The Cold

I've learned that babies are remarkable beings. It is as though they know when mom and dad have conquered the most recent challenge and dig into their bag of tricks to present a new one. Owen did just that two weeks ago. As soon as he had started sleeping pretty consistently from 8:30 until sometime between 4 and 5:30 he discovered a new weapon to throw everything back into a state of disarray...

A cold.

Of course we knew Owen would get a cold eventually. In fact, we expected it to happen sooner than later since he had just started going to daycare about a week and a half prior. When you walk into a room of screaming kids every morning and each one that looks up at you has what appears to be the Colorado River of snot running out of their nose it's pretty inevitable that your kid will not be safe for long. What we were not prepared for, however, is how a cold progresses and just how long it can stick around.

June 12 it all began. It started as most colds do with a sniffle. Nothing major and so we figured he'd get congested and it would all be over in a couple days. That was a Friday. The next couple days passed and Owen became more congested. However, he was still sleeping relatively well and outside of having to use the dreaded nasal aspirator every once-in-a-while things were OK.

Last Friday, the cold took it to a whole new level. Thursday night Owen developed a cough. We sort of figured this would happen since we've all had colds and they usually start to drain and turn into a cough. That night, Owen didn't sleep well at all. The kid who had been sleeping through the night woke up in the middle of it. To make things worse we checked and he was starting to develop a temperature. Nothing too serious, 101, but enough to worry two new parents enough to call the doctor as soon as the office opened at 8:00. Bridget's previous post described that adventure so I'll move the story along.

From Friday until Wednesday, we learned all about what a nasty cold really is like. It involves things

• A baby who had never spit up in his life vomiting half his bottle on your clothes.
• Waking up at random times of the night with 15 minute coughing fits that won't stop.
• Parents unable to sleep because the baby coughs once every 10 minutes and the monitor makes sure you hear it.
• Having to switch from 6oz of formula at a feeding to 4oz and eating every four hours to every three hours because the baby can't eat more than that at a time.
  

Finally, on Wednesday, the congestion started to go away and by today the cough is much, much better so much so that last night Owen slept til 4AM when I woke him up for his bottle. In a way, we're glad we've gotten through cold #1. It's another obstacle cleared and we'll be that much more prepared for cold #2, which I'm sure will be here sooner than later.

Now the only question remaining is...What does Owen have up his sleeve for his next trick?