Baby Hulk ~ Down Syndrome Awareness Month

October is probably one of my favourite months. It means Halloween! And Autumn and usually Steamcon (there seem to be complications with this year's 3 day weekend at Steamcon for the Hot Toddies). This October will be my first time celebrating it as Down syndrome awareness month though! I don't know what to do! I want to make a dress or something! I know I made a skirt for the  day (3/21) but I need to do something more for the month I feel like... but what?

Baby Hulk decided to celebrate! He kicked off the celebrations by getting his first ear infection! What? Why? I mean I know it is a common thing for kids with Down syndrome but really, Baby Hulk, there are better ways to celebrate! Last Thursday I noticed my baby was a bit needier than normal. He did not want to be left alone. He would grump when I set him down to go to the bathroom or whatever. But then Friday he woke up and just cried and cried and cried. He had no fever but I knew this wasn't right. He cried himself to sleep on the way to drop his brothers off to school and then woke up when we got there and then cried himself back to sleep on the way home. I called and cancelled our visit with Early Intervention (a new weekly home visit for us)  and called the doctor's office and made the earliest appointment available. 1pm. Luckily Baby Hulk slept until 11:30 and he seemed to be in a little better of a mood when we got home. Only an hour to kill before we had to leave and it was spent on lunch. I am so glad I went with my gut feeling that something was wrong and took him in. I hated that my baby was in pain.

The next day was the Buddy Walk and while he wasn't his usual super smiley self he was doing a lot better thanks to some strawberry flavoured mold. We had a wonderful time. Darling Husband's friends, Cole Trickle, and Dortz, came out and brought their drift cars and all the kids out there were climbing in them and playing. It was great. Right before we started walking they had us get behind the sign for a picture... well I took Baby Hulk out of the mei tai so I could turn him around and it wouldn't just be the back of his head... well... he had other ideas! Time to nurse! So we didn't get in the picture, and then he nursed to sleep! So he slept through the whole walk! Dortz was jealous. He is a very serious napper and could have used a nap about then.

Baby Hulk and Dortz

4 days after Baby Hulk finished his amoxacillan and he was sounding a little froggy and he woke up with a stuffy nose. He seemed his usual happy self so I wasn't too worried. That is until around 6pm when he woke up from a late nap crying. That was a little odd in itself. Baby Hulk wakes up pretty much the same way every time. Before he even opens his eyes he starts talking. Baby babbling for a minute or two before he opens his eyes. I really love it because I get to be in there and watch him wake up. Babies waking up is a super cute thing to watch and I really do go lay in there and stare at him while he babbles until he opens his eyes. Well this time he woke up crying. Darling Husband went in to get him and he still didn't stop crying. I went in and picked him up and his crying became honking! I freaked out. I got him calm and gave Darling Husband instructions on finishing cooking dinner and drove Baby Hulk to Urgent Care. We got in pretty quickly which was wonderful, but his oxygen levels of course were 100% by then somehow anyways. We sat in the room and waited for the doctor and I sat there thinking of ways to describe the sound he was making. It wasn't just weezing it was honking! Like a goose, or someone blowing into a clarinet too hard! Like too much air being forced through his windpipe and some weird vibration happening in it as a result. But he wasn't even crying that hard. I didn't get to use any of my awesome descriptions of course. In the end I just said it sounded like that baby in the whooping cough commercial but without the coughing. The doctor decided she wanted to give him a steroid, some pink cherry flavoured business in a syringe. Baby Hulk sucked it down like a champ and we went home. By the time we got home I could already tell it was working and we live like 5 minutes away. An hour later and he wasn't even snorting like he had been all day which is pretty typical for him when he has a cold or his allergies are bothering him. We had a follow-up appointment the next day and his pediatrician said it was croup! Honestly until a few years ago when my BFFs son had it for the first time I thought it was some old timey made up illness. I think of the little boy who had it on Anne of Green Gables! People don't really get croup anymore! Well, they do. And now Baby Hulk does. Luckily the steroids he had at Urgent Care should be enough to take care of it. Now it is back to just being a cold. The cool mist humidifier is going. I've got my saline drops and my super gross and awesome Comfy Nose snot sucker and we are kicking croup's butt!

Baby selfies in Urgent Care

 October is only half over and already it has been quite eventful! I hope it will start to calm down now. At least let it be a healthy rest of the month, PLEASE!