jeans, and I let him.

Right before his nap I thought he felt a little warm, so I whipped out the thermometer. Now, in the past Henry has found the under-arm option of temperature-taking unacceptable; strangely, he always handled the rectal option with aplomb, so that’s where we went. So today I didn’t even think about it: I lubed up the thermometer and put him over my lap. Henry was intensely curious about the goings-on; when I got out the thermometer he was all “What is THAT” and then “Oooh, temperature,” and “Because I don’t feel well” and “This will make my rash better” (lately everything is about the rash). Then I took off his diaper, which is always a thrill for him, and when I told him to lie down across my lap he was clearly anticipating Fun Times. And then there was insertion.

What I failed to take into account is, because this has been a ridiculously healthy year for all of us, I haven’t taken Henry’s temperature in a long, long time. And what an 18-month-old will tolerate is not necessarily what a two-something enjoys. So I stuck this thermometer in and Henry says, “Hey. HEY. WAIT. HEY. What’s THAT. NO. HEY,” like an adult chastising a little kid who put something where it’s not supposed to go. It was so adult that I started laughing and I took the thermometer out of my indignant son’s butt and he stood up and looked at me, still saying, “HEY” except now because I was laughing he concluded that whatever had just happened, it was hilarious. And then we had lunch. The End.

I would soil myself with genuine poo—just to get a big ol’ laugh out of you.

We’re almost at the other end (end!) of Henry’s Adventures in Pooping—we made it through the rapids, and now we’re wading through the occasional runlet. I just really wanted to say "runlet." Runlet! There!

You know (she writes, introducing her Theme for the Day), I used to think there was some way, when my child got sick, that I could avoid catching it. I’ll just wash my hands, I thought! Why don't other people think of that! I’ll wash and wash--and wash some more. Obviously!

This morning, after I changed Henry for the 3rd time, I continued to smell poop. I looked in Henry’s diaper, which fresh and new as a spring morning. So I looked on my hands. Nope. My shirt. Relatively unsoiled. The poop smell lingered—it was as if there was poop right under my nose. But of course we all know there was no poop there, because a poop mustache would be too much insult to endure. (Insert your "Dirty Sanchez" joke here. You know you want to. You filthy, filthy thing.)

No, the poop was not under my nose. No. It was on my nose.

I glanced in the mirror, and there! Right on the tip of my nose! Poop! Why am I admitting this in a public forum? It was only a dab. But isn’t that enough? How much poop can a person allow to sit on their nose before they flee their home in horror and disgust? How did it get there? I’ve been washing and washing with all the paranoid vigor that I imagined before I had this child, and yet somehow it managed to evade me, to travel up from my hands all the way to the center of my face.

My point is, once the poop has made it to your nose, you’re pretty much doomed. I am doomed. Unless the Birthday Fairies see fit to spare me from the sickness.

Gasp in amazement at how subtly I mention that it’s my birthday! Why do you think I’m linking to flattering pictures of myself and practically begging for reassurance that I’m not as old and haggard as I feel? I’m transparent. And 35. Thirty-five. Thirty. Five. I’m not sure I’m so happy about this turn of events. But there’s nothing I can do about it—the alternatives are so much less appealing. Anyway, it’s there already, like the poop on the end of my nose. No matter how I scrub and scrub.

And she didst have the sickness, and the sickness didst prevent her from tending to her blog.

And God did declareth thus: unto thee there shall be given great pains; yea, thou shalt have the soreness of throat, as well as achiness of limbs, and thou shalt whine and call all of thine friends and family to update them on thine escalating fevers, but no one shalt care very much, as fevers are not all that interesting.

This is what happens when you complain about your poor child’s sickness—you get smitten by the Lord. I’m not all that religious, but I know a good smiting when I see it.

Today—healthy at last!—we bounded, skipping and singing and tossing Cheerios to the wind, all the way to our music class, our artsy funky look-how-New-Yorky music class that’s held in the far hipper neighborhood of Fort Greene. This was the first time I didn’t go with my friend S., as we managed to infect both S. and her daughter with our plague. So I was thinking, hey, maybe for once I’d socialize with some of the strangers in our little song-circle; maybe I’d make a new friend in some hipster-mama Fort Greener. (I think the fact that I just referred to someone from Fort Greene as a “Fort Greener” makes me so unhip that I will never be invited to any of their sex parties.) (They have sex parties, right? The hipsters? Someone’s gotta be having them.) (Not that I would go to one, even if I was invited. Hi, Dad!) But by the time I got there I was sweaty and shaky, suffering some residual badness from the death-virus that only recently finished ravaging my innards, and Henry was caterwauling because the precious Cheerios had disappeared (see above, re: Cheerios, tossing of). And all the mothers were already in their circle, all talking with each other and laughing and gesturing with their clean-shirted arms, and I realized that they all probably were disgusted by my presence, and anyway, I was not in any kind of shape to socialize. So Henry and I sat down and kept to ourselves until it was time for us to sing songs about hailing cabs and hugging homeless people. The one father who goes to the class made a late entrance and sat next to me, and although his cute, large-headed child was engaging with my equally cute and somewhat equally large-headed child, I could not for the life of me catch his eye to say something that I wanted to say, which was, “Your kid’s head is bigger than my kid’s head! What do you know!” Which would not have been a good or clever thing to say, but I really wanted to say it, because his head! Was so! Big! But this father was too handsome to talk with me, so instead he chatted with a gorgeous woman to his right. Here’s what I’m pretty sure they were saying:

Handsome father: You know, I find it a burden to be so handsome, when I am also so hip.

Gorgeous mother: I know exactly what you mean. As you may have noticed, I’m breathtaking.

HF: Indeed.

GM: It’s good, though. I do like being pretty.

[They laugh and nod.]

GM: [whispering] That woman sitting next to you? With the sweaty pits and nervous laugh? She’s not that gorgeous.

HF: [shakes head sadly.] I’m afraid not.

GM: You know what we should do? Judge her.

HF: Hey, I was already judging her, when you said that! I was judging her, right then!

GM: You don’t say! Would you like to come to my sex party?