It may be a slight paraphrase from the famous words that Mercutio uttered during his dying soliloquy, but it couldn't be more true in describing the general state of health (or lack thereof) at The Weber Inn these past two weeks.
It all started with a runny nose; just a simple, benign little runny nose that Ms. Norah Belle exhibited on a Saturday afternoon. Nothing terrible. There was no fever, no cough, not even the slightest hint of fussiness in our little girl. It's not like there was bleeding and tears. Our girl was probably just starting to grab a hold of a few seasonal allergies, right? We should've known better.
By the following Monday, Norah's runny nose had morphed into a full-blown schnoz waterfall and a cough was beginning to appear. Tuesday saw an increase in the mucus factor, a persistent cough, and a bit of night waking and crankiness to boot. All of these symptoms that Norah was exhibiting (not to mention the fact that J was now beginning to show signs of a scratchy throat and sneezing) prompted Mommy to make a Dr's appointment for Wednesday.
The official diagnoses was a viral infection (read: cold) that would last around 4-5 days. There are no over-the-counter relief measures that can be administered to children under the age of 6, so we were told to just monitor Norah's nose, temperature, cough and general demeanor and give the Dr. a shout if she spiked a fever of over 101.
So, Mommy and Daddy turned into doctors and stepped up the Sickness Security Alert Level from Yellow to Orange. Our ears perked up a bit every time we heard a cough. We kept the aspirator (a.k.a. Child Nasal Torture Device) close by and used it liberally. The Tylenol flowed to keep Norah's low fever at bay, and more than one trip was made to Norah's room in the middle of the night calm her down and lull her back to sleep after waking because she couldn't breathe.
All in all, it wouldn't have been so bad if both parents were functioning at 100% capacity. J, being in the 1st Trimester of pregnancy #2 and having contracted the adult version of Norah's icky cold, was about as useful as a Derringer in a trapshooting contest. In addition to being nauseous, exhausted and irritable (thank you, Preggo Hormones. Thank you, ever so much :-), J was left basically incapacitated by a killer sore throat, stuffy nose and pounding head pressure. Luckily, Dan was neither pregnant (that goes without saying, of course) nor sick, and was able to pick up a great deal of slack for Norah's ailing Mommy.
After all was said and done, Norah and Mommy spent about 10 days sick (one of them at home with a fever and wicked cough), and we almost made our first middle of the night trip to Children's Medical Center (poor kid was stuffed up so much she was coughing to the point of vomit.....three times in an hour.....at 2 a.m.). A valuable lesson was also learned: Never, if at all possible, combine first trimester nausea, fatigue and irritability with head colds for both you and your toddler. Shew! Glad that's over with.
