The First Cold

Anyone remember the rubber ball that your mother probably used on you to suck snots out of your nose? I called it the Light Bulb. Maybe you had a different name for it. I really didn't enjoy the light bulb. It usually involved being horizontal with someone's knee in my chest while I yelled Nooooooo! So yeah, I used one of these devices over the last week. They really haven't come a long way. Although the part that goes up your nose is way longer and thinner- for Maximum Penetration! Alina's eyes would roll back in her head when we use it. We lovingly refer to Alina's new worst enemy as The Boogie Suckie. Well, she can't talk and come up with her own name. What would you call it? Snot Extractor? Mucous Puller? Deboogifier? The Boogie Suckie even has it's own song which started out as a way to get her to smile, but now it's more like a warning siren. It resembles the Ziggy Sokky drinking chant at the end of the Man Show. We should probably stop doing that.

All things considered, we handled her first cold fairly well. Not much panic. We mostly felt bad for her because she had a congested cough and we couldn't give her anything for it. The fevers are usually the thing that gets us the most worried. We gave her this infant drug called Little Fevers. Ohhh, how cute. More seasoned parents would scoff at us with: Pffft 101? You don't have to start worrying until 103.

Of course, Katrina and I both caught the cold after. Luckily we each got it at different times. Baby viruses are interesting to catch because they don't kick your ass like typical viruses. They're mostly annoying. A scratchy throat, some irritating nasal congestion. Fortunately, we big kids can take all kinds of fun stuff like Afrin and NyQuil.