But a Cold Sounds so Innocuous

Since we've returned to California from Illinois, Kathleen has had a cold. Kids get colds all the time, I know. I also know that some children get far more serious illnesses, and I really am grateful that my daughter is as healthy as she is. That having been said, "Kathleen has had a cold" does not nearly communicate the misery that is my sick toddler.

Kathleen has had a seriously runny nose and a cough worthy of a tuberculosis ward. They've been so distressing to see or hear that we even tried giving Kathleen some cold medicine, despite having read an article in the New York Times a few months ago linking infants' and children's cold medicines to strokes (because I really needed another thing to worry about). Our affair with cold medicine was short-lived, however, because as far as I could tell it didn't stop the runny nose or the coughing, but instead made Kathleen slightly more miserable than she'd been without it. And making Kathleen more miserable was really going some.

When Kathleen's sick, she doesn't sleep more, she sleeps less. She'll simply refuse to nap and then will wake earlier and earlier in the morning. So her discomfort is complicated by pretty severe sleep deprivation. That makes for a very whiny, unhappy toddler. And an unhappy toddler makes a very unhappy mommy.

Kathleen must have known that I was just about to leave her out for the gypsies, because she has finally started to recover, at least a little. She's begun eating again (thankfully my baby is large enough to carry a five or six-day hunger strike without much impact). After she began to eat, she began to sleep a bit more and whine a bit less. And, so though she's still very sniffly and cough-y, Kathleen's acting much more like herself. Thank goodness for that!