Finally.

I KNEW something wasn’t right.

I just didn’t know what.

O hasn’t been himself for a while. At least a couple of weeks, I thought. Not sleeping. Not eating. Et cetera.

So when daycare called me yesterday to tell me that he was clingy and tired and fussy and had ANOTHER low grade fever… I decided to call his pediatrician.

And I felt really stupid about it. Because he’s had a low grade fever once a week or so. For what I thought was the past three weeks.

But aside from that? He hasn’t been acting SICK.

Just not HIMSELF.

And I didn’t want to be THAT mom – who brings her kid in with a cold and asks for antibiotics.

But it’s been long enough, and I didn’t think it could HURT.

So I called when he was taking his nap. And they told me to come in, just to be sure.

And he ate snacks and said “Hi!” multiple times to the Nurse Practicioner so that she would let him look at her computer.

And she didn’t hear anything in his lungs but sent us for an x-ray, just in case. Because they noted that he had a cough when he went to his 18 month well-baby appointment about a month ago. And it hadn’t really gone away since.

O ran around the waiting room for the x-ray like a kid possessed. He seemed completely over whatever it was that had bothered him that morning. And I felt so stupid for even being there – he was clearly fine.

Except he’s not.

He actually has pneumonia. In his upper right lobe.

From the quick googling I did, every sign seems to point to walking pneumonia, though it’s rare in toddlers. Maybe it’s viral.

But they gave us antibiotics for him.

And now we have a REASON for the night wakings. For the lack of eating. I KNEW something was off with him – I just couldn’t figure out what it was.

So now we know. And he’s on antibiotics. So hopefully, in a few days, he’ll be back to himself again.