Teething and other maladies of toddlerhood

Before you have a baby, you know you'll face challenges -- breastfeeding, sleep issues, installing the car seat, and whatnot. No one is prepared for parenthood to be easy -- and sometimes, actually, it's a lot easier than it's made out to be. But then there's one aspect in which I didn't realize life would be so hard: surviving cold and flu season.

You see, our son goes part time to a child care center. It's a wonderful place where he has made wonderful friends and learned wonderful things and eaten some wonderful crackers. I have no complaints. But from November until March, it's also a wonderful incubator of viruses. Due to this fact, our winter usually goes something like this:

1. CJ's nose begins running. It runs like a fountain. And it runs some more. If we're lucky, his nose stops running by Final Four weekend.
2. CJ gets a cough and becomes a little irritable and ultra-sleepy. Maternal instinct kicks in and I start freaking out.
3. We think CJ is feeling better, so we take him somewhere fun in public and announce to our friends and family that this particular cold virus wasn't too bad and that, hey, we're totally calm here and can definitely handle this parenting thing like aces and no, I definitely wasn't freaking out a few days ago.
4. The next day, CJ runs a horribly high fever. I worry again. We give him Advil, the fever comes down, and I assume he'll get better because we don't want to be those parents.
5. Stuff starts running out of CJ's ears. We clean it up and take him to his ear, nose, and throat specialist.
6. CJ is prescribed antibiotics for an infection.
7. CJ starts feeling better but develops some sort of rash from the antibiotics. We buy special cream for the rash.
8. By the time the rash clears up, his nose starts running even more and we start all over again.

What isn't listed is the fact that my husband and I contract some of these viruses for ourselves -- and there have also been a few awesomely weird stomach problems in the mix as well. (Last year I didn't watch a second of the Super Bowl because all three of us were sleeping off one of the worst 24-hour stomach bugs we'd ever had. Frankly, the thought of the Super Bowl still makes me nauseated a year later and I don't even know who performed in the halftime show.)

But sometimes, we have one of those rare healthy days when most of CJ's bodily functions are reasonably normal. So of course that's when he has a horrendous episode of teething.

This weekend we were on a virus upswing, so naturally it was a bit of a teething disaster. The little dude will seem fine one second, but then his cheeks will turn tomato red and he'll start crying. Like, pathetically crying in pain and throwing himself on the floor in misery. This has a horrible effect on me; half the time I start crying, too. He isn't a huge fan of pacifiers or teething accessories, so a lot of times we just have to wait out the episode or let him be creative in resolving it. As a fan of bouncy balls, he definitely found a way to be creative with his teething remedy this evening. And yes, he shared the wealth with his parents. We aren't too cool to walk around the house with smiley face bouncy balls in our mouths, especially if it cheers CJ up.

Heck, it cheered me up and I already have all my teeth.

Poor little guy can't catch a break. I'm not a fan of February, but seeing whereas it gets us another month closer to spring: Bring it on. We're running out of Kleenex.