Stargazing

Through my careful scrutiny of the big girls' allergy symptoms versus the times of the year when asthma attacks seem to strike the most, the pediatrician and I have decided what the big girls have is a really fun roller coaster ride of seasonal allergies with an extra fun bodily response of asthma to go along with the invading pollen. 

All of that said.... Guess who was trying really, really hard to have a full on asthma attack all night long, last night.  Go on, guess.

Nooope.  Not Kyra.  Though Kyra's inhaler was put to good use!

Lydia was up three times last night, all wheezy and barking coughs and freaking the fuck out over the lack of oxygen movement going on in her lungs and the funny sounds coming from her throat.

We tried to do everything right.  Jeremy gave both girls their nightly doses of allergy medicines... Lydia got an extra shot of Nasonex up her nose... I turned the humidifier on in their bedroom....We took her outside to look at the stars in the 40 degree night air to both calm her down and open her airways....

By midnight I was having her puff on Kyra's inhaler and by 3:30 I was dosing her up with Benadryl to calm this allergic reaction because the last thing I needed was to be sitting in an emergency room while my lovely husband is leaving on a fishing trip aboard a submarine two hours later.

The timing!  Couldn't be better!

It all started with the girls spending a few hours, yesterday, playing in piles of leaves.  A fun, Fall pastime that as a southern kid, I never really came to appreciate.  Today?  I offered them the chance to go have fun outside.  I silently rejoiced when they both said they wanted to play in their room.

Lydia woke up from her three hour nap, this afternoon, coughing and sputtering, again.  But, so far, we've made it three hours into sleeping tonight with nary a sound. 

Kyra hasn't had a full asthma attack in, almost, a year.  Her pediatrician says we either have her on the right combination of allergy medicines to prevent it or she's starting to outgrow it.  Lydia, on the other hand....

There's nothing more fun, I can promise you, than waking up to the sound of your kid's barking coughs and rasping breaths in the dark of the night.  And the cold shock of sitting outside, stargazing, in ass-freezing temperatures with an arctic breeze for good measure.  It makes me appreciate having a furnace of a husband in the bed when I get to climb back under the covers.