how to tell if a 2 year old is over a cold

dear world,

poor V has been down with a cold and fever for the past 2 days. we don’t usually watch a lot of tv, but i know when i don’t feel good that’s all i want to do, so wednesday morning we watched tv. and V didn’t get out of her bean bag chair for an hour and a half. please understand, this is a record for my whirlwind child. she is always running fast or go-go-going somewhere. we also discovered that you can watch full length episodes of go diego go! online which is quite helpful when there is nothing interesting on tv.

after 2 consecutive days of 4 hour naps, she started to improve. my first indicator happened last night as i put her to bed. we went upstairs, did our evening routine and read some stories before bedtime. after several stories, i put her down and she literally sprang back onto her feet. ok, we’ll read a couple more stories and then you really have to go to bed.

this morning, she happily played by herself instead of clinging to me and i took her to school. she hasn’t had a fever for 24 hours, but she’s still not quite up to speed. i hope she does ok today and doesn’t over do it. the biggest challenge is that because she’s so young still we can’t give her anything harder than tylenol or motrin. we supplemented with honey to soothe the cough, but other than that we just had to wait it out.

which is terrible for me as a mother. it’s that feeling of utter powerlessness that can overwhelm me if i’m not careful. i want to make her feel better so much and there is just nothing i can *do* that will help.

glad she’s on the mend,

cm