Horses and Frogs

Here's a fun bit of trivia that makes total sense in an "oh, but of course!" kind of way, but had never occurred to me until this weekend. Did you know that infants can get laryngitis? They do have vocal cords just like the rest of us, even if they tend to use them in slightly less nuanced ways. So of course, it's possible for those vocal cords to get injured. And when they do, babies go hoarse just like bigger people.

It just never crossed my mind that a baby could lose his voice. But Saturday morning, my poor little LL woke up and tried to call for Mom and Dad to kindly come and get him out of his crib for breakfast, please, and instead... no sound came out. He's been fighting a cold for more than two weeks now, and his very first and most obvious symptom has been a cough, so it shouldn't be surprising that it eventually turned into laryngitis.

But it's not like the kid can whisper what he needs, or write messages down for us on a notepad. All weekend, he would look up at us and try to babble/whine/coo/cry, and all that would happen is a breathy little squeak. He tried over and over.

On the one hand, it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. LL is a very vocal baby, and you could see him getting frustrated that he wasn't able to voice his opinions. He just kept emitting these sad little squeaks. On the other hand... it was also awfully funny. My little baby mime. He's a little young to understand the "frog in the throat" concept, but we couldn't help but ribbit at him all weekend.

His voice slowly started returning today, and we brought him to the pediatrician just to make sure that laryngitis isn't a sign of something horrible in infants, and to see what the heck is going on because seriously, it's been two weeks. But she nodded and said, "Yes, laryngitis. It can happen at any age. Isn't it sad to watch when they're this young?" And just then LL gave a very heartfelt squeak and we all laughed at him. We're such insensitive people. Oh, and he's fine -- it's just a really long-lasting cold, but there's nothing more serious going on, and we're hopeful that he is finally on the mend.

LL sends a pathetic little croak out to you all.