Babies!
Ever since our 3-day hospital stay (nearly a year and a half ago) we have had a nebulizer at home for the occasions when Ryan's breathing goes off kilter. He hasn't been formally diagnosed with asthma or anything else, just small air passages which cause him to start wheezing nearly every time he gets a cold.
Thankfully it is manageable and since we've had the nebulizer we haven't had any return trips to the ER, although I've had my fair share of sleepless nights when he was on an every-4-hours schedule.
Ryan is surprisingly good about it - clearly he understands that the nebulizer is helping him. When he was very small (less than 2) I recall an evening when he wasn't well, and we were nearing the time for his next scheduled treatment. He was breathing a little hard, and clearly wasn't feeling well. Suddenly he got up from the sofa and started scuttering up the stairs. I followed him curious as to where he was going.
He walked into the boy's bedroom, went up to the nebulizer, put on his mask, then crawled into bed and sat there waiting for his next treatment. It nearly broke my heart that he knew, at such a young age, that he really truly needed this. On the flip side, I was also pretty impressed that he had figured out the cause-effect so early.
When using the nebulizer, Ryan has a little dragon mask (yes, the mist venting really does look like smoke coming out of the nostrils). For those of you who don't have experience with this, the medicine comes in little plastic vials, you twist off the top, and squirt the liquid into the nebulizer, which turns it into an aerosol which the child inhales. Easy peasy. When you're done you throw out the used vial, clean down the equipment and you're set.
Except, of course, my kid had to make it a little different. One time after we finished a middle-of-the-night treatment I was a little groggy (and a lot sleepy!) and didn't immediately clean up the debris. So in the morning I had the empty vial, and the tiny cap that I had twisted off. For reasons I will never be able to explain, Ryan decided that the tiny end-cap was his "baby" and carried it all around the house. For DAYS. He now collects the dang things, calling them his babies and utterly freaking out if I try and discard any of them. To make it even more weird, he has now started trying to jam them into my (and his) bellybutton, saying that the baby is in my/his belly.
I know kids all have quirks, but my little guy is heading down a seriously strange rabbit-hole on this one. He is, however, incredibly attentive to his babies, carrying them around carefully and making sure that they are somewhere safe if he needs to leave them behind.
Bad part is, now I'm afraid he'll see me throwing them out, so we're getting a giant collection of them. I'm going to have to set my alarm for 2AM one night soon and cull the herd before we're overrun!
Thankfully it is manageable and since we've had the nebulizer we haven't had any return trips to the ER, although I've had my fair share of sleepless nights when he was on an every-4-hours schedule.
Ryan is surprisingly good about it - clearly he understands that the nebulizer is helping him. When he was very small (less than 2) I recall an evening when he wasn't well, and we were nearing the time for his next scheduled treatment. He was breathing a little hard, and clearly wasn't feeling well. Suddenly he got up from the sofa and started scuttering up the stairs. I followed him curious as to where he was going.
He walked into the boy's bedroom, went up to the nebulizer, put on his mask, then crawled into bed and sat there waiting for his next treatment. It nearly broke my heart that he knew, at such a young age, that he really truly needed this. On the flip side, I was also pretty impressed that he had figured out the cause-effect so early.
When using the nebulizer, Ryan has a little dragon mask (yes, the mist venting really does look like smoke coming out of the nostrils). For those of you who don't have experience with this, the medicine comes in little plastic vials, you twist off the top, and squirt the liquid into the nebulizer, which turns it into an aerosol which the child inhales. Easy peasy. When you're done you throw out the used vial, clean down the equipment and you're set.
Except, of course, my kid had to make it a little different. One time after we finished a middle-of-the-night treatment I was a little groggy (and a lot sleepy!) and didn't immediately clean up the debris. So in the morning I had the empty vial, and the tiny cap that I had twisted off. For reasons I will never be able to explain, Ryan decided that the tiny end-cap was his "baby" and carried it all around the house. For DAYS. He now collects the dang things, calling them his babies and utterly freaking out if I try and discard any of them. To make it even more weird, he has now started trying to jam them into my (and his) bellybutton, saying that the baby is in my/his belly.
I know kids all have quirks, but my little guy is heading down a seriously strange rabbit-hole on this one. He is, however, incredibly attentive to his babies, carrying them around carefully and making sure that they are somewhere safe if he needs to leave them behind.
Bad part is, now I'm afraid he'll see me throwing them out, so we're getting a giant collection of them. I'm going to have to set my alarm for 2AM one night soon and cull the herd before we're overrun!
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