Oh Crap! It's Croup!!

It has been forever since I've stepped into a museum or gallery.  A friend had told me about this great exhibit featuring cars and trains.  Instantly, she thought of W.  He dreams, eats and breathes cars and trains.  Seriously, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he ended up having a career that deals with something on wheels!   We also got these cool passes for the kids that allow one adult in for free per child.  That's right, P and I got in for FREE!!!  Awesome!  I'd never considered LACMA a place for children but there's actually quite a bit for them to do there.  They had this fun noodle installation outside, which was a huge hit.  I was a little nervous about letting W play in because it is cold and flu season but it's pretty hard to resist when you see all these other kids having so much fun in it.

Waiting to cross the street, holding daddy's hand.

A noodle exhibit.  W LOVED THIS!!!

A smile that can level me.

Daddy!  You gotta get inside the noodles!

Where's W?

O.M.G.  Could this be any cooler?!?!

He stood like this forever, trying to take it all in.  

Needless to say, W was enamored by the exhibit.  I have to admit, it was crazy cool!  I can't even imagine how long it took to design the piece, let alone install it.  It's one of those things you can stare at for ever and ever and still feel like you haven't looked at it enough.  Truly amazing.  It runs for an hour and then off for an hour throughout the day.  When they stopped the cars for the break,  we tried to leave like the rest of the crowd, but W was sooooo not done with his observation.  We literally had to drag him away.  And the only way to get him out the door was to promise him that we would come back after we had a snack.  Normally, I always keep my promises, especially to W.  Kids remember this stuff.  But I had to break this one because it was freezing, I had to feed N, and I thought we had caught the last run of the exhibit, only to find out later there was one more hour of run time.  But we'll be going back for sure.  

Time for a snack.

Well, I can't be sure that this outing was the reason W got sick.  All those germs on the noodles, perhaps?  We've been taking him to lots of places.  He doesn't go to school yet and he gets a little stir crazy at home.  Plus, he's been such a great big brother, he deserves to go out and play as much as he can.

He got real sick, real fast.  We thought it was whooping cough because...well, he was coughing and whooping.  He was vaccinated for it so chances were really slim.  But then again, he was vaccinated for chicken pox and still got a mild case of that.  A visit to the docs revealed that it was croup.  Even the name sounds awful, right?  Poor guy coughed so hard he threw up.  It was all downhill from there.  And to make it worse, he wouldn't take the medicine we got him to relax his throat.  He's much better now but man! It makes you wanna keep your kids indoors and hibernate.  Bears are smart.  The hardest part was keeping N and W apart. Especially since W always wants to touch and cuddle with the baby.  Thank goodness P is still on paternity leave.  Stupid croup.

I guess it's only a matter of time until the boys start passing viruses back and forth to each other.  That oughtta be fun.  Then we'll get sick, too.  It'll definitely be a family affair.