I’d rather walk barefoot across burning coals than be sick. Yes, I’m that melodramatic…especially when I have a cold. It’s one thing to be under the weather when all you have to do is lay around eating chicken noodle soup and watching the Kardashian sisters squabble about their oh-so-hard lives. But it’s a whole ‘nother thing if you’re sick and you have to take care of a helpless infant. Not my definition of fun at all!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a big baby when it comes to dealing with a cold. I moan and complain about how much I hate being sick which doesn’t help matters or make the cold go away any faster. But I never knew what it was to be sick and have to put your sickness second. All I want to do is remain immobile and have someone wait on me hand and foot. I can barely read my daughter a story and forget trying to hum her a song as she drifts off to sleep. I sound like Marge Simpson hacking up a hairball.

If there’s a silver-lining, it’s that my baby thinks it’s funny when I cough or clear my throat. As long as she’s laughing and happy, then it makes dealing with this cold not the absolute worst thing in the world. It’s the 2 am and 5am wake-ups that are killing me.

It dawned on me that I must have messed up karmically since this is my second cold in just a manner of 2 months. What did it? That spider I killed the other day? Or that I didn’t pick up my dogs’ poop on our last walk? I guess I deserved it then.

This cold has shown me that my days of being cared for are over. Now I’m lowest on the totem pole. I have to be okay with that, because as a mummy I don’t get to call in sick…ever. So I say, damn you germs (fist shaking in the air) and pop another cough drop in my mouth.