Every mom dreads the first sign of a cold. The telltale sniffle. The dry cough. The tugging on one ear. Oh, no! Your baby is sick! She can’t blow her stuffy nose and using an aspirator just seems evil. She can’t tell you whether her throat hurts or her ears ache and a seemingly harmless cough can keep the whole family up for many nights in a row. As you know, trying to get some foul-tasting medicine down that sore little throat is not an easy feat.

This is why MommyQ loves the Wheel of Yuck. If you haven’t seen it, you need to check it out. I discovered it at Walgreen’s, but I’m sure other pharmacies have it as well. It’s a nifty little color-coded chart that tells you which medicines taste bad and recommends the best flavor options to remove the “yuck” factor almost entirely. Walgreen’s has a ton of flavors to choose from, although we usually just pick grape or cherry. You can see a virtual Wheel of Yuck here and explore 21 drugs that should be flavored.

A few other nifty items MommyQ likes for beating colds is the Munchkin Medicator, the Crane Adorable Humidifier (love the cow) and the Pacifier Thermometer. And lots of cartoons.