I originally posted this in November, 2008. Though the post begins by addressing the holiday season, I thought it was the perfect post for this uneventful-week-in-February as both my children have RSV.
Blegh humbug.
Get out your kleenex (and if you're like me, it's probably tucked in your sleeve).
'Tis the season for over-liquoring the eggnog, singing nonsensical carols, making out underneath the mistletoe, sitting on old guys' laps in the middle of the mall, re-gifting bubble bath and perfume, and surviving the snottiest nose in the animal kingdom - my son's.
It seems that when any normal person catches a cold the worst of it is evidenced by a rudolph-colored sniffer, half-flaked away because it's been kleenexed raw. But when my son catches a cold, it appears as if Mount Vesuvius erupted all over his face.
It starts with his nose. His baby schnoz is filled with flourescent-colored boogies partially hanging out of his putrid-yellow encrusted nostrils. From there, two long streams of thick snot run from his nose onto his lip at just the right spot for a good lick-up (and lick-up he does - Eww!). Occasionally he rubs his nose causing the yellow, green and brown medley to be smeared across his upper lip and cheeks and chin. From afar he looks like he should be starring in a gruesome horror flick - Watch out for Baby Loogie and A Nightmare on Plegm Street.
And because the runny, snotty mess usually lasts an entire week (if we're lucky), his tiny button nose (now hidden beneath a week's worth of crusty phlegm) begins to collect dust, dirt, and other substances usually only found inside a vacuum bag. No joke - just yesterday I yanked a couple of dog hairs that were embedded in the snot scab attached to my son's snout.
And because our little germ magnet can't figure out how to make his coughing and hacking effective, nothing ever actually comes up. Rather he lives in a permanent state of raspy breathing making him sound like a mini Darth Vader.
And this all comes just months after all the pediatricians and specialists and researchers and media got together and banned the crap out of cold medicine of any sort for children big and small. So my dear little snot bucket is left to drown in his own goo. Poor kid. He's startin' to make the dog on National Lampoons Christmas Vacation seem healthy (coincidentally, I think that dog's name is Snots).
Dear God who so generously gave us each a sniffer for breathing and sniffing and picking,
Please give my son his health back (thus giving me my sanity back). He didn't do anything to deserve this. If anything, it was might fault. I probably didn't wash my hands enough or sanitize his toys enough or keep him living in a bubble long enough. My precious little baby simply wants to breath again without having to draw oxygen from the coral reef barrier surrounding his air passage.
And as you work on clearing up his itsy bitsy honker (How do you do it? A snot-sucking vacuum? A boogie-blowing power washer? I'd love to know your secret as my son's snotty nose is one for the record books), I'll finish another load of laundry full of clothes, both mine and his, that have fallen victim to my son's snot rockets when no kleenex was in reach (hence why I now always keep one tucked in my sleeve).
