When Sniffles Relocate to the Chest

Although Elliott’s cold doesn’t seem to be any slower departing than the rest of the world’s, it remains a struggle to watch him battle through it. The sniffles of a week ago have packed up and moved to his chest. Unfortunately, they don’t make a big brother version of the nasal aspirator (that mama’s words for what I call the nose sucker thingy) to vacuum the lungs. Unfortunate I guess for Elliott’s potential cough relief, fortunate for me, as I fear that might become my job and I frankly struggle to start up the nose sucker thingy – oops, nasal aspirator.

It is timely that big E has a routine checkup with Dr. K on Tuesday. We had been looking forward to an accurate assessment of the effect of constant eating on weight gain. Now we are more hopeful he can help accelerate E’s healing of this nagging cold. We are still anxious to find out if our arms are properly calibrated to measure weight, the arms that scream “you’re getting heavy boy” each time we pick him up. It’s a scream heard loud and often lately as his need to be held becomes more frequent. Mostly, we pray that Dr K will find the big man in a continued pattern of good health, outside the cold of course.

He’ll need all the healthy living he can get this week as he prepares for his first major road trip. We will be heading to Richmond next weekend to celebrate his Grandpa Almond’s __ th birthday party (age withheld to protect the youth and exuberance of family). Elliott will meet many family members for the first time and show off new tricks to Grandma Almond, who helped him through his first couple of weeks at home. Mama is anxious for Grandma to do that trick where she keeps Elliott quiet through the early morning hours while mama sleeps in. Dad looks forward to the back room where he might hide from it all, if just for one recharging moment.

Several new pictures have been added from his busy week.