Tuesday, November 2, 2010

cold remedies and salsa baby

Eventually (if my dad will email me pictures) I will post Halloween photos. I had two "Buzzy" girls; Sarah was Buzz Lightyear, and Natalie was a "buzzy" bumble bee. They were of course adorable. Sarah was actually really excited because she got to wear her Buzz outfit again to homeschool co-op today.

On to the title of the post, however. Nelson has been recovering from a massive cold. He thought he got over it once, then relapsed. It's been a really bad one. He's managed to give milder versions of it to Sarah and Natalie, so I thought I'd post the remedies that have helped us.

Natalie tends to get ear infections every time she gets a cold or even just bad congestion. We've been religious about using the nasal syringe on her, but frankly it usually isn't enough. She also has prescription albuterol for when her wheezing and coughing get bad, but even that doesn't keep her from getting ear infections. This time I tried garlic oil. I did end up taking her to the doctor, who said she had some clear fluid on her ear, but it was NOT infected. This is huge. I won't say that it will work in every case, but I'm pleased.

Sarah started getting sniffly on Friday. I showed her how to use my neti pot (one of my favorite things ever). She has been faithfully rinsing several times per day, and she admits that it helps. She still coughs a bit, but she has yet to reach the levels of coughing and congestion that Nelson did.

Speaking of coughing...Nelson's cough was HORRIBLE. Cough syrup didn't help. Running the humidifier didn't help. Hot tea only temporarily stopped the coughing. He couldn't sleep. He kept me and Natalie awake (Sarah could sleep through a war zone--in her bedroom). We had tried just about everything. What finally worked? A good old-fashioned hot toddy! We mixed hot tea with honey, lemon juice, and a bit of whiskey, and finally we all got some relief! (I know some of my readers have problems with the recreational use of alcohol, but this was strictly medicinal!)

Sarah is asking for chicken soup tomorrow night, so I will make that for supper. Hopefully that will make everyone feel better, and we can be done with this lousy cold!

We voted tonight, and we decided to grab supper at our favorite Mexican restaurant on the way to the polls (I was headaching, so Nelson graciously excused me from cooking). Like most Mexican restaurants, they served us chips and salsa upon arrival. Natalie wanted to try some salsa on her chip. I dabbed it on a corner--just a little bit. Apparently she really liked it. She made a grab for the bowl of salsa. It tipped and sloshed salsa all over the table. She immediately stuck her hands in it and happily started slurping salsa off her fingers!

We always order Natalie some sliced avocado to eat at this restaurant. When she was a baby, I got to finish whatever avocado she didn't eat. I enjoyed this. Sadly, Natalie is now perfectly capable of polishing off all the avocado by herself, and I get no leftovers.

In addition to the salsa, Natalie snitched a little of Nelson's chorizo this evening. This did not go over as well as the salsa; I think it was too spicy for her.

Natalie can say both "Mommy" and "Daddy" perfectly. Unfortunately, she's very confused as to who's who! She keeps calling me "Daddy." We've been trying to correct her over the last couple of days. As I sat typing this, Natalie wanted to be picked up. She called me "Daddy." I told her I was Mommy. Apparently tired of trying to keep us straight, Natalie settled for "Hey, you!"

4 comments:

Tara said...

I had just heard of garlic oil recently. I'm so glad it helped Natalie!

I also just read that a spoonful of honey is often better than cough syrup. I'm thankful something finally helped Nelson's cough.

Okay, Natalie and Connor are on the sam wavelength! Connor tried salsa this past weekend and loved it too, although it was mostly juice slurping too. :) He had a little taste of egg with chorizo in it. He seemed to love it but I didn't want to give him too much.

Too funny about Natalie...at least she's not calling you Grandma in public or something like that! :P

Unknown said...

My dad used to give a spoonful of honey mixed with lemon juice when we had a cough as a good. The homemade cough syrup that I posted here a couple of years ago was honey, lemon juice, and olive oil. I got the recipe for the cough syrup in the same book that has Dr. Zimment's recipe for don't-eat-more-than-two-tablespoons chikcen soup! :)

As far as Natalie is concerned, I think I've resigned myself to being "Daddy" or "hey, you" for the foreseeable future!

Tara said...

Oh yeah, I forgot about the homemade cough syrup! I found one site that listed Dr. Zimment's chicken soup, but it said to have 1-2 cups for optimal results. I still haven't decided to try it or not. Our spicy Mexican chicken soup works the best anyway. :)

If it makes you feel any better, Connor calls Nick "Dada" and me either "Nana" or "Dada".

Unknown said...

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. ;) If you have a soup that works well, you probably don't need Dr. Zimment's scare-the-germs-away version!