First Sickness

We've had our share of illness in our house this winter and it finally caught little Miss Emalyn. She got Maddi's cold and it started with a cough on Sunday night. Each day she'd wake up stuffy and the cough got worse and worse. Thursday morning Maddi went to get her out of her crib and Maddi was grossed out that Emalyn was covered in snot. It was all over her face, in her hair, everywhere. Poor baby. But...she was still as happy as could be and smiling and laughing...until I started cleaning her face and then she was not so happy. I decided to put her in the tub and get her all cleaned up. I didn't like the way she was breathing so I decided it was time to get her to the doctor. She had a beginning of an ear infection and bronchiolitis. She had to start an antibiotic and we had to do breathing treatments several times/day.

Thankfully she was a wonderful patient and would only fuss occasionally when I'd suction her nose. For some reason, I have always loved that little nose sucker. It makes me really excited when there's lots of "stuff to suck". Maddi had the cold first and was still sneezing/stuffy but that girl is horrible about blowing her nose. I threatened to use the nose sucker on her a few times if she didn't blow her nose. Anyway, Emalyn was very curious about the nebulizer and would grab the mask with her little fingers and would usually fall asleep after a while of doing the breathing treatments. She doesn't particularly enjoy the medicine but thankfully she's too young to know how to spit it out. The meds gave her diarrhea so she had to take pedialite too and she didn't enjoy that flavor so much either.

By Sunday her breathing was much better and Monday we went back for a recheck and her lungs are clear and her ear is clearing. I'm so glad that through it all she was still as happy as can be and slept through the nights. She sounded like she was coughing up a lung but she would smile after she'd cough and sometimes she'd even vomit from the coughing, but she didn't mind at all. Oh, what a sweet baby. I hope she doesn't get sick often, but hopefully when she does she'll always be so happy even when she's not feeling so great. These pictures were taken on Friday, which was one of her worst days of breathing trouble/stuffiness.