My kid has a stuffy nose. Like, the kind where I have to catch the snot dripping from her nose every thirty seconds. The kind that when she says “mama,” it comes out “bah bah.” The kind that makes it hard to eat because she can’t breathe through her nose, so she has to take breathing breaks in the middle of her chewing, causing her to gag on her food and refuse to eat any more. She’s so miserable, but she’s still so positive.
She went with me to work for a while – sat on the desk, got a sticker from my planner, watched the cars go by out the window. She fell asleep on the way home, cuddling an elephant toy that’s probably way too young for her, but it’s her car toy and she loves it. She was a trooper as I dragged her around to do more work. She was pleasant and smiling as we had lunch with family, although she didn’t eat much. She took FOREVER to go to sleep at naptime, but she wasn’t fussing, just singing and talking. She took a good, long nap and then woke up singing and talking some more. She then proceeded to play with her (my) bracelets for almost TWO hours. We laid in the bed while she played with them for a while and sang and talked. Then her granny came over and she played with the bracelets with her. She cleaned up when I asked her to. She quickly ate a very good dinner after her small lunch and not having any afternoon snack. She let me brush her teeth. She freaked out about getting saline drops in her nose, but really liked the vapor rub. She took forever to go to sleep again, but slept all night with minimal fussing.
That was yesterday. Today was… still okay, but we had a couple of battles of will. Today, she thought it was funny to tell mama, “no,” and run away after I asked her to clean up her books. Today, she said she didn’t want chips and salsa and rice (some of her favorites, and mine too to be honest!), but wanted to stay home (we went anyway, by the way, and she ate just fine). Today she said she wasn’t going to listen to me tomorrow, but wanted daddy to get her doughnuts. How old is my child?! Sometimes even I forget that she’s only just over 18 months old. Sometimes I forget that she’s not like, at least 3. Good grief. The conversations we have are ridiculous. The things she remembers after months are ridiculous. I’m seriously doomed. I’m pretty sure she’s already smarter than I am.
Despite her difficult-ness today, she was still pretty good. She was still obsessed with playing nicely with her bracelets. She still kept a pretty good humor as I dragged her back to the office for an unexpected work errand, enduring standstill interstate traffic and a car that was still hot even with the air blasting. She did ask me to sing “mermaid” all the way there and all the way back, and got really upset when I would stop to, you know, breathe and stuff. I kept trying to remind myself all day that she still doesn’t feel very good.
All that being said, I would not be even half as cheerful as she has been if I had a stuffy nose. In fact, I wasn’t. I was sick for two weeks straight last month and I’m pretty sure I was the biggest grump ever. How can I be more positive like my baby girl? How can I so easily look past the fact that I feel miserable and still see things around me to make me happy? I need a lesson from my one year old.
coffeemamabogie 