#42 Croup

My little guy and I missed out #Saturdate today because he has the croup. But his mom still needed to work so he spent the morning at Nana's house. I made pancakes on the stove. He was really appreciative, even said, "YUM! Thanks, Nana," but barely ate a bit.

I hooked up the vaporizer and showed him the steam. I told him the Magic Smoke would make him well. We lounged on the couch, reading or watching YouTube videos on the iPad. Every now and then he would crawl over toward the vaporizer and take a big whiff. That's my boy.

At nap time I hooked it up in my room. He slept long and hard. When he awoke I asked how he felt. "Good," he said. "Smoke made me feel better."

He's not well by any means but I do think it helped.

At Ikea last week I spotted some boxes of thick, cardboard-y cards with beautiful artful drawings on them. Maybe 3x3". I picked them up and today I taught him how to play Concentration. We called it "Same."

"OK, it's your turn. A monkey. Can you find another card with a monkey on it? Aw. A moon. Are they the same?"

"NO!"

"Okay, put them back down. It's Nana's turn."

At first we played with only 4 cards, 2 pair -- then 6 cards, and finally up to 8 cards. I fived him when he got a match and he fived me when I got a match. He's really good at it.

It's my habit to let little kids go first in a game, but occasionally he'd offer, "You go first." He's a very thoughtful guy.

When his mom came to pick him up, we showed her the game and how well he could play. She picked up the box and read the outside: "Not for children ages 0-3." He'll be 3 in 6 weeks.

Huh.