The Family Cold

Kira and I managed to go quite a few years without picking up any colds.
That is until we had children.
You can wash your hands, avoid door handles, sanitize your environment, and shun public spaces, but if your child catches something, chances are that you will get it too.
After all, personal hygiene is learned and kids take some time to get it right.
Unless you avoid physical contact with your children, the virus will find it's way into you before too long.

We had hoped that homeschooling would reduce the number of colds we get during the Winter.
Junior Kindergarten last year was definitely a petri dish of pathogens, but spending less time in a densely populated institution promises no guarantee of escape
Our kids still go out to meet with other kids, and those kids have friends and family that are in the schools so the colds really are inevitable.
Family get-togethers are notorious sources of unpleasant ailments like the flu and colds;
Christmas is always a time of giving.

Kira does well with the colds; she has a mother's strength.
I do poorly; the 'man cold' is ruthless.
Normally the two of us don't get sick at exactly the same time, so at least one of us can carry on normally.
I must admit however, that it's Kira that does the bulk of the carrying on normally.
Auren and Fern are pitiful sights while in the throes of a cold.
Babies tend to be tougher, though it's sad to see a baby struggling with a stuffy nose or a congested chest.

We do our best to prevent colds by staying as healthy as we can.
Unfortunately it's not always enough especially if there are some periods with not enough sleep, or we run into a particularly virulent strain of something nasty.
I tend to point the finger of blame at the urban dwellers for their well bred super colds,
or a pharmaceutical industry that gets rich when people are sick.
In truth, I just don't think there is any way of getting around it when kids are involved,
spreading germs around as effectively as any bioweapon could.

Tonight our children are restless in their beds.
The little baby has a runny nose.
No one was really sick today, but tomorrow may be a different story.
We try to figure out where it came from, but that hardly matters once the cold is caught.
As for remedies we stick to the classics; sleep, hearty food, and honey.
It looks like chicken soup will be on the menu for the next couple of days.
That's why the chickens start getting nervous when the tissues are brought out.