A Rough Way To Start A Birthday

Today is Orin's second birthday! They past two years have FLOWN by. It's amazing how wonderful these past two years have been. But poor Orin didn't have the best beginning to his birthday. Around 3:30am he woke up with SEVERE croup. We heard him crying, which doesn't happen often. When Damien went into his room he was standing on his bed crying hysterically. Micaiah had croup a few months ago, but it was different. We could tell he was having trouble breathing, but he wasn't crying or freaked out. But poor Orin was struggling with each breath and seemed to be choking. Damien said his first thought was that he had swallowed something. As soon as he brought him to me I knew it was croup. So my first thought was to bring him outside and tell Damien got the shower going. I remembered my mom mentioning that when parents would bring their kids to the ER by the time they got there the child would be better simply from breathing the outside, cold wet air. (A friend also mentioned to me that her pediatrician said to stick the child's face in the freezer!) Damien knew about running the shower, but he was pretty confused as to why I was bringing him outside. I think he thought I was nuts. :-) Damien still wasn't convinced it was croup and wanted to bring him to the ER. I didn't want Damien to worry so I agreed, but when I came inside Damien realized that Orin was already breathing a little better. Once we got into the bathroom Orin calmed down and finally was able to get some better breaths. I was surprised how scary it was, even though I knew exactly what was wrong. I can't imagine how a parent would feel if their child woke up with Orin's symptoms and they had never heard of croup. We got the humidifier going and brought the futon mattress into Orin's room so Damien could sleep in there with him. Orin was very excited (he was feeling better by this point) and wanted to sleep on it with Damien. He was so excited he had some trouble getting back to sleep. At one point Damien asked Orin if he wanted to sleep in his own bed and Orin said something to the effect of "No, I want to sleep in the bed with Daddy". Of course, this just melted Damien's heart. This was also one of the first times Orin really made a complete full sentence and original thought of his own. It was also the first time since Orin was very little that he slept with one of us. Normally if we put him in our bed he is WAY too excited to sleep. Damien has wanted him to sleep with us for a long time so I think he really enjoyed it. Poor Orin still sounds very "croupy" and cries every time he coughs. Hopefully we won't have the same eventful night tonight!