Change-of-Plans Friday

Mike and I were supposed to go out to a little work party tonight. I had an awesome babysitter coming over to stay with Grace, a cute little dress picked out, and high heels and accessories ready to be worn. All that was left to be done was my hair and make up.

But then Grace's pesky little cough that started earlier this week turned a little more persistent as the day wore on, and she has a tendency to throw up during coughing fits. I didn't want to leave our sweet babysitter with having to deal with that. We really like her and want her to babysit for us again someday and she may not do that if we leave her with an evening of throw up duty.

So I decided Grace and I would have a quiet girls' night in and Mike would go to the party solo. I had our girly movie all picked out and pizza ready to be baked in the oven, and Mike was ready for an evening of guy time (translation: enjoy a cigar with the fellas without my critical glare of disapproval).

But then after I tried to feed Grace dinner, I became concerned when she started wheezing and couldn't speak to me without sounding winded.

So off to the ER we went. A breathing treatment, some steroids, a chest x-ray, and a big bag of prescriptions later, Grace is doing fine. The breathing treatment helped immediately and the chest x-ray was negative for pneumonia.

It's hard to believe that anyone could enjoy a visit to the ER, but Grace did. She chatted up the triage nurse and was completely compliant with the charge nurse, who also happened to be the same nurse who took care of her when we brought her in for her burns a few months ago (Our heartfelt thanks, LT Crumpton!). She thought her breathing treatment, which she called her 'special smoky medicine', was great fun. She happily waved at every single person who passed by and was even given crackers by a nurse who happened to hear Grace say she was hungry.

She loved the wheelchair ride to the x-ray room and thought it was her 'special princess chair'. I explained to her that they were just going to take a picture of her chest because I was worried she might get a little scared being in the dark room filled with strange equipment. I shouldn't have doubted my fearless girl. I showed her the 'camera' to which she responded, "That's a big camera!" And when they snapped the picture, she even said, "Cheese!"

Mike followed us to the ER and when he asked about where we were, the lady up front asked, "Oh, do you mean the pretty little girl who talks a lot?"

Yup, that's my girl...