Now that Allie has had a wet cough for the 3rd day, and now has a runny nose, she LOVES the nasal suction tool. She used to cry and squirm and bat my hand away when I would try to suction out a booger, but I think she now realizes she NEEDs suction and that it makes her itchy wet nose feel dryer and less itchy, she now asks for it by pointing and saying, “Mmm?”, she lays back voluntarily and watches the bulb or aspirator expectantly, and if we’re too slow for her, she’ll grab it and put it in her nose herself. She stays very still when we’re suctioning and smiles when we’re done. Sometimes when we’re done, she insists on Round 2, pointing and asking us to do it again, being upset when we tell her we’re done. This is true for the nasal aspirator bulbs, the 2-piece bulb with a straw that Mr. W jimmied (my favorite one), and the BabyComfyNose. So now we can switch off so that when one is drying after being used and washed, we can use another one. And I don’t think I’ve ever pulled so much slime out of Allie’s nose before, even the last and only time she’d been sick almost exactly a year ago. (But she was smaller then, so she produced less boogers per square inch.)

Aside from the occasional wet coughs (that would sometimes wake her up when she’s napping or starting fall asleep at night) and even less occasional sneezes, Allie’s still the same old happy-go-lucky goofball. She now knows how to open a closed door, and is tall enough to reach the L-shaped handle by simply going on her tiptoes, too. She opens doors, and she closes them when she knows it’s time for you to go. Every morning, Jayne holds her by the open garage door so we could wave goodbye to Allie as we leave for work. “Bye,” Allie would tell us matter-of-factly as she walks to the door, often before we’re even ready to leave. “Bye,” she’d say as we picked up our stuff and exited, and “Bye,” she’d say as she struggles to close the door on me while I’m still putting on my shoes in the garage. Jayne has to keep the door open with her foot and the last thing I see of Allie each morning before leaving for work is her struggling to push the door closed in Jayne’s arms.
Same thing when we come home from work. She’d walk to the gate in the living room and tell Jayne “bye,” even before Jayne has gathered all her things. Jayne would laugh and translate, “Okay, you can leave now, mommy and daddy are home.”
“At least she doesn’t cry when people leave,” Mr. W comforted himself saying yesterday.