Cameron has been on an emotional hair trigger off and on for the last couple weeks. That, combined with increased appetite, make me pretty sure he is headed into his 3-year growth spurt.

Anyhow, one of the things that, more than once, has made him fly into an inexplicable rage is my opening his curtains. We're not talking about when he first wakes up here; we are talking after breakfast, he will hear me from the other end of the house and come running in screaming, "You don't DO dat!!! You wanna cwose the cootains!! Waaaaah!!!"

Yesterday I asked him first if he would mind my opening the curtains. At first he started to get agitated and tell me no, but then I offered, "If I open them we can see outside. Would you like me to lift you up so you can see outside?"

"Yeah!" he suddenly said, brightly. So I hoisted him up and had him stand on the window sill (with me right behind him, of course). He pointed out a bunch of familiar things in the front yard, then pointed at the floor and said, "If I fall all the way down there, you['ll] say, 'That was no fun at ALL.'"

Which, when I thought about it, was probably exactly what I would have said. Aww, too cute!

Cameron went to the dentist today. Apparently he did knock his teeth a bit last week; Dr. Doug says his right front tooth has "a little play" in it. :-( He says it's not even serious enough to say that it's "loose," and nothing can really be done about it right now. Either it will heal completely, or it will lose blood supply and go "dead" (i.e. turn gray but otherwise be serviceable until he loses it at age 6 or so) or it will abscess (in which case we will have to go back in and potentially have it taken out -- but he doesn't think it will come to this).

Dr. Doug tried, at my insistence, to polish off a bit of the stain on his lower teeth, but C. wouldn't stand for it and ended up crying. So, we live with it.

One of these days someone is going to call CPS on us.

Just at the exact moment T. and I were remarking to each other that the swelling on Cameron's face is starting to disappear, his foot slipped off the decorative pedestal (a solid rectangular block about 3½ feet high with a flat square top 18 inches on a side) in our neighbor's yard that he'd been standing on. Fortunately we were inches away, and I sort of caught him and guided him down to the top of the brick wall (about 2 feet high). But then he didn't quite make that, either, and kept tumbling toward the sidewalk. I thought only of shielding his cranium, and for an event that lasted, in total, about 0.35 seconds, I thought I did admirably well. He landed softly and upright, and I didn't see any evidence of further injury. But he cried and cried and was just really freaked out, and wouldn't stand for anything but being held and wailing for a solid 5 minutes. When he finally calmed down enough to answer the question, "Do you need a kiss?" he sobbed, "On... m-m-my... ch-ch-chiiiiiiinnnn!!"

Well, sure enough, right on his chin there was a big ol' goose egg, already turning purple. Sheesh o'rootie, how did that happen? I caught him! :-(

So now we have a beautiful little boy with a gruesome-looking mouth injury, a shiner on his chin, and two skinned knees (from slipping and falling on the sidewalk two other times) just to complete the ensemble.

What would things be like if he weren't naturally cautious? Would he already be dead?? Or would I just have become the paranoid parent I deplore at the playground and not let him do anything?

Poor little guy. It's hard being two.

"I went swimming on Friday, and I blow bubbles, and I floated and I counted to one hundred -- and I count to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . . 98, 99, 100 -- and I slide down the slide a lot of times and you [Mommy] got me the green ball and I played with the green ball and the girl [another kid about 4 years old] took it away and I wanted it and I said 'yes pweez' and she said 'NO!'" (Aw, too cute!)

"And [after a while] she give it back and I throwed it down the slide a lot of times and then I took a shower and I went to the blue door [of the dressing room] and I wanted to stand on the green bench and I fell down off the bench. And I was crying and crying and crying, and I got red on my cheek, and I was crying and crying and crying. And [repeating] I wanted to stand on the green bench and I fell down off the bench. And I was crying and crying and crying, Mom. And I got red on my cheek."

