Everyone has a cold

We've been battling colds around here since Christmas. Mine came on slowly with a slightly itchy throat early in the week and gradually progressed to severe congestion. At least the throat pain is pretty much gone. The congestion came on yesterday afternoon. Almost suddenly my nose was blocked up and I couldn't smell or taste anything. Which was unfortunate because Jason and I went out for a wonderful dinner last night for our anniversary. The rib eye I ordered had a wonderful crust on the outside and was perfectly cooked to medium and I'm sure it tasted great too. I saved over half of it to have in the coming days when my smell and taste return.

I woke up this morning with one partially unobstructed nostril and a very dry mouth. Fortunately the kids slept wonderfully and I wasn't too groggy from my Benadryl-assisted sleep. How the kids slept wonderfully I don't know as almost every time I look at them there are rivers of buggies running from their noses. Not surprising since we probably have the same cold and I blow my nose about every five minutes. Sam is starting to learn to blow his nose and occasionally gets a kleenex to wipe his own nose which usually ends up smeared all over the place. It's a start though. Matthew is in the phase where he hates having his nose wiped. Which means more smears all over his face. Yucky. Poor kids. Winter and colds are a hard, nasty time for children it seems. 

We ventured out to the Y yesterday when Matthew didn't have a runny nose at all and Sam's seemed to be getting better. I guess it improves as the day goes on. I always hesitate to take the kids to the Y or any public setting when they're sick as that's how things get spread around. But I felt our sick status was really not bad, so we went. As I waited in line to drop the kids off I could see a few other kids playing with buggies running down their noses. Ugh. What to do? Keeping kids at home all winter would be insanity. I dropped the kids off and went to ride the bike. I almost killed myself on the bike as I hadn't worked out in a week and was somewhat under the weather. As I was finishing up my workout I briefly thought I might pass out and wondered what the Y would do with the kids if that event should occur. It didn't and I shakily made my way to the locker room and then retrieved the kids.

Back to the colds, the poor kids, there are hardly any options for relieving their symptoms. Saline drops in the nose, a humidifier to help with breathing, and that's about it. I guess Sam could try some other medicines now that he's over age 2. I may have to try to find something for his cough. We probably won't make it to the Y today with both kids having bad runny noses this morning. We'll see how things go as the day goes on. Have a Happy New Year!