When baby ain't happy...

Just a little twist on the old sayng--when the 2-year-old ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy! That would be the case in our household the last couple of days. Cold and flu season is in full swing. We big people in the household have managed to ward off illness with healthy doses of vitamin C and zinc, but the little one isn't quite ready for that, so his cold hit him full force. I've been up most of the night for 3 nights in a row with a congested baby. And I don't mind a bit--there's nothing a child needs more when he's sick than to be comforted by his mother. But all this brings me to a point--I'm TIRED. And I'm not sure my post will make sense--LOL--but I'll give it a shot.
We've had to put our thinking caps on a couple of times this week, but thankfully we have managed to do everything we needed to do without having to buy anything. The first thing we had was my daughter's science fair project. I was a little concerned that her creativity would be hampered by the restriction of using only the things we had on hand. Luckily, this didn't turn out to be the case! She came up with her idea and got to work with cardboard from the garage and our containers of markers, stickers, glue, etc. We didn't have a small piece of poster board to mount her report, but she used construction paper and stickers and it looked wonderful. She presented it to the class on Tuesday and says it went very well. The second thing to come up was her teacher's birthday. I usually take her to the store and we pick out a candle or other such gift to bring the teacher on her special day. This is important to my daughter, but I'm usually cringing because I know the teacher will get 30 similar gifts and will have to figure out what to do with them all. And usually, when I pick my daughter up from school and ask if the teacher liked her gift, she'll respond with "I don't know. I guess." Well ,this time we got out the craft materials and my daughter made a picture frame with popsicle sticks and a hot glue gun, with a hanger on it crafted out of pipe cleaners. She decorated it and wrote a sweet message to the teacher. When I picked her up from school and asked how the teacher liked it, she lit up. Apparently, the teacher oohed and aahed and hung it up by her desk. My daughter was absolutely thrilled. It was probably the best gift-giving experience she's ever had, and I think it taught us both something.