The Sniffles...

Well, James and I had quite the experience yesterday afternoon. On Thursday he had a little bit of a runny nose. By Friday his nose was runny and he had a barking cough. I immediately thought "CROUP!" so I started him on his cough medicine that we had for that last night. The cough medicine works wonders for the four hours that it lasts but if you forget to give him another dose, his nose and cough will remind you! Ha! On Saturday we went out with friends (around other children - whoops!) and he seemed fine...but he didn't sleep well. On Sunday, his cough was so bad that we stayed home from church. By yesterday it still hadn't improved and he'd begun tugging on his ears. He's never had an ear infection so I Web-MD-ed it and read the list of symptoms - runny nose, lethargy, fever, pulling on ears, having trouble sleeping, crying when laying down, etc. Immediately all kinds of red flags went off so I called the doctor's office. His nurse called me back and 3:30 and said to bring him on in.

We had a 4:30 appointment and the nurse told me that Dr. W. wasn't all that busy for a Monday afternoon. (Red flags should've gone off for THAT.) James had been lethargic all day long, even falling asleep in his high chair. The minute we walked into the doctor's office, it was as though someone gave me a different child. He went BESERK. I have never seen him act as wild and ugly as he acted yesterday. He ran from me, he kicked me, he beat his toy and his cup on the window, he yelled, he screamed, he pushed me, he told me "NO!" You know those moms you see occassionally and feel sorry for? That was me yesterday. There was a little six year old in the waiting room with us and he couldn't stop watching.

When they finally called us back at 5:00, I thought we'd be good to go. Then she informed me that we were in a holding room and she'd have to move us again before we saw Dr. W. The same behavior from the waiting room happened again in the exam room. Miserable doesn't begin to describe how I felt.

She finally moved us and then we waited again. More misery. More whining and bad behavior.

Dr. W. came into our room at 5:40, looked in his ears and pronounced them fine. I told him what medicine I'd been giving James and he said that was fine but he'd prescribe something stronger, too. We already had that medicine as well. Basically, we went to the doctor yesterday just for fun. :) This mama was VERY unhappy.

I DID get to ask him about the nut allergy while we were there and he advised me NOT to go ahead with my plan of sitting in his waiting room and feeding James peanut butter. Ha! I'm not sure why not. He said we need to try it on his skin first and then do a taste test. The blood tests came back negative, though, so it shouldn't be a problem. Of course, what his allergy actually is remains a mystery.

Y'all pray for me today. James stayed home from school and he's already miserable being cooped up. He doesn't feel well and he's an almost-two-year old that there is just no reasoning with. Earlier, he had a meltdown because I wouldn't let him watch Sesame Street - and Sesame Street wasn't even on! He's been in time-out for acting ugly for an hour now - he fell asleep on his bed - but he's stirring so our next battle will occur momentarily, I feel certain. *Sigh* It's just going to be one of those weeks.