Winter Cold #765

Lots of mommy blogs are talking about their families' colds and flus.  I thought I'd join in the fun.

I have always gotten every cold that goes around.  Not only do I get every cold, but I have a penchant for getting croup.  This is the barky cough that sounds like an angry seal is in my house.  Sometimes, I get the cough AND laryngitis.  That's fun.  My son also gets croup often.  

Having kids, this means someone in our house is sick almost every week.  Last week's cold wasn't too bad (despite me having laryngitis).  This week's cold, however, is a little ridiculous.  This week, I feel a little run down and I have a stuffy nose.  That's fine with me.  But, these kids are pitiful.

My son doesn't have a bad cough, but he is stuffy, and blowing his nose every  five minutes.  Sometimes, he uses his sleeve, but, for the most part, he blows his nose.  My son is four, and he doesn't really know how to use a tissue.  This means that my bill for tissues is going up this week.   He ends up grabbing two or three tissues, wipes his nose, and tosses them in the trash.  This is great, but he doesn't blow his nose.  Thus, he doesn't actually solve the problem.  My son goes through a box of tissues in roughly five minutes.

My daughter also has the cold.  She looks like a zombie.  She is pale, and her eyes are rimmed red.  Since she is just a toddler, she also looks like a zombie when she walks.  Unlike her brother, she is too young to use tissues.  Instead, her face has the constant glisten from a drippy nose.  And, when I hear her sneeze, I go straight to the tissue box before I check on her because it will be disgusting.  She looks up at me with these sad eyes, and wonders why her face just exploded on her.

This cold, my daughter has a touch of croup.  The cough keeps her and me up all night.  She was even wheezing the other night.  I had to take her in the bathroom, turn the shower on hot, and let it steam up to get her breathing right again.  It's so sad.  She's so pitiful and helpless.

I just hope the colds end quickly, and we don't have to make any midnight runs to the emergency rooms.