Cold War

And no, this post has nothing to do with the Soviet Union...

I'm talking about my little guy's congestion.  Having a sick baby is tough.  Having a sick baby when you're the only one around to rock him and hold him in the middle of the night is especially tough.

Max got his first cold right after JP's funeral.  It was right after getting his first kiss and "snot-hawk" (ew, hopefully his only snot-hawk) from his first "girlfriend."  It was the first first after JP died.  And it was horrible.  Neither of us slept.  Not that I was getting much in the way of REM time those days anyway, but it was just awful - and when I would finally take him in bed with me so I could ensure that his head was propped up, he slept and I sat there worrying about him suffocating or falling off the bed.

When we were stocking up on medicine cabinet supplies while I was still pregnant, JP and I made a deal - I would man the rectal thermometer and he would be in charge of the snot-sucker.  Because he wanted to get the Nose Frida, the one where you put a tube in your mouth and literally suck the snot out.  It made me retch just thinking about it, and I popped a cheap-o bulb version in the basket just in case - I mean, I was the one staying home so inevitably I was going to need to do some clearing of the nasal passages.  And it makes me sad and angry that now I'm the only one sucking snot (by the way, he was right about the Nose Frida being the way to go...)

I'm always going to get sad when Max has colds.  It's always going to make me think of the few really bad colds JP would get every year.  With all the traveling he did, and how infrequently he washed his hands (boy was that something I nagged about when we had a newborn in the house...), he had a fairly compromised immune system.  I mean, he would get at least one cold each year that would have him in bed for days.  Days!  For a cold!  And yet, he never let me take care of him beyond restocking and fetching G2.  Or maybe some cough suppressant.

Time to go to my little man and try to figure out how the two of us are going to get some rest tonight...