Nissim has started Creche. He had three days of orientation last week, which of course went well. I told them on the first day that they were possibly crazy to ask me to stay for three days to help settle him in. It took about 3 minutes and he had forgotten who I was. But they asked me to stay for a while. I died of boredom and tried to keep Tova busy playing away from Nissim. After an hour or so I told them I should go for a while to see how he goes.

I returned a few hours later to a very happy Nissim (as I expected).

The second day I really, really wanted to leave as I was extremely bored sitting around reading to Tova and gaining a massive audience on the reading mat. So I again told them I should go. This time Nissim came with me as it wasn't his official day at creche.

The third day, I didn't stick around to get bored. I dropped him off early and picked him up later in the afternoon. I even went and had a spray tan (with Tova, who ended up getting some on her too). That was fun!

Tomorrow is his first day with no pressure on me to stick around. Which is better for him, Tova and me. He is a social little man that loves creche! And he has been going to my gym creche for years almost daily (only an hour and a half at a time, but it has made sure he doesn't suffer from separation issues). I am very much looking forward to him spending an entire day there.

The staff there are fantastic. They are all so friendly and positive. I am very impressed with the entire place. It is friendly, clean, modern and FUN! They only had one place or I would have put both kids in there. Hopefully another place will come up soon.

So, as Tova has been attending the orientation days with Nissim and I, she of course, unfortunately picked up croup. Tova was due to start back at her play group (it has been on term break) on Thursday, but she woke up not breathing properly.

I gave her ventolin, it did nothing. I waited a while and gave her some more, it did nothing. She was in a very good mood, so I fed her breakfast. She ate it all, 2 weetbix, fruit and a drink. I gave her more ventolin, and again it didn't help. She was still happy but breathing terribly.

Two hours past since she woke up and she was still having trouble breathing. Off to Monash Hospital we went. Croup!

The doctors said it was sever and she was quickly hooked up to monitors and given steroids and adrenalin. She improved dramatically over a few hours. However, we were admitted for the night as apparently croup gets worse during the colder hours of night.

Some how we managed to get a room to ourselves, it even had a view of the special care windows where both my kids spent many months.

The night passed with out too much trouble. Tova did wake during the night and have some difficulty breathing, I was thankful to be in hospital, as if we had been home I would have heard her breathing like that and had to go to the hospital during the middle of the night. The nurse on duty was lovely and said that Tova was doing great, that her O2 was good and her breathing noises were to be expected.

The next day we eventually got seen by the doctors on duty who said we could go home. We had lunch and got home early afternoon. Not bad!

Throughout the entire ordeal Tova remained in an extremely good mood, only skipped on meal (and made up for it later in the afternoon anyway) and was a little bundle of gorgeous normality. Other than the breathing, there was no way of telling she was so sick!

It was quite scary as I didn't know what croup was. The doctors filled me in and gave me some literature to read. They said it was almost definitely something Tova picked up from Nissim's creche... great.. Now I wonder if I should send her to creche at all... Little T and her little immune system.. ahh the life of a micro premi...

Nissim didn't get sick thank goodness. Even thought he was so prem, he seems to be stronger, thank god!

While we were in hospital,  not one person mentioned anything about how small and thin Tova is, no one mentioned tubes even once. It was a great feeling. Tova was treated like a 'normal' person with croup. I was very impressed!