Stop me if you've heard this one. . . .

Here's a bedtime story for a gray, dark, windy Sunday night. . . .

Once upon a time, there was a family. They're pretty cool. Two semi-cool parents. . . two great kids. One kid has issues. . .being a teenager and all. . .but for the most part, his parents love him.

The other child has her own set of. . . you thought I was going to say issues, didn't you? WRONG. This child has a set of lungs. These lungs get infected with this bizarre infection called "croup" from time to time.

In years past, this somewhat cool family has taken their "croupified" daughter to the ER . . .in literal fear for her life. However, this somewhat "hip" family has learned its way around the medical community in the past four years, and have learned that there are "home remedies" for croup that can be attempted in order to save a trip to their local Children's Hospital (even though they love the staff there.)

Let's say this moderately awesome family discovers on a Saturday night that child #2 is making those barking breathing/coughing noises again. Their first thought? Why, croup, of course.

So, semi-awesome Dad lets somewhat rockin' Mom sleep through the night because she has to work on Sunday morning (two services, no waiting). When Mom wakes up about 45 minutes prior to her alarm going off, she hears the daughter "barking" through the house, and realizes that the incident that happened during Saturday Night Live was just the first of three incidents during the night -- and that the totally awesome Dad was up from 3:15 a.m. until 5:15 a.m. with this charming daughter who sounds remarkably like a seal.

Two calls later (one to the after-hours nurse at the ER, and one to the pharmacist's cell phone) Mom (not feeling awesome at all) gets ready for church and goes to "work" for the morning.

Exhausted, but Cool Dad meets up with the pharmacist, thinking that there were refills available on the nebulizer medicines ... mainly because Not-as-Tired Mom told him that there should be some left on the prescription. And there would have been...had they not expired two years ago.

After the rendezvous with the drug dealer (sounds so cool, doesn't it?) The parents have a brainstorming session in the foyer of the church as people are leaving. Their decision? Call their good friend who is also a family doctor, and see if he can link them up with something to get them through until Monday morning, when they will call the childrens' pediatrician.

This wonderful, giving doctor not only had the medicine that this family needed. . .he met them at his office (on a Sunday -- his GRAND DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY no less) to give them the medicine that their seal-barking child will need in order to make it through the night until they can see the pediatrician on Monday.

This absolutely wonderful doctor/friend also called the Children's Hospital just to make sure that the dosing instructions were correct for a 28-lb awesome toddler who has this wheezy breezy quality about her.

Awesome Dad drives the meds home -- and after her bath this evening, the drugs were administered via an inventive "fish" mask which is supposed to ease the fears of children receiving these drugs through the mist. (She may forever be afraid of tropical fish, but sometimes something's gotta give!)

This precious child with a half-hearted bark is now asleep. Her tired, but grateful mother is blogging about their adventure over the past 24 hours. And the blogging mother suspects that the exhausted, but triumphant dad is catching a nap in the bedroom. . .in case there are more "episodes" during the night.

Okay -- you've now read they hypothetical reality that IS my life. I'm hoping that this will explain my situation and smooth out any ruffled feathers that are upset that there are no bathroom or scrapbooking pictures posted here. I'm doing the best that I can to stay upright at this point.

Forgive me?