Wednesday 14 August 2013

Croup and Crochet, Dinosaurs and DIY


Hello blog world! It's about time I updated my online journal of our life, which has been rather busy lately.  We have had nasty bugs running through the family which has kept us pretty close to home, quite nice for a change but not for nice reasons!  Luke has had a cough for weeks, but it developed into a horrid case of croup last Tuesday night.  Being the third child to have croup attacks, I debating taking him to the hospital for ages before we did.  We tried all the tricks that normally work with the girls - taking him outside for a drive, steaming a room, asthma pump, cuddles, drinks...but nothing worked on our exhausted lad.  By 10pm he was screaming his head off from a lack of sleep and oxygen, and we noticed his chest was pulling in.  I whisked him down to the A&E and the nurses listened to one "WHOOP" between his screams and he was whisked straight through the waiting room and soon had 3 doctors putting wires and monitors all over him.  It was a bit scary, and I felt terrible as a mother that I should have come in sooner.  We have taken the girls to the hospital for croup before, but its always been a 2 hour waiting room visit, and often the croup subsides before we get seen, so I hadn't really though Luke was that serious.  Oops.   He was given some steroids, and fell asleep exhausted on me as we waited for them to kick in.  After about an hour, he perked up and was rather delighted to have an iceblock at midnight, racing around (still croupy and coughing!) talking to the nurse and making her giggle at his cute words.  We returned home, and he only woke a few more times in the night.  The next day, he was still very croupy, so we returned to the doctor for more steroids and had to give him a whooping cough test, just to rule that out as we said he had been coughing for weeks (next step is asthma tests, but he has slept through for the last few nights so we are hoping it was just part of his cold now). Luke is the worst patient - he wanders around all restless, giving filthy looks to us between staring in the fridge (nope, nothing i want here) and at the tv (nope, nothing I want there either mum). After a few rounds of this, he lets out a big sigh and face plants onto the cough in despair. Man flu, sheesh. 
So after a week at home, Luke is much much better, with just a lingering snotty nose to show for his sickness.  He is back to his old self, performing his new favourite game: chasing the girls around the house with his toy dinosaur clutched in his hand, yelling "ROOOWR!!!" as he tries to whack them with it.  We are working on the game without the whacking.  Jaimee, exasperated after an afternoon of this, turned to me and said "mum - I think Luke is getting into that 'boy' stage"!  I had to laugh and agree.  

I made use of the time at home by working up some more crochet, managing to follow my first ever written pattern and whipping up this hat and scarf set for Luke.  He looks very smart in it, if I say so myself.  I also taught the girls how to do cross stitch, something I had been trying  to get around to for ages now.  They each worked on a heart, using crochet cotton (nice and thick) and large aida plastic.  It worked a treat, and Jaimee finished her heart quickly, telling me with joy"this is heaps of fun mum! I didn't know it was going to be this easy!". Kate got halfway through hers all by herself, but then lost interest for the day.  She wanted to get back to the girls game of 'schools' they had been playing all week.  It's a lovely stage they are at - they come home from school, run to their room and shut the door (to keep Luke out) and then play happily together with their soft toy children until dinner time.  Bliss for me!




As I started to come down with Luke's cold, we finally managed to finish the wallpapering of our lounge last weekend.  It looks AWESOME.  Our parents have been such a huge help, assisting us clueless un-DIY folk with their superior skills!  By the end of the day we were both cutting and hanging wallpaper pretty much all by ourselves so we learnt a lot . I'm not showing you more photos then this one until the carpet goes down in just over a week and we get the room looking 'finished' - then I will do some 'before' and 'after' shots for you.  
...So that's us for now, next blog will no doubt be all about our big very almost 7 year old's fairy tea party this Saturday, which we are so looking forward to!

No comments:

Post a Comment