The Croup

The recently experienced parents in our readership probably knew that the next post to follow the "Samson has started school" post would of course be the "We're all sick as dogs" post. And here it is.

Samson came home from school on Wednesday feeling pretty grumpy. Thursday he was obviously miserable and the runny nose had begun. About 2 hours after his bedtime that night, Mama heard a strange dog barking outside, only it sounded like it was almost in the house. Then she realized that the sound was coming from the baby monitor and Samson's room. Uh oh.

Luckily, several friends had recently been through "the croup" (That's what my country-folk parents called it, so that's what I'm calling it, too. Don't hold it against my boy, okay? --Mama), so we knew to bundle up Samson and take him into the cool night air to stop the attack.

As our doctor predicted, we had 3 rough (and sleepless) nights of barking coughs and high fevers, but Samson began to rally on Sunday. Now he's down to goopy eyes and nose, plus painful swollen tonsils and sore throat, but he's sleeping better and back in his crib again. If he continues on this textbook course, he should be ready to come out of quarantine in a couple of days.

Also of no surprise to our fellow parents, Daddy and Mama quickly picked up the bug, too, so between the three of us, we've pretty much covered the house with mountains of wadded up tissue. Based on our high rate of consumption, we advise our readers to buy some stock in Puffs, Mucinex, Advil, and Thera-flu.

On a bright note, all the misery of this illness pushed Samson to finally utter his first understandable spoken word, which he now repeats endlessly whenever he wants to be cuddled, "Mamamamamamamamama-mama-mama.... Mama-mama-mama-ma.... Mama. Mama. Mama."