Oh crud, it's croup

Well, we can scratch another childhood illness off--Riley has croup. 

He began exhibiting signs that he was coming down with a mild cold last night, with slight sniffles and a couple of sneezes, then this morning, at 5 AM, he woke with a sharp, barking cough. When I went to him I heard that that it was hard for him to draw a breath and as he drew air in it made a weird sound. It freaked him out (and me too, though I wore my poker face to help him keep calm) and it spiraled out of control there for a minute or so as he got more upset about not being able to breathe and cried more, which made it even harder to breathe. :-( I'd read about croup in trying to recognize past illnesses, and I remembered reading about steam helping to ease the breathing, so we got some steam going. Once he was calmed down he was able to breathe again, but he's still hoarse. They say it'll peak in about 2-3 days, so hopefully we'll have a mild case.

Gotta load this child up in the stroller and go walk Hank. It's going to be a long day. :-/