Dora and the Nebulizer

Dora and the Nebulizer, hmm sounds like it could be an episode title..

I think Julia is officially addicted to Dora the Explorer. Let me explain how this happened. She has steadily begun to like Dora for a while. I don't even know where she first learned about Dora, but one day she saw a Dora book at the library and she just had to check out it (meaning, she was really excited and wouldn't put it down.) We have since checked that same book out two other times after she has seen it at the library and glued herself to it.

The big Dora addiction however came a few weeks ago after I took Julia to the doctor. She had been sick, then started to get better, then got worse. When I took her in they said there was probably not much we could do for her, but since she was also wheezing they would try to see if she would respond to a nebulizer treatment right there in the doctor's office. She did, the wheezing got a lot better. So now Julia has to use the nebulizer three times a day until she has not coughed for 24 hours.

At first it was a bit of a struggle. I would hold her on my lap and she liked to hold the face mask up to her face for a couple minutes, then she would get tired of the face mask and try to take it off and run away. So then for the next 10-20 minutes I would have to hold her in my lap and force the mask on, pause for a couple minutes to take a break, and continue until she finished breathing in the medicine.

Cough's take forever to go away completely. She doesn't cough much during the day anymore, but does cough at night, so we are still plugging away with the nebulizer. Thank goodness we figured out a better strategy. After a couple days I realized Julia did just fine sitting by herself, holding her own face mask, and watching Dora the Explorer. So now when I tell Julia it's time to take her medicine she actually gets excited and says "watch Dora!" because she gets to just sit in the rocking chair and watch Dora for the next ten minutes. She knows all the Dora songs (I think I can hear them in my sleep too), knows the characters, and can do the little happy "we did it! we did it!" dance they always do at the end.