Kid Date Night, And, The Agony and the Ecstasy

Tonight was our third Kid Date Night of the year and the first for the month of February! Annika and I had a date tonight while Will and Daniel had their own date. 

Annika - ice skating at the City pavilion with tasty snacks, then eating Little Caesars pizza at home. (I am noticing a theme with her selection of restaurants...)

Daniel - playing at Cico Park, eating dinner at IHOP, then grabbing ice cream at Purple Swirl. 

Undeterred by the fact that she went ice skating on a field trip on Thursday and again with the family yesterday, Annika chose to go ice skating on our date night! Since it was Sunday evening we pretty much had the place to ourselves. 

Annika's confidence while ice skating has increased by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the season. She was very happy tonight that she could get "figure skates" (with toe picks) instead of "hockey skates" (without).

We took a break after a while to purchase tasty snacks. I got a hot chocolate and Annika selected a bottle of Hawaiian punch from the vending machine. Annika also used some of her allowance to purchase a packet of Grandma's Cookies, and gave one of the two cookies to me. :)

Cheers! It was a pretty warm day outside but was nice and icy cold inside the ice rink.

Once ice skating had concluded, we headed to Little Caesars for the infamous Little Caesars pizza, again. :) Annika was very excited to play the "pinball" machine there and won TWO bouncy balls.

At home we were joined for our meal in the kitchen by the ever-growing gang of Plastic Animals. After dinner, we headed downstairs and watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb, where we cuddled in the big chair together. Perfect date night. :)

Meanwhile, Daniel had his own fun with Will. The only idea that Daniel had was that he really REALLY wanted to go play at a park. Daniel chose Cico Park, which is located about a half mile from our house. They have a tunnel that goes under a hill in part of it.

I think part of the attraction for Daniel choosing Cico Park is that it is about the only place in town left that still has a merry-go-round, probably because it is grandfathered in with the new codes about child safety. Daniel found some new friends to play with, which when he recounted the story to me later, was about the most exciting part of the night.

After the park, Will managed to talk Daniel into D's favorite restaurant...IHOP! And no visit to IHOP would be complete without the funny-face chocolate chip pancake.

The boys' evening was capped off with a visit to Purple Swirl.

Other than Date Night (a decided High), our day was capped by other Highs and Lows.

THE AGONY: Poor Daniel has croup, aka the Barking Seal Disease That Is Worse At Night. If you read about this online, this is a "mild" illness caused by a "virus" that can almost always be "treated at home" and "goes away" on its own. When your small child actually develops croup, however, and wakes up in the middle of the night with stridor and wheezing and completely unable to breath or talk and is shaking all over...it is scary as HELL.

We have never taken a child to the emergency room (knocking on wood as always) but the middle of last night came about as close as ever. Thankfully Will woke up and heard Daniel struggling to breath - he first thought it was an owl outside, then the cats making real noises, then realized it was Daniel. Daniel was gasping for air and (TMI warning) throwing up snot that was clogging up his airways. Thank goodness we had our nebulizer; after a breathing treatment with it, D was doing much better and he spent the rest of the night in our bed with the humidifier on.

This morning, Will took D in first thing to the local urgent care center, where it was confirmed that Daniel...has croup. Sounds like this will likely occur again tonight, so we should just do what we did last night. Unless it is really bad. Then we should go to the ER. (So comforting! :) ) We have Daniel set up in our bed tonight so that he is right there with us and the humidifier is running full steam. I "logically" know that this is super common and there is nothing to be done, but I will be feeling much better once the croup has run its course. :)

THE ECSTASY -  since croup isn't contagious and is really only bad at night, we had a lovely day today! The highlight of our day before the Kid Date was the visit from my parents and getting to hang out with the Thorntons! A big thanks to my parents for coming up for the day. The kids and I especially enjoyed getting to play games with Grandma, including the excellent Richard Scarry Busy Town Game (a cooperative game where you all work together), plus the classic Chutes and Ladders (A Game with Winners and Losers). And of course, we all enjoyed getting to spend more time with Greg.