Rookie Dad: I've never seen so much snot

It's not like The Youngling has never been sick. No, indeed. This is the second time that the little destroyer has found herself with a cold and this one is a big one. I think I counted a dozen sneezes in a three hour period this weekend. All but one resulted in gobs of snot pouring out of her tiny nose. To make matters worse, she has developed a disdain for her old man after I've had to wipe her nose just shy of a hundred times in recent days.

Each time I hear a sneeze, and I hear then from two or three rooms away sometimes, I reluctantly grab a tissue and plod through the house careful to look under tables where she may be hiding. She knows what happened and she wants it gone. That's obvious by her wiping her nose on her hand, her sleeve, the couch, my sweatshirt, my coat, mom's face or the rug. But when she sees that white tissue careening towards her it's like Kryptonite. The Youngling wiggles and scoots away and begins screaming. Hey, I don't like doing this any more than she likes having it done but the snot isn't going away on its own so it needs to happen.

I don't beat around the bush when on snot patrol. With one hand on the back of her head, I pinch my fingers together on the outside of the tissue and hope that I've made some progress and she shakes her head and tries to wriggle out from under my not-so-gentle wiping. I've come to grips that this is the first of many year of my daughter hating me. Until she needs some of my non-existent money, then I'll be the bestest dad in the whole entire world. But I'm not holding my breath on that one.