Always Keep an Eye on Your Child...

Maddy caught a cold a week or so ago so we have had to increase the frequency of her breathing treatments lately. Well, it still hasn't improved and daycare mentioned that at nap time it was really getting bad. I thought Wednesday night it was finally starting to get better - but I quickly figured out it wasn't when I got her up to get dressed. She couldn't stop coughing. Sometimes she does that and its just a coughing fit and goes away. That's what I was hoping this was. We pull into daycare and she is still coughing. At this point I start to feel pretty bad and wonder if I should take her in there - on Monday we were notified that a child in Maddy's class had the swine flu and I just knew everyone was going to be thinking Maddy had it and I was bringing her to school with it. I checked with her doctor earlier in the week and because of her history and no fever they felt strongly that she was fine and this was just the results of the cold she had gotten mixed with her little airways. As I am walking in, I am saying in my head, "please stop coughing, please stop coughing..." We wash her hands, take her coat off, walk into the morning classroom and I hand her over to one of her favorite teachers and she coughs right in her face. I felt so bad. I apologized and told her it wasn't swine flu and that I would be back in just a couple of hours to take her home and do her breathing treatments every 4 hours. Which is just what I did. Thankfully, my boss let me work from home most of the day yesterday and today.

When we got home yesterday I had a ton of work to get done so when she wasn't sleeping I really wasn't paying too much attention to her. At one point I heard her in her favorite place - our bathroom drawers, so I went down the hall and she was playing with toe nail clippers and lipstick. She LOVES lipstick, as you can see. You can't take it out to put on yourself without also putting it on her.



Later, she was way too quiet. As you know, we have taken the paci away except in certain situations; sleep time, in the car and during breathing treatments. She popped up beside me when I called out her name and this is what she looked like...