Oh What a Night

We woke up at about 1:30 this morning to the sea lion sleeping next to me. wouldn't you know it, Moroni has Croup. I picked him up and he felt kinda feverish. I immediately took him outside in the below zero weather to get some cold into his lungs for some relief. My kids never had croup until we moved to Wisconsin. Don't know if it's related, but it's NOT fun.

The cold only helped the barking. I brought him back in and he was shivering. I tried to hold him and his breathing was really labored. I got a blanket and wrapped him really good and took him back out into the cold. Then Daddy took him out into the cold. Then I took him back out into the cold. I laid down on the bed next to him and he was a little better, but his breathing was still labored.

After we sat and listened to him for a while, we gave him the ties on the blanket (that's his comfort cue) and he tried to settle down to sleep. BUT... then the gagging and vomiting started. It was all over me. I carefully got up and stepped into the shower holding him while he kept going. It was so chunky. I started to gag. Robert came in and asked what he could do. I was already vomitty (is that a word)so there was no point in contaminating him too.

I stripped he and I down, cleaned the chunks off of the shower floor and sat in the warm water with him. He actually started to drift off to sleep so I just held him for a while. I think the moist air might have helped his lungs better than the cold that the doctors all tell you to do.

Anyway, we cleaned up and got dressed. Robert got started on the laundry while I was in the shower... What a Babe! I went to get the Motrin and took his temp (102.2 under the arm). We laid down in the bed and while Mo wasn't breathing ideally, he was still considerably better than before. By the time we all got back to sleep it was 4am.

Moroni slept in this morning (good for him) and is coping quite well for being sick. I hope tonight is better. Usually the second night of croup is worse. Keep us in your prayers.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Yeah I know. I never have time to post (or check on other posts for that matter). I'd like to be better, but really, there are other priorities that are higher right now.

Thursday was Ultra Chilly. The high for the day was -7 and they closed the schools. It wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't have woken up to a broken heater! What a day for the heater to break. We would have just started the fireplace and gathered around it, but it was on the fritz too. We called the gas company out and, long story short, they fixed them both and we are much warmer. Yesterday the high was 3 and the schools were closed again. It's already warmer today at 15, but our high today is supposed to be 23! Maybe we'll go sunbathing if the snow stops?

BIG NEWS: We are expecting #9! I've told several people that now Ruth can be Seven of Nine. We debated on whether or not to share this news so early (we just found out Wednesday night)... but I'm no good at secrets.

The baby is due on Sep 20. Robert's worried that this messes up our pattern. Ben' birthday is the 21st, Moroni's is a week later on the 28th and Rachel is a week later on Oct 5th. I just told him that if the baby comes 6 days early (yeah, right!) we could still have our weekly pattern. Since 4 of our children will have a birthday within a month of each other I reflected on what was so unique about conception time. I guess it is just Robert having the time off around Christmas/New Years and it being so cold that there's nothing else to do. *wink*

We are all excited here. When we told the kids they were literally jumping up and down with excitement. They keep asking, "Have you told so-and-so?" I think they like spreading the news too.