Our son has Croup. For those unaware of Croup, here’s how Google defines it (seems to jive with what we were told): “Croup is breathing difficulty accompanied by a ‘barking’ cough. Croup, which is swelling around the vocal cords, is common in infants and children.”

This started Friday, when I received a call from my wife telling me Oliver had a fever. Our first thought, of course, was H1N1, so we made an appointment to visit Oliver’s doctor the next morning. After the Croup diagnosis, he was given a steroid to keep his throat from constricting. The main side effect of said steroid? A cranky toddler. The doctor warned us, but yeeeeeesh, this was unexpected.

Yesterday and today, he’s alternated between 20 to 30 minutes of good, sweet boy with about 5 to 10 minutes of extreme crankiness. The foul moods are accompanied by lots of punching and kicking. Yes, I’ve been hit several dozen times, mainly in the face and between the legs. Feel really nice, let me tell you.

The Croup also has affected Oliver’s eating habits. If we give him a solid food and he coughs shortly after eating, it hurts his throat and the food comes right back out. This scares him and he won’t eat again for a while. To get around that, we’ve been mainly giving him foods like yogurt and smoothies. (The bacon at breakfast was a HUGE mistake!)

We feel really bad for Oliver. Our poor boy has no clue why he feels the way he does. He seems scared and, when he’s not beating one of us during a crazy spell, he’s really cuddly. The Croup is supposed to only last for about three days, so we hope to be back to normal early this week. At least, we hope that’s the case. We’ll see …

As noted in my previous post, we took Oliver to Grant’s Farm on Friday with my family. There, Oliver got his groove on to some groovy polka music in the courtyard area while the adults enjoyed some complimentary booze. The employees got a kick out of the boy’s moves, as did we. Below is a video we shot. Enjoy:

Our son, who just turned 19 months old a couple days ago, doesn’t have the most vast of vocabularies. However, he’s starting to talk a lot more lately. Sarah and I wrote down all the words that he says. The list doesn’t include things that he repeats back, but rather words he associates things with and knows what they mean. For example, “mama” references my wife. He can say the word and knows that it refers to her.

Oliver is up to about 30 such words. Some are foods (“strawberries,” “Goldfish,” “hot dog,” etc.); some are pet names (our dog “Molly” and my in-law’s dog “Sage”); and some reference pictures from his favorite books (“gorilla,” “ghost” and “baby,” for instance). A few words crack me up when I hear them, including “shoo fly” (which is accompanied by the pounding of one of Sarah’s flippie-floppies on a window as he attempts to control the insect population) and “poop” (which he yells out in a long, drawn-out fashion when our dog needs to be let outside).

My favorite word, though, is “dada.” He screams it out amid giggles while I tickle him, and he calls it out to me until I join him inside one of the many “forts” we build for him on the couch. He also repeats the word over and over and over when I get home from work. There’s nothing sweeter than hearing “Dada! Dada! Dada!” after a long day of work, that’s for sure.

Oliver had his 18-month checkup yesterday, so here are his latest stats:

Height: 34.75 inches (95th percentile)
Weight: 27 pounds, 11 ounces (75th percentile)
Head: 51.5 centimeters (97th percentile)

Still big, as you can tell. He was really good during the appointment, too. He crawled around and giggled – until his shots. Then he cried and turned purple, holding his breath. Makes us sad, but he cheered up quickly, as he always does. God love the boy.

Sarah and I took Oliver to the St. Louis Rams game today thanks to a generous offer of free tickets from a work client. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best experience ever, I’d put this as a 3 or 4.

First, it’s a pain to get to the Edward Jones Dome. No doubt about it. Once we finally did get there, we were told by outside security we’d have to fold up the stroller because there’s no way to get it into the seating area. I’m thinking, “Wow, that stinks for handicapped people. At least I can carry this thing.”

Then, as we were showing our tickets at the entrance the woman told us we couldn’t bring the stroller in. She said it would “ruin the floor,” which was laughable as the floor was cruddier than our kitchen floor (that’s pretty bad for people who haven’t been here to see the cigarette-stained and -burned floor our lovely previous homeowner left us). Thankfully, a staffer saw us and came over to help. She allowed us to check the stroller in and pick it up after the game. That’s how the Cardinals and Blues do it, so we figured it would be the same. It worked out, at least.

Once we finally go to our seats, Oliver squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. And as quiet as the stadium seems on TV, it actually was darn loud. We covered his ears a few times.

By the second quarter, we headed out to get some food. Oliver ate an ENTIRE HOT DOG, bun and all. That’s a lot for him. I should mention that while we ate, my friend Susan came to visit with us. Good to see her. Next, we found a family restroom to change Oliver’s diaper. It was a little difficult to find. Unlike the Blues game we went to last season, there wasn’t a line of men trying to drop “dueces” and stink up the place. That was nice.

After halftime, we went back to our seats. Oliver continued to squirm – and eat. He ate everything we brought. It was a ton of food. And he drank his entire water bottle. And then, with about 5 minutes left in the game, we headed home. The game was OK, for a while, but in the end we got our butts handed to us (again). I think the Packers doubled up the score on our poor – and bad – hometown heroes. Of the Blues, Cardinals and Rams games we have taken Oliver to, this was by far the least family-friendly experience.

Here’s a picture from before we left:

Oliver has had, I think, seven haircuts in his 18 months. The first six were done “in-house,” by Sarah’s mom or brother. But recently, Sarah took Oliver to The Hairy Elephant in O’Fallon, Mo., for his first “real” haircut. He sat in this airplane seat watching an Elmo video the entire time. No crying or fussing at all. And he looks great now, too, don’t you think? Check out the in-progress photo and one taken recently:

With my wife out of work and home with Oliver seven days a week now, I figured it would be nice to give them something to do. So last weekend, I scoured Craigslist until I found a cheap, toddler-friendly swingset. It’s been quite the success so far. Oliver loves the slide and his swing. He particularly likes when I get home from work and take him out there – because I let him swing into me and make funny noises. OK, so they may just be funny noises to him, but it is darn hilarious to hear him laugh at his hardest. If you can stand my “daddy voice,” enjoy: