If I were to write a mommy manual one of the first chapters I would write about would be how to survive your first winter and it would simply say: “Stock up on boogie wipes and stay away from other people until Spring.” I might even give advice on how to hibernate for the winter months or how to live in a bubble, keeping every germ possible away from your family.
While I understand that our little ones have to build up their immunity to all the germs we encounter in our lives, why does this have to happen all at once? Can’t it be a gradual rising?
This winter we fell victim to a combination of flu bug, ear infections, pink eye, and the most stubborn colds we have ever experienced in our lives. I never realized how horrible it is to see your baby sick and for you to be sick at the same time. Being a new mommy in this area has been quite the learning curve for me. I will confess we did the panicked call to the doctor on Christmas Eve. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the first nor will I be the last mommy to do that…
But the one piece of advice I have heard that gets me through each day is that “Your first winter is the worst.” It will get better, you will get healthy again, you won’t be carrying around rolls of toilet paper because you ran out of kleenex and are too sick to go to the store to get more anymore, your nose will stop producing massive amount of snot, your voice will come back to sound like your voice and eventually, you will feel human again. While I know we aren’t out of winter, yet, we have turned a corner and have been healthy-ish for the past month. This is our longest stretch of no illnesses and it has given me the hope that we can make it through our first winter! Don’t get me wrong, we still have boogie wipes all over the house for any sign of a nose issue and we have restocked our supply of kleenex…but, we are hopeful that we will make it through these last few weeks of winter.
How did you survive your first winter with your little one?