Momma Always Said Don't Lick Around a Cougher

I have a theory that there is a LOT of licking that happens at daycare when the adults aren't looking. I imagine that babies mark their territory by licking, much like dogs pee on things to declare ownership. The babies grab toys and lick them. They cruise along walls and lick them. Then the babies lick each other to mark who their friends are.

Lick.

Lick.

Lick.

It's like the seagulls in Finding Nemo screaming "MINE! MINE! MINE!" but with a lot more germs.

That's why the daycare crud spreads so fast. There are germs on every single surface, despite the valiant efforts by staff to keep the place clean.

There is photographic evidence that Mila is a licker. There is also the fact that she has been sick essentially the entire time she has been in daycare. I mean, sure, there have been breaks, but I think her nose has basically been leaking since August.

I warned Mila about licking around a cougher. She didn't listen, though. Unfortunately, the poor tiny thing has a nagging cough that I'm hoping is gone before she leaves for college. It's not bad at all during the day, but when she tries to sleep, things take a turn for the worse.

It's pretty awful. Tiny people shouldn't cough every time they try to inhale. It's just not fair.

But.

Hold on a second. This is the point where I should just admit I'm a terrible human being. I know I shouldn't find what I'm about to say to be funny, BUT I DO. I'll see y'all in hell some day because, welp, it's funny. Sorry.

When Mila coughs, she pushes her legs out as if she's crawling. Since she has mostly been coughing in her sleep, that means she's basically crawling while she sleeps. She's all cough

lurch

cough

lurch

cough

lurch.

And she does it while in bed. So while she's trying to be asleep, I'm trying to keep her from ramming her head off of the headboard over and over. If she were sleeping in her crib with any sort of regularity, she would have given herself a concussion by now. Hooray for being attached to me at night!

Speaking of her nightly attachment issues, she was trying to sleep cuddled in my lap the a few days ago, but kept cough-lurching her way out of my lap. I started to get legit concerned that she was going to cause permanent damage to my spleen as she tumbled to the ground, so I finally placed her in the middle of the family room floor to sleep. I figured if she was in the middle of the room, she couldn't ram her head off of anything.

She stayed in the middle of the room for about six coughs. Then she was ramming her head against the coffee table.

She didn't wake up, by the way. She kept on snoozing, coughing every five seconds, and ramming her head off the table every five seconds. I tried to save her from herself over and over, but she just went back to ramming her head off the table shortly thereafter.

I'm going to need the coughing to end soon so that poor Mila doesn't end up with a permanent self-inflicted head injury. I mean, she doesn't have nearly enough hair to soften the blows.