Coughing & the Bubonic Plague

If you're a resident of North Carolina, or really anywhere down south, you most likely know what I mean when I say that early spring means yellow snow. For those of you who don't, let me take a moment to explain.
 You know how up north you guys get snow? That white fluffy crap that's freaking cold, covers everything, and makes your boots wet and uncomfortable? We don't get much of that down here. But come March and April, we get pine trees having public sex for weeks on end, getting jiggy with it all over every freaking surface and orifice. And their "love dust" i.e. pollen gets into every nook and cranny, making everything look yellow. Below is the city of Raleigh, right next door to where I live. Notice the yellow haze? Yeah, that's POLLEN!!!!!



Photo courtesy of www.raleighskyline.com



Well, come yellow snow season, for the first time ever, my kids start feeling the effects. Soren's nose is stuffed up every night. Ashe's throat feels funny. And Xavier? Xavier is hacking nonstop like he has a 45 pound hairball caught in his throat. And it's driving me up the effing walls. Fortunately we had his check up and the doctor took a look at him to find out what the culprit was.

Dr: Ahh yes, allergies.
Me: Allergies?
Xavier: Allergies??????
Dr: Yup. Allergies. I'm guessing it's the pollen.
Me: He's never had allergies before.
Xavier: Will I have allergies forever??????
Dr: Allergies can crop up any time, but at his age it's fairly common.
Me: Crap
Xavier: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

And on the car ride home, I had to calm my freaking out child to let him know that allergies are totally normal and most people have one allergy or another, and isn't it better to be allergic to pollen which will go away in a few weeks, than to be allergic to peanut butter? He wasn't impressed. In fact, he went on a streak of questions about other allergies, which led to diseases, which lead to talks about the Bubonic Plague. Seriously folks. I don't even know how he knows about the Bubonic Plague. Fortunately I was able to tell him that we have treatments for it now, and the only way to get it is to play with wild prairie dogs so as long as he doesn't do that hes cool. And if he does one day find himself jumping around with wild prairie dogs, the local hospitals where prairie dogs are found will have a cure for the plague. So he's covered.

We tried Benadryl in the hopes that his hacking cough would subside. No luck. We tried Clariton. Nothing. We tried tea and honey, then honey on a spoon, then chugging honey from the bottle. Still hacking. Finally one night after listening to him trying to hack that hairball up nonstop for about 45 minutes I yelled at him to get a popsicle. And the next thing I know, it's silent. Pure, golden silence. Not the bad silent where you wonder what your kids are destroying. But the good kind.


Of course I find this awesome solution a week before yellow snow season ends.