All we can do is keep breathing

Well this weekend isn’t turning into anything like the way we’d imagined …

See, our household hasn’t been healthy for a month … And it’s starting to get really frustrating …

And poor Phoebe. The girl was the world’s healthiest child for the first eight months of her life …

Then plfffffffft. Ear infections. A good cold …

And this week she’s had a cough that’s sounded more deadly as the week has gone on. Ok, probably more deadly to Kates and I than anyone else …

On Thursday morning, I called in sick after we got up and discovered she had a 100-degree fever. Her cough was sounding worse, and her nose was pouring with snot. Yay. … I will say, though, despite the stressful circumstances of her condition, it was a great day. We sat on the floor and played together almost all day.

On Friday, I wasn’t scheduled to work, but I desperately needed to get some work done on my car … And Phoebe’s coughing fits seemed to be getting worse. So Kates called in sick and took Pheebs to the doctor …

The report when she came back: Phoebe had ear infections in both ears and she’s attracted a virus that is the likely cause of her coughing fits, which at times have been so bad that Kates and I have worried she was having trouble breathing. Needless to say, we haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in some time …

As an attempt to cure this thing, the doctor sent Kates home with this 500-dollar breathing contraption, aka a nebulizer system. Which sounds like a car engine. Or something like that ... All of this is so new to me. Our daycare provider knew all about it, though.

So, until further notice, we’re filling the thing with a medicine and strapping a breathing mask that blows steam onto Phoebe’s face for 10 minutes every three hours …

Otherwise known to Kates and I as torture … We have to do it every three hours, day and night. And Phoebe has never cried or screamed louder.

Which, somehow, she wasn't doing when we took this picture last night ...

But as soon as it's over, Phoebe's back to her happy, easy-going self. You'd never know anything was wrong. She's a trooper.

The trials of parenthood.