Vicks

Ella was sick a couple of weeks ago with a cough. She had this nonstop cough that went off every ten seconds or so, even while she slept. Without a course of action to follow, I decided to try the Vicks treatment. Rub Vicks on the feet of the cougher and cover them with socks. Supposedly, it’s supposed to stop the cough almost immediately.

At this point, what did I have to lose?

I gave Ella a Vicks foot massage, covered her feet with socks and I kid you not, the coughing stopped. Three hours later, when the cough started returning sporadically, I reapplied the Vick’s while Ella was asleep. The cough stopped and she slept through the night. As I snuck into her room in the dark and removed her little socks, she stirred a little and looked at me. When I started rubbing her feet, she smiled, sighed and fell back to sleep. Maybe that will be one of her happy memories when she’s older – mommy rubbing her feet when she was sick and helping her feel better.

I don’t know how or why it works – but it does. Amazingly well. Thanks Vicks!

In fact, the enticing idea of a foot massage was a nice little tool for my mommy box. When we were staying at a hotel for a wedding last weekend, Ella wouldn’t go to bed, until I pulled out that magic blue jar. Suddenly, she was putty in my hands, laying in bed because of the promise of a foot massage. Such a girl!

As part of the cold, even though Ella was plenty happy, she was dealing with some serious drainage. At one point, Ella was playing and stopped and asked me, “Tummy hurt, kiss it?” And because Ella now asks for kisses on her ailments, I give her a lot of kisses whenever she bumps something. I figured she’d just bumped her stomach. As she was making her way across the room to me to receive her healing kiss, she threw up. Nearly on my feet. The drainage and lack of nap just caused her to heave. And luckily, I wasn’t actually kissing her stomach when it happened! Then, because she was so tired, she just sat down in it. I swabbed her down and tucked her into a chair with a blanket and some Sesame Street. She fell asleep immediately and woke up a happy girl. Thankfully. Because, as usual, my children are only sick when Loran is away for work.