Weird Week

We went to Stephen and Sam's this weekend and left the kiddos with my parents. The kids love going to Mom and Dad's house and don't even seem the least bit upset that they are being left. ha We had a good time in Dallas, and the kids had a good time at my parents' house (and at the Wildlife Expo).
We brought Mom home with us on Sunday, and on Monday Noelle started being irritable. Monday afternoon she had about 102 temp. She slept all night, and on Tuesday her temp only got to 100. Wednesday she didn't have fever at all until late afternoon/evening. Wednesday afternoon I gave her some of Hyland's Cough and Cold (she didn't really have a cough or cold, but it is for lots of symptoms and has vitamin C and stuff in it). Mom went to change Noelle's diaper right after I had given her the medicine, and she started crying and screaming. I finally got her and calmed her down. She was grabbing her mouth and screaming. She asked for a banana, ate the whole thing, and was fine. Then when we sat down at supper I had given her some mustard and ketchup to dip her hamburger patty in, and she just sat there and ate the mustard/ketchup (mostly mustard, she LOVES it) with her finger. She all the sudden choked, acted like she could not breathe one iota, and freaked me completely out. I was trying to figure out how long I should give her to catch her breath, when she finally started squeaking in a breath. Ugh. I had unbuckled her and taken her out of her seat and kind-of pushed on her belly but wasn't sure how crazy to go. THEN she started screaming and grabbing her mouth. It took me a little bit to calm her down, but the rest of the evening she was just fine (even when eating or drinking).
After that whole episode (and I had been having a hard time with a muscle spasm in my shoulder blade that was shooting up my neck all day), the adrenaline left and I was exhausted. ha I told Evan that I really wanted him to study at home, and he did. He even put the kids to bed and just let me lie around. :-) I thought we would be up in the night with Noelle, but she only woke up once at 5 a.m., wanted a drink, wanted to rock, and went back to sleep. She woke up happy and ate all of her yogurt and granola for breakfast. Close to noon she started running a little under 100-degree temp, and I've been trying to keep her low-key (not easy). I finally called the nurse, and she said I can wait until tomorrow and see how she's doing. We're thinking the acidity of the homeopathic medicine (vitamin C) and the mustard probably irritated a throat that is already a bit irritated, but that strep would cause way more problems than that. We'll see. I've had this happen with Nathan before (fever then sore throat then doctor's office & strep test then "must be a virus"), so I feel okay with it. Except that I had a really weird thing happen.
Last night I thought I caught a glimpse of something weird in Noelle's throat. Today she was playing when I had the flashlight and completely opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and said, "Ahhhh." I think it's the first time I've ever seen completely inside her mouth. Oh yeah, some weird thing was sticking up out of the bottom of her throat. No, not the little dangly thing that hangs down from the top, from the bottom. I checked my throat, nope. I checked Nathan's, nope. And it wasn't little, either.
So I went to Google. Lovely google. First I typed in "pink thing coming from bottom of toddler's throat," which led me to some diagram of the mouth. I figured out that it must be the epiglottis, so I searched for that. Yes, children (and some adults) can have a high-rise epiglottis. It generally freaks parents out. Sometimes doctors, too, if they haven't been around long enough. Noelle still has a chance of "growing into" hers, so I guess I shouldn't be too worried. But I did tell the nurse about it. She didn't comment. I bet she googled it after we got off the phone. :-) It is really, really weird. I wonder if that is why Noelle most times makes huge gulping sounds whenever she drinks (most people notice and laugh and ask if I've not been letting her drink). I also wonder if that is why she made weird noises one night when she was teeny tiny and had been crying. She freaked me out because after she stopped crying she kept making some weird noise in her throat. I never heard it again. Isn't that strange? I think so. I just don't like finding these things out when she is sick. I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before and neither has her doctor because we've never gotten her to go all out with the "stick out your tongue and say ahhh AND open your mouth all the way" before.
Anyway, there it is. Nathan seems to be fit as a fiddle, though, so that is good. OH, and I also saw that the gums at the back of her bottom teeth were nice and white. Two-year-molars?? Nice. I wonder how long they will take to come in. ;-)
My neck/back is doing better today. I think I took more medicine yesterday than I've taken in two years. ha