Croup

Alternative titles:

Things That Go *cough* in the Night
My Baby's Monthly Visitor
That Insidious Little Beast
Not a House But a Petrie Dish

Three data points makes a trend. Therefore I feel I have the research to hypothesize that all baby colds turn in to croup.

It starts innocently enough. A runny nose. Clear snot shimmering off her perfect baby filtrim. Her usual happy-go-lucky mood. Sleeping peacefully.

The next day or two, the runny nose evolves into a congested nose - mouth breathing, the occasional nose trumpet, and sticky boogers that she doesn't yet know how to pick. Out comes the saline spray drops, which means I have to pin my baby to the bed to stabilize her head for application.

And then, and then it heads south. You can practically see her little baby trachea, swollen and angry. She's tired and crabby, but is not placated by her Soothie or even nursing - she can't breathe out her nose, after all. It's a suck-suck-wah kind of time. When she finally falls to sleep, she morphs from a baby who once squeaked and snored sweetly, to that of a barking seal. The stridorous sound of her upper airway increases my blood pressure. I keep my eye on her chest and hand on her belly, I want double proof that she's still breathing. She wants to rest, to sleep it off, to wake up and feel better, but her coughing fits jolt her from REM. The sound and feel of the hot, steamy shower soothes her in the middle of the night, her eyes crusted with dried tears and gunk, but only temporarily.

After a couple nights of a mild case, it leaves as quietly as it arrived. But what remains is a hoarse baby voice, a pathetic case of baby laryngitis. As Alex so eloquently puts it, our baby girl sounds like a sorority girl after a night of hard partying.