The Dilemma

Happy Halloween! A bit late, I know. But I hope it was a good one anyway. Over the weekend Joe and I experienced one of those unexplainable parenting situations. On Sunday Liam went down for a nap, completely healthy. In fact, he was feeling better than he has in weeks: no runny nose, cough, fever....nothing! But when he woke up two hours later he had this horrible cough. Yesterday when I picked up Liam from daycare, his cough had gotten a lot worse. I was already planning to call the doctor, but decided to take Liam home for a nap and make the appointment for the afternoon. Well that didn't work! When we got home Liam said that he wanted some milk, so I was in the process of pouring the milk when he started to cough. He coughed so much that he couldn't breathe for a second, which made him upset, which made him cry, which made it so he couldn't breathe....and so on. So long story short, I took him the the doctor right then and there and was told that he has croup. If you don't know what croup is, it is inflamation in the windpipe that mades it difficult to sleep, eat, and is accompanied with a "barking", horrible cough. They gave him medicine and I took him home for a nap.
The dilemma comes with the fact that it was Halloween night and Liam (and yes, his parents) had been looking forward to his first real trick-or-treating experience. Should we take him or not? Well, he didn't feel the greatest, but the doctor said cold air could help the cough! I took today off to stay home with him, but he looks so cute in his pirate costume! What to do? Well, we took him and it was great! He had so much fun and the cold air really did help his cough! He slept better last night than he has in a week or so.
This was the first real situation where I had to weigh the "parental" decision, with the "but I want to go!" decision, and the child in me won! I am so glad that it did. We made lots of memories and Liam actually seems to feel better (which I am sure, is due more to the steriods that they gave him than the cold walk we took knocking on strangers doors). Hey, if my delusion helps me justify taking a sick kid trick-or-treating, oh well! The scary thought is that this won't be the last situation where I have to weight the "want to's" with the "should do's", and I just hope that I don't make selfish decisions at the wrong time. Being a parent is hard!