Kids and the Sickening Cycle of Sickness

Marley is sick. Again. For like, the third time in a month-and-a-half.

We wash our hands religiously. We disinfect like crazy. We take our vitamins. We juice carrots and kale every morning. And yet, sickness comes back to rain on our parade. Sometimes I feel like the days when she doesn't have a runny nose or a cough are an exception to the rules. A little break in the clouds of an otherwise overcast cycle of sickness.

Just yesterday morning, we had waited over an hour and a half in the doctor's office to hear the groundbreaking news that--WAIT FOR IT-- Marley has a COLD. No ear infection, no flu, no whooping cough, no lung infection. Just the common cold. Alas, it is a NEW cold, a different one from the last two she had. SUPER. It was recommended that we give her Tylenol, turn on the humidifier, and push fluids.


So glad I spent all morning exposing my child to scary viruses in the pediatrician's office to hear this shocking bit of advice.


Last night, after we put her to bed, Marley coughed so hard that she threw up. "Mommy, mommy, come look!" she yelled to me from her room. I walked in there to find some barf on her pillow.

"Mommy, I threw up!" shouted Marley, almost proudly. "I threw up like a BABY LION."

Now, I'm not sure where or when Marley witnessed a BABY LION throwing up, but she was pretty convincing. "Just like a BABY LION," she reiterated as Ian and I stripped the bed and threw the sheets in the washer.  Hmm. Yeah...good times!