Odds and Ends, and Kittyboy's Cough

Firstly, news of a distressing sort - Kittyboy's cough is pneumonia. Not hospital-worthy, thank God, just antibiotics, fluids, and rest.
Some toddlers, I'm sure, would be content to lay on the couch and watch Veggie Tales. Such children must exist, somewhere. I was such a child, after all. The Kittyboy, as everyone who knows him are already aware, is the sort of child who would not do such a thing unless straitjacketed. He has a cough, yes, one that can last up to a minute or so (watch the second hand 'round a clock, a minute is a good bit). And he is exhausted, because he coughs all day, coughs all night, coughs through naps and whatnot. But will he lay down? For maybe two minutes at a time... He is finally, finally asleep for a nap. It will not be a long one, I'm sure, but for now I have peace. No sharp corners of board-books being banged into my leg. No shrill whining. No throwing a fit for a snack and then pushing it away and crying again. I remember having pneumonia, and I pity him, I cringe every time he coughs - but I can't fathom being sick and having so much blasted ENERGY. And a sick toddler is not a pleasant toddler. Particularly not a sick little ball 'o fire.
If the construction across the street wakes him, I may need to smash something.
He was healthy as a horse until Thursday, when he decided to take the lid off his sippy cup and drink from an open, lid-less cup all on his own. At the time, no coughing or gagging, so he was doing fine, right? That night he had a tight, unproductive sounding cough. It continued as he slept, and through Friday. Friday evening, we went to the clinic. The doctor said he had "decreased breathing in the right lung relative to the left" and said they could do an x-ray. I asked if that was really necessary or not (thinking surely he'd cough it up, whatever it was) and she said that as he had no wheezing or distress, we could wait and watch - but come back immediately if the cough worsened or he had a fever. Sunday afternoon (AFTER church, naturally) the cough was indeed worse, and he had a temp of 100.3, so back we went. We got the same clinic doctor, yahoo, so she knew exactly what was going on already, and she said, "Yes, I think we should x-ray now - if you remember, I mentioned this Friday" (emphasis mine). Yes, yes, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Doctors do not mention x-raying two-year-olds because they just feel like wasting some film trying to get the kid to hold still (which we did, it took three takes to get something usable).
Definitely pneumonia. And I'm definitely blaming the drinking without a lid. You can't ask a disease where it came from, but that's a heck of a coincidence considering he's been so healthy until now. "Dumped some water down his trachea to his right lung and it got infected" fits all the facts. I e-mailed Terri to ask if there's any way to know for SURE that it's from Thursday and not that he's been leaking into his airway the whole time he's been drinking from a sippy cup, and she said that's really hard to say. Back to the straw for now.
Odds and Ends...
I'm taking advantage of the sun and warmth by moving all of our vertical blind slats behind the tomato and basil plants, so I have sort of a little greenhouse in there. I can't tell if my attempts to pollinate the blooms worked or not, but it's worth it just to have the wonderful scent of tomato plants every time I go over to the window. Fruit or not, it SMELLS like summer. Love it, love it, love it.
The Baptist church across the street is, at long last, doing something about the overhang that collapsed under a measly inch of snow a month ago. It appears that they had added it themselves to the building, church members donating time and skills or whatnot, but maybe they didn't quite know what they were doing. From where we are, right across the parking lot, it looks an awful lot like the supports weren't attached securely - it just FOLDED. And finally, a month or so after it happened, they are doing something about their dangerous eyesore. I understand that churches don't have much money, and this isn't a mega-church, it's a little white building with a steeple (and a collapsed overhang, and a tarp over that part of the roof), so they may have been holding off to raise the money - but if someone's kid had stepped over the wimpy orange snow-fence and it collapsed the rest of the way, heaven forbid, I'm pretty sure they'd be EXTREMELY liable. Firstly, because the construction doesn't look to have been all that sturdy to begin with, and secondly for not dealing with it as soon as it happened - bracing it, shoring it up at least, if they were waiting for a warm day to work on it. You can't just put up a vinyl snow fence, half of which was leaning over maybe a foot off the ground, and call it a day.
Back to plants, Aldi has big gorgeous tropicals - real, not silk. I'm going to take Husband there this evening so he can pick out my next "project". I'm leaning towards the palm-thing with burgundy leaves. It's awesome!