A Long Cold Winter ahead

The last words my childminder said to me at 6pm on Thursday were “Olivia has eaten like horse today, she couldn’t get the food into her quick enough she’s been a delight all day”.  I skipped out of her house and down the path so happy that Olivia had enjoyed all the food I packed for her and smothered her in kisses…”what a great girl” I kept saying on repeat… “hip hip hooray!”

Fast forward 12 hours to 6.30am, friday morning and Olivia is coughing like she has just smoked a 40 pack of cigarettes and thrashing around in her cot like a lunatic. I sit straight upright in bed and begin to sweat as I know now what the weekend has in store of us as parents and her as the cold infested child, it’s going to be one long weekend that’s for sure.

I get her up and ready to go back to the childminders and even she is in shock at the sight of Olivia who is hanging together. The childminder has the same face as me at 6.30am this morning, she is thinking its going to be one long day! As the clock ticks closer to home time in work I can only imagine what im going to. I wasnt far wrong. Olivia hasn’t slept all day and the cough has got worse. like a true super mum I had gone out during my lunch hour to the chemist to get medicine and vapour rub…not the mild kids kind… the hardcore adults one, no point messing about is there?! We got home and there was only one thing that was going to get us through to bedtime and that was cartoons and plenty of them

Normally on a saturday Chris is at work until lunchtime but this weekend I had my sidekick from the get go. Olivia slept pretty well considering but I think she was that exhausted there was no doubt she needed the sleep. When she got up there was a fair bit of whining so we got her wrapped up warm and took ourselves out as we couldn’t have listened to that all morning, I know it sounds harsh but my goodness it can go on. I don’t know how she could even stick the sound of her own whining at the best of times  FYI scrap the super mum comment after that sentence…im all heart I know 🙂

She was a trooper when we were out and fought the sleep so much. Even when we went into the Disney store she hardly battered an eyelid so we knew things were bad! We headed home and she went for a 2 hour nap. We had to get her up in the end as it would have only been a few hours until she went back to bed. This was not what Olivia wanted to happen. OH NO! Que lots of crying, a bit of disillusionment, staggering around like she had just had a bottle of wine and the words “no.. no no.. no” x 100. It was going to be one great saturday evening…well for Chris anyway, like any super mum I had arrangements to go out for dinner with my friends and whilst I did offer to cancel I was ever so glad when Chris said he could handle this one on his own. GO DADDY!

In true daddy girl fashion Olivia went to bed and slept all night long. In fact so long that we actually had to get her up at 9.45am that morning after 14 hours of sleep! Our saviour on sunday were Grandparents. Both sets. The great thing about grandparents are they always give the right amount of sympathy to both the grandchild and the parents as they have been there and done that. They also can entertain a grandchild for hours and create such a good distraction that the time whizzes by. When bedtime rolled around it took nearly 4 hours for Olivia to actually go to sleep with all the coughing and more whining, bless her not a tear in sight! Where are the Grandparents when you need them then??!! 🙂

Having a child with the cold is like a military operation come bed time. One parents is getting the vapour rub on the chest and feet. The other is shooting nasal spray up the nose whilst the other finished with the vapor rub is now pining the child down to get PJs on and so the saga continues..do you keep their vest on incase they are too cold but what if they are too hot? Did you fill a bowl with hot water and vapour rub and place it in the bedroom to help with breathing? should you have bought the plug-in vapour thing? do you tilt the cot at one end to help with the coughing? Where is the idiots guide to children we bought?? etc etc..

If it’s not one thing with kids it’s another. Our household could have reserved parking at the doctor’s surgery lately. We have just got rid of a chest, throat and ear infection to get a rash caused by the antibiotic that helped it to now this cold. The eating has also been a disaster through it all. So much so that we even let Olivia have cheese and onion crisps for dinner after a few carrots and some broccoli just because we then knew she had eaten something at least. It seems never-ending at times but sure would you have it any other way…the short answer is YES is it Friday yet??!! 🙂