Undoubtedly I will give L hundreds—if not thousands—of gifts over the course of our time on earth together. This week, however, apparently I gave her a present I wish I could take back: her first cold.

My symptoms arrived Wednesday evening, following a long run at the gym. Her symptoms came on in full effect this afternoon, complete with sniffling, sneezing and a ton of snot.

At times, the poor child sounded like a purring cat when she breathed.

And the whole sleeping thing? Well, let’s just say she’s been in her crib for about three hours as I write this, and she’s awakened five times over that span (we were preparing for a long night).

Despite her first official illness, our little baby was her usually chipper self for most of the day. She army-crawled after the cordless phone. She giggled at me when I sang to her during mealtimes. She also tossed her usual squeals and grunts in the direction of the cat; no matter what’s going in L’s life, little Coomer always seems to elicit a smile.

Still, I couldn’t help but spend most of the evening feeling awful. I had the cold first; now L has it. The evidence is almost irrefutable: I made my baby sick.

The rational part of my brain understands that the more frequently she gets sick in these early stages, the better her immune system will be when she heads off to pre-school or kindergarten (or music class) and interacts with other kids (and their germs).

For my heart, however, this knowledge doesn’t make the reality any easier at all.

Here I sit, congested as all hell and blowing my nose like a banshee, yet all I can think about is my little girl tossing and turning in the next room. If there were a way to take on her germs, snot and congestion so she wouldn’t have to suffer, I’d do it without hesitation. I’m guessing this feeling is what parenthood is about.