Sunshine, you work wonders

Grayson had a slight fever Sunday morning which escalated to 102.8 by early evening. So when he was struggling to breathe when he woke Monday morning and then kept panting and wheezing throughout the day, I took him in to the pediatrician that afternoon. Turns out he has croup. His doctor said the parainfluenza virus has been going around lately and he's not the first croup case she's treated recently. They gave him vaporized epinephrine and an oral steroid and he sounded much better that night before bedtime.

He wasn't very wheezy Tuesday and he broke his fever Monday night, but he was very clingy and whiny and sounded raspy when he would cry. The doc gave me a one-time prescription for the steroid 'just in case' so we filled it Tuesday and he seemed to breathe well through the night (although he wasn't sleeping through the night. Mommy=walking zombie since Saturday).

Wednesday he coughed a lot more and sounded a little congested but mostly he just cried and seemed even more clingy than he was Tuesday. When I say 'clingy' I mean he grips me tightly enough that it semi-chokes me. He's like a little monkey that climbs all over me and freaks out whenever I try to put him down. Even when he takes a break from full-on crying there's a constant whimper that permeates my brain and makes my head hurt. Poor guy. I feel so bad when he's sick. And then I feel guilty for turning on the vacuum to drown him out for a few minutes because I don't know what to do and his incessant noise is driving me bonkers.

Fast forward to today, Friday. Grayson slept through the night last night and hasn't been coughing yet today (although he did sneeze twice). He's playing by himself and isn't insisting I hold him all the time. Why the change? I gave up isolating ourselves yesterday and took him outside to work in the yard for a couple of hours. He loved it. He followed me all around the yard as I sprayed weeds growing in the grass. He tried to put on my gloves and danced while I sang to him. He studied me pulling the crabgrass out of the flower bed and proceeded to help me - grunting as he pulled and all. He even threw his weed (small stem of grass) into my weed pile. It was quite adorable to see my little gardener in action.

Maybe his spirits lifted to know that the weed problem is mine and he'll be too young to have to help for a few more years. Maybe the slight breeze cleared all of that infection out of him. It's more probable that enough time has passed that his body is finally kicking some viral butt, but when I see the slightly pinked hue of sun-kissed skin running over his nose and onto his cheeks, I know it's simply because life is more enjoyable when the sun shines.