Oh, and then it all started crumbling.
Everly gets these horrific night terrors when she's overly tired. She looks completely awake and I can hold her and turn on the lights and stroke her face with a cold wet washcloth, and all the time she screams and cries as loud as I've ever heard her, her little body rigid and scared, but she doesn't remember a thing in the morning. Last night her night terror exceeded all others and lasted an hour and a half while I held her and tried to stay calm. Afterwards, I trudged back downstairs and climbed into bed. Everly woke up twice more to have me tuck her in again because she was missing her beloved blankie we forgot at Grandma and Grandpa's and a stand-in is very disturbing in the middle of the night. Parker came down before and after all of this three other times to tell me his throat hurt or he needed some water.
And then the icing on the cake.
Three-thirty in the morning arrived and I startled awake to the sound of crashing and things breaking in Parker's room. I ran upstairs to find a wild-eyed and scared little boy who was completely blue. Oh.My.Stars. I grabbed him and vigorously rubbed his back while he tried to suck in tiny amounts of air. I tried to calm him down because his panic was making it worse. Every time his airway opened enough to get a tiny breath he cried and it sucked closed again. After 30 minutes I got him relatively calm, he was still blue, and all the while I weighed my options of calling 911, waking Everly (who sometimes awakes to another night terror), and going by myself (since Jer is far, far away and can't come home until Thursday) - oh, the crippling decisions of a panicking mom! I waited it out. I held him like I did from when he was a baby until he was two years old when he was born with a collapsing trachea (a fitting stroll down memory lane on his birthday) and we slowly rocked and slept on and off until morning. He wheezed and remained ashen and bluish and I remained vigilant and slightly scared. We headed to the doctor this morning and he was diagnosed with a sudden onset form of croup that acts like an allergic reaction and completely shuts down the airway. It has no symptoms and no warning signs. He got a few round of steroids in his throat and within a few hours bounced half-way back. Our doctor told me he needed to lay low - no running, moving around quickly, exercising, or activity of any kind. Well, shoooooot. We were on such a good path until that point! This is a six year old boy. I quickly ran through some scenarios of taping him to a chair, but decided against it. He also told me to sleep with him tonight because it's likely to come back again. I'm going to be so excited to see Jeremy walk through that door tomorrow morning!
My plan to help him "lay low" was mild forms of entertainment. I decided we would still meet the Birthday Buddies for froyo because that's fairly low-key. And then my big plan was to park him in front of his favorite cartoon for the rest of the night. Perfect plan. No activity.
So, this afternoon we drove 3 minutes down the road to Menchies to celebrate for 30 minutes with our friends who share birthdays. I decided it was fitting for our day. Two kids with 5 hours of sleep, a momma with one hour and a boy who's throat still hurt and insisted frozen yogurt would feel good on it. So we went. We smiled and laughed and I wished the whole day leading up to it was different so I could spend more time there. But it was good for my soul anyway. To look at these other two moms who gave birth to these other two six year olds in rooms at St. Joseph's that were nearly next to one another. All of us there together at the same time and all of us here together, six years later. I love that so much.
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