Our little Anna is finally back.
Anna was so incredibly sick for the last week. She came down with bronchiolitis, and from Wednesday evening until Sunday morning, her fevers were between 103.6 and 103.9 if we let the ibuprofen wear off too much.
She coughed practically non-stop, day and night. We treated her with an inhaler and nebulizer treatments, because without them, her oxygen saturation would drop below 92%. (A point of reference for this number: Dave recently sent a kid from his office to Children's Hospital in an ambulance because his oxygen was 89%.)
Anna would often cough so hard she would throw up. She wouldn't throw up much but milk or juice and mucus, though, because between Tuesday night and yesterday (Monday) morning, five days total, the entire amount of food she ate was two saltines, a quarter slice of cheese, two bites of yogurt, and two bites of ice cream. Our little 23 pound two-year-old probably lost two pounds. Each of her little ribs is clearly visible on her chest.
(Not that this is the point of this post, but it's kind of funny to note that each time Anna would throw up, her pregnant Mommy would also throw up.)
Having Anna so sick had several effects on me. The first was making me feel even more bonded to her than usual. I spent much of the nighttime sleeping with her, just to make sure she was still breathing well enough. When she'd wake up from coughing too hard, she'd hold out her arms to me and say, "I want my mama." In the night, when she was burning with fever and disoriented, I'd kiss her on the cheek, and in response, she'd make a kiss noise.
It also made me reflect on what a hilarious kid she is. When she'd wake up less sick, because the medicine had kicked in, she'd look over at me and touch my face, telling me, "Nice eyedrows [eyebrows], Mama. Nice nose, Mama..." Then she'd solicit compliments, pointing to her own mouth and saying, "Say 'nice Nonnie teeth.' Say, 'nice Nonnie tongue.'" She'd hold her blanket out to me, like she was offering it, and then she'd take it back teasing, "My dog baybo." If I'd start to doze off but she wanted to make conversation, she'd find something to discuss. A few times, she'd point to the ceiling and ask me, "See ceiling, Mama?"
Having Anna better today also made me realize everything that was missing when she was sick. This morning, Anna's first day completely back to herself, we were driving to the library. Kate was asking questions about the guys who are redoing our siding. Kate said, "How do they get all their tools here?" And Anna said, "How they get tools?" I answered that they bring them on their trucks. Then Kate said, "But, today they took a car." Anna said, "Today they took vroom vroom." I explained that they left some of the tools at our house. Anna looked at Kate and said, "Left tools at our house." Anna makes herself a big part of every conversation, everything that we do. When she was sick, a huge part of our family was missing.
