When my son Alonzo was about a year old, he caught eight colds over the course of the winter. My husband Peter got through the season with some sniffles here and there, but I pretty much matched Alonzo, cold for cold.
Before Alonzo was born, I didn’t get sick very often — maybe one or two colds a year. But once Alonzo came along, it seemed like my colds and residual coughs were overlapping each other all throughout the winter. I was sleep-deprived, eating the Standard American Diet, stressed about being a working mom, and without a regular workout routine. No wonder I caught all of those colds.
I complained about our perma-colds to my doctor, who gave me a sympathetic chuckle and told me it was normal. She told me the average number of colds for young children was 6-10 per year.
Ten colds a year? I shuddered to think. Poor Alonzo! Poor me!