Isn't that just the saddest story you've heard all day? :-(

Cameron's mouth is visibly puffy, and he talks like someone wearing a retainer. His gums are pretty gruesome-looking. But he was feeling mostly okay today. I had to give him a couple doses of tylenol, and then the only tricky thing was encouraging him not to jump around too much (his mouth bleeds a bit if he does). Biting off food appears to be uncomfortable, so the sandwiches and apple slices we packed for today's picnic turned out not to be good choices. But we broke them into bite-size pieces, and the rest of his mouth (molars, etc.) seemed to do fine. He took a long nap today (2:00-5:15). I really hope the swelling goes down soon and that no infection develops.

By coincidence, he has a dental appointment scheduled for Wednesday. So it will be good to have Dr. Doug give him a thorough check.

Cameron had a smashing time at swimming tonight, as usual.

And then he had a smashing time on the bench in the dressing room, but not in a good way.

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Saturday is french toast day, which he loves, so I'm hoping breakfast tomorrow will go okay. The rest of the day, who knows. We'll see how many smoothies he will drink.

1:10am ETA. He woke up about 45 minutes ago and hasn't been able to sleep since. He's crying and calling for me every 5 minutes. Poor guy. :-( This could be a long night.

1:55am ETA. Okay, I think he's gone back to sleep, after an hour and twenty minutes of the above. Guess I'll go to bed myself and see what happens. ;-P

We're trying to get 8 ml of an awful-tasting oral steroid down him. Normally he is not a picky eater, but right now his appetite is down, so getting him to eat cottage cheese and applesauce laced with nastiness is proving difficult. We'll try some more in a little while.

The good news is that he appears to be feeling a bit better. Dr. Gray says that croup is most contagious during the first three days of the illness, and that once he has been fever-free for 24 hours he shouldn't pose a threat to immuno-compromised people. In any case, as long as she does not allow him to cough on her or ingest his saliva, uses hand-sanitizer, etc., she should be fine.

Now all I have to do is make sure *I* don't come down with it.

For a while Cameron was waking up gasping every 15 minutes, and then crying pitifully, "Mooom!" (gasp, cough, gasp) "Mom, I want a hug!" I finally cleaned out the humidifier and filled it with distilled water instead of tap. He didn't like the fact that it was in there ("Mom, I wanna turn off the green light!") but the incidence of his waking has gone down considerably -- no crying for the last hour or so -- so I guess it's helping. Or maybe it's the fact that the ceiling fan is now off, at his insistence. Anyhow, fingers crossed.

Cameron declined all strenuous exercise today but otherwise seemed to be feeling okay. He asked to go to Rite Aid in the stroller, even though he's been in love with his tricycle ever since he figured out how to ride it a couple weeks ago. When we got to Meatball's house, he did get out of the stroller, but he began to act woozy and off-balance, so I took him home, gave him some tylenol, and took his temp.

He had a temperature of 105.5. My God.

I plunged him in a tepid bath and forced him to drink a bunch of water, which he resisted. 15 minutes later it was down to 105.0, and he crawled into bed without turning off the fan, without saying goodnight to T., and WITHOUT NURSING. The latter is an absolute first. I ran to prepare him a honey cocktail that the advice nurse had recommended earlier (½ teaspoon honey dissolved in 2 oz. water -- "Works better than dextromethorphan and tastes better, too," she said), but by the time I got back he was out.

T. suggested we pack a bag for if we have to make a trip to the E.R. in the middle of the night, just in case. I don't think it will come to that, but I guess it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Poor little guy. :-(

He'll be staying home from day care tomorrow, and the doc.'s office is supposed to call first thing in the morning with an appointment.

9:30pm update: he just woke up crying and barking, and in a panic fell out of bed. :-( When I went in there he demanded to nurse. So that's that. It might be a long night.

Oh, and unrelated, but possibly relevant: T. has jury duty tomorrow afternoon.

Cameron woke up just now gasping and barking like a seal. Of course, crying and panicking made it worse. "Mommy, come here! Mommy... come... here!" he croaked. Concerned that the humidifier might inexplicably make it worse, I instead drew a bath of hot water, to create some warm steam, but by then he'd gone back to sleep. I can hear him wheezing and coughing from time to time. Poor guy.

I left his bubble-blowing bubbles in the middle of the doorway to the den, to remind me to let the water out of the tub before I go to bed. Which, of course, I should do very soon, but I'm totally addicted to an awful computer game. It's like the crack of computer games. Ugh!