It has been a long week in our casa.

Luke came down with a pretty heavy cold the Thursday before last. He was congested and coughing like crazy. It lingered for days but he never spiked a fever and was in a pretty great mood in spite of it all. Aside from not being interested in eating much, we figured it was a typical cold and that everything would run its course. When this Thursday rolled around and the cough was still hanging on and getting a little worse, we figured it was time to see the pediatrician. Especially after his day care teachers started complaining about him being cranky. It’s just not like him.

Eric was working on a few projects at home that day so he had time to take Luke in. Imagine my surprise when they called me to say that our baby has pneumonia! (I should probably clarify here that the doctor says “a little bit of pneumonia” but what does that mean really.)

It took all my restraint to not pack up everything and come running home from work. Which is no good logic because, it wasn’t like anything had changed since that morning and in fact, Luke was even better off because our doctor quickly started him on some antibiotics. Cue mom guilt. I just kept thinking “I should have known earlier” and on and on. Logically, I know that this isn’t possible. I don’t have x-ray vision into his little lungs and he really did seem just fine, but I’m nothing if not a champion of taking ownership where I really have none so it was to be expected.

Once on the medication, things have been slowly improving. We have a pretty intense regimen morning and night of steam, saline, suction and then…that’s when the fun begins. We basically have to hog-tie the baby to get him to take the bubble-gum pink goo. I do feel bad for the little guy, but man he makes it difficult. Our current process is to put him in the high chair and I hold down his arms and open his jaw while Eric puts the syringe way back in his cheek and injects it.

I had major work milestones that coincided with every day of this illness and, as was to be expected, I started getting sick myself over the weekend. Thankfully Eric’s been able to rise above it all but he leaves tomorrow night for a conference and a quick visit home. Luke and I are going to be flying solo for the weekend. Wish us luck, I have yet to figure out how I’m going to manage this process on my lonesome. I’m tempted to bribe the daycare teachers with baked goods to see if they’ll do it for me. Do you think Ellis would be willing to lend his newfound expertise?