… life decides to throw you a curve ball.

Yesterday, I found myself smiling and happy about several wonderful developments in my household – if only for a brief moment.

The first being my youngest son, Al, sleeping through the night for the third night in a row! This is truly an amazing and wonderful thing, especially if you have read about my frustration with his sleep habits here and here. I admit that I now have a secret weapon which works like a charm, but I’m not going to tell (at least not yet) for fear I will jinx it.

So, the second fantastic development is my oldest son, T3, pooping consistently in the potty for the past 2 days! Again, you might already know how frustrating the “battle of the poop” has been for me, but if not feel free to read on how my gag reflex was activated. Currently, I am using a potty training program called Potty Tots which I believe is contributing to our potty pooping success. NOTE: *shameless plug alert* I just reviewed it on The Wise Mommy and am giving away one boy’s and one girl’s kit!

Thirdly, I am proud to say that I have quit smoking. I quit on October 24th, admitted my vice on the 25th, and can now proudly proclaim that I am exactly 25 days, 22 hours, 52 minutes and 27 seconds smoke free. I am so glad I did it – it’s been a long time since I felt this good.

Now comes the part where life throws me that curve ball…

11pm – all is quiet at home and I am prepared to relax and work on organizing my picture and photo albums. Ten minutes after I sit down I hear a noise coming from upstairs. One of my kids is up. I go upstairs and realize that what I am hearing is coughing… and not just any coughing, really loud and strange coughing. I go into T3′s room and he is laying on the bed coughing like crazy. I smell the air and realize that he had pooped himself, probably from the intense coughing. Then I hear Al start to cry, likely because I left T3′s door wide open and he got woken up by all the noise. I quickly wake up DadaWise and tell him clean up T3 and to sit with him until the coughing stops. I go into Al’s room and realize he too had pooped, which was the real reason for him crying. I am just about finished changing him when my hubs storms into the room – “T3 can’t breathe! I think he’s having an asthma attack!” I run out of the room and grab T3 and in fact he’s struggling to breathe and coughing. Thinking fast on my feet, I grab my Albuterol inhaler out of my purse and try to give him two puffs – not easy with a scared and panicked preschooler who can’t breathe. I finally get two decent puffs into his lungs… and nothing… it’s getting worse… ok, decision time… I scream to my husband to call 911. By now I am holding my son tight and trying to get him to slow his breathing while we wait for the ambulance. My son cries “I don’t want to go see the doctors!” and I realize that he is moving air a little better but that hacking cough is still there. We wait what seems like an eternity for the ambulance and when the EMS people come in, T3 freaks out again. So badly that I end up having to strap him in his car seat and take him myself in my car because he absolutely will not go in the ambulance.

Fast forward to the hospital – T3 has severe croup. He gets an aerosol breathing treatment, a teddy bear, and a steroid concoction. He also gets a fan club – every single nurse is in love with my little man. Once his breathing becomes easier, he is gabbing non-stop until 3am (we had to stay at least 2 hours to see if his episode would return or not) telling every nurse about his harrowing story of waking up coughing and how it hurt to breathe. After 3 hours in the hospital, he is ok and ready to go home, but on many levels I’m the one who’s not ok. Tears well up in my eyes and I cannot contain myself any longer. My strength leaves me and I cry.

He has been fine all day so far with minimal coughing, for which I am so grateful. Today I feel like I can finally breathe, realizing that I have probably been holding my breath the whole time, praying that he would be ok.