Yesterday's Cold, Today's Pneumonia

Fans, Our Hero has pneumonia. It's a localized epidemic. But we should back up to Tuesday morning. Ted was still in Tampa. You may recall that things had gone swimmingly Monday morning. Not so Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning, Joe selected his "house" [the Halloween cup; house is haunted house presumably] cup for his apple juice, burst into tears the moment it was poured, carted his juice around (but without spilling it!) while wailing for about 10 minutes before announcing (in a clear, strong voice) that he would be throwing it in the garbage and made to pour the juice into the garbage. When Julie asked him to please pour the juice in the sink instead, wails broke out afresh. Clara still needed to be nursed at this point, but Julie was killing time by changing her diaper and getting her dressed first instead. (Otherwise, Joe would have stood next to Julie and wailed, level with Clara's ear, while she nursed.) Eventually, Joe appears with his empty house cup (the juice was presumably in fact dumped in the garbage) and asks for more juice. He quite specifically wants it in the house cup. Juice is poured, is calmly taken to table, Joe clambers up, and eats his cereal. Now it is true: he is two and change, but even so, this behavior had an intense edge. Something was up. But the doctor said no, and to be fair, perhaps things just exploded then in the night. It's how these things go.

Other signs that took on significance, particularly in retrospect: Tuesday night, he had asked for Mommy to be in his bed (as the night of the stomach flu); and when we arrived at daycare yesterday, he was quite adamant that he wanted to be picked up after taking off his coat, and did not want to be let go.

So when Miss Maneesha called to say Joe had a fever of 101, Julie just cut her off and said she was hanging up, calling the pediatrician, and would be right there. Dr. Harrington is out Monday afternoons and Tuesdays so we'd not yet seen her this week. She didn't have any more appointments, but was still there and she stayed for us. We love her even more. She gave both bambini the once over. Clara is improving slowly but surely, but Doc H heard fluid on Joe's left side: pneumonia.

Now we have two bottles of Augmenten in the refrigerator. We dined at Target while waiting for the pharmacy to get it ready. Joe had macaroni and cheese, and apples with carmel dipping sauce. He was a bit of a mess upon arrival at home. He had his pants and diaper off already because he'd been "using" the potty, so Julie asked for his shirt to throw in with the load of laundry headed for the washer. Thus, he spent the evening happily padding about in the buck, save his socks. He is still Our Hero after all, and since heros have to be ready for action at a moment's notice, best to have one's business socks on at all times.