Duc in Altum

Yesterday our daughter turned eighteen months old. To mark the occasion she has had a cold. Unbelievably, this is really the first cold she has ever had. There have been a few days when she has had a low grade fever, but those might simply have been because she was teething. This cold, however is a full-on cold with a runny nose, sneezing, slight fever, and a little coughing. All of this is brand new to our daughter.

It really is quite sad to see because she has no idea what this is all about, and it has thrown her off of her regular pattern. However, like she does with most new things, she is adapting fairly well. In fact, other than the congestion, it would be difficult to tell she is ill. She runs around like she always does. Then she will sneeze, and she is perplexed and annoyed by the results of that action. Unfortunately, she does not like to have her nose wiped despite my having specially purchased the softest tissues I could find. This makes for quite the comical scene of one of us trying to wipe her nose while she protests.

We know exactly where she caught the cold. On Sunday, we visited some friends of ours who have two boys. The younger one who is only a few months older than our daughter had a cold. We were warned by our friends, but we went over to their house hoping our run of avoiding illness would continue. Instead, at eighteen months, our daughter is learning what it is like to feel miserable because of cold. She just went back to bed after getting up in the middle of the night to have something to eat and to get a dose of children's Tylenol. Some of the Tylenol I gave to her directly. Some came hidden in some mushed-up fruit she ate. Then, not long after she ate, she wonderfully fell asleep on the carpet. This tremendous turn of events allowed me to carry her off to her crib for what I hope will be several more hours of sleep.