Yesterday afternoon was pretty awful. Poor Cate was miserable, non-stop coughing and nothing seemed to give her much relief. She didn’t want to play, she didn’t want to walk around, she wouldn’t even talk; she just lay with her head in my lap and occasionally cried when the coughing started to hurt. I couldn’t get her to eat anything, but occasionally she’d drink a little milk or water. And we learned that she likes popsicles, since the cold seemed to help her throat. (Otter Pops, for what it’s worth. No worrying about choking on a popsicle stick.)

Then last night, just out of desperation, I put some Vicks VapoRub on her chest after her bath, and since I’d heard an old wives’ tale that it helps if you put it on the soles of your feet (crazy, I know), I slathered some on her feet too, and then put some socks on so she wouldn’t go slipping and sliding all over the place.

She went down around 9:00, and coughed a lot off and on for the first hour. Then… nothing. I didn’t hear a peep from her until 7 this morning. A chorus of angels sang a joyful hymn, and it was glorious. I have no idea if it was the VapoRub or not, but you can bet your sweet patootie that I’ll be using that trick every time she has a cold from here on out.

This morning, she had a couple of coughing fits, although nothing like yesterday. I decided to take her to the pediatrician anyway, just to be safe. Her doctor said that her lungs are totally clear (yay!), but she now has an ear infection (boo!). Oh well, we caught it early enough that it shouldn’t be causing her any discomfort yet, so we’ve got the antibiotics lined up and we’ll hopefully nip this in the bud before it becomes a problem.

On a different note: back in November when my mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer, she made my dad get a cell phone. (How he managed to survive in the world without one for so long, I have no idea.) My mom was worried that she might have some emergency and not be able to get in touch with him. So he has a cell phone now, but he complains about the fact that no one ever calls him on it. So today, as we were leaving the pediatrician’s office, I made a point to call him on his cell (while he was at the golf course, naturally) to give him the latest update on Cate. I knew he was worried about her (my dad is a Grade A, heavyweight champion Worrywart with a capital W), and I figured it was better to let him know right away, rather than wait until he got home this afternoon. It was so funny, something that small – our conversation lasted less than two minutes – and it totally made his day. Parents are funny.