morning update

Well, the night was as unsettled as feared. As Elizabeth said this morning, "I am losing my throat!"

Rich was up with her at midnight and got her settled back down. I cheated at 2 am and brought her into bed with us. She was so pathetic, "mommy, I can't stop coughing. I'm a big girl, can I come and sleep with you?" How can you resist that?

All was fine until 4 am, when she woke up feverish again. And kicked me directly in the kidney, but that's another story. We got more medicine in her, but she was pretty much awake for the next hour, and pretty sweet, though at 4 am nothing is truly that sweet. We had a container of antacid on the nightstand she grabbed - here Daddy, here's some medicine for you, too. She opened the container and carefully shook one out. Then promptly sneezed on it and shoved it into Daddy's mouth. Which is when Rich started whimpering. (yes, whimpering!) But, she did sleep in until 8, so it wasn't terrible.

However, this seems like a nasty cold. 6 days to go and we're all doomed.

And the hair. Well, in my family, straight, thick hair is the norm, so this curly stuff is throwing me for a loop. She's never had it cut, and my plan was to have it grow long, down her back and wear in ponytails or braids, as my sister and I did. But the curls might have another idea. Anyway, turns out there are a number of resources for curly hair, and I stumbled across a reccomendation that said, especially in winter, when hair can really dry out, if it's not otherwise dirty, instead of automatically shampooing, skip the shampoo and just condition. You only really need to shampoo once a week. So what the heck, worth a try, Rich has been doing that and it does make it softer and more manageable.

- Susan

Yes, whimpering. Having only gotten about 2.5 hrs of sleep by that point and having a freshly disease-laden antacid deposited in my mouth and teetering off the edge of the bed, I probably could have "manned up" a bit more. We'll see what this night holds.

- Rich