Out of necessity

I drank half a cup of coffee at 7pm, which means I should be bouncing off the walls, tapping my feet incessantly, a thousand thoughts running through my mind, and eventually reasoning with myself that I should go to sleep because a certain toddler doesn't care that mommy was stupid enough to have caffeine late in the evening and will most likely wake up around 7am, no matter how tired I may be. But not tonight. Tonight, after blogging, I will probably sew the button onto the sweater I just knitted (because I can't not do it) and then head straight to bed at a rather reasonable time for me, because that coffee didn't do one darn thing to awaken my senses, and all I can think of is sleep after satisfying the urge to write something that will put some sense into the slump that was this day.

It was a waste of a perfectly beautiful Saturday, one where I could have gone running during naptime after a productive and inexpensive grocery trip, one where Paul could have worked on our much-needed landscaping, one where we could have had a lovely time outdoors as a family. Instead, we sat curled up on the couch holding a feverish almost-two-year-old, reading books, snuggling, and watching an array of Disney/Pixar movies to pass the time in between alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin. No one is to blame, of course. We don't choose to get sick, nor can we avoid it really, despite immunizations and obsessive hand sanitations. But it is a terrible inconvenience. It started yesterday afternoon during an outing to the park to feed the ducks (not the mean geese... the actual ducks were out this time!) and then a quick trip to check out the plants at Lowe's. The fever just hit her like a freight train. Suddenly cold, wanting nothing more than to rest her head on my shoulder, we headed home. Her bedtime came early, but ours did not. Right after we settled into bed, the all too familiar cry rang out through the monitor: she had thrown up in bed. Again. Why it only happens in her bed, at the very moment we are going to sleep, is beyond me. We rushed upstairs to the usual drill: bath, laundry, and a lot of comforting, which this time ended up with three people in our bed. None of us slept. Finally, at 1am, I decided that at least two out of three of us would sleep, so I marched upstairs with Little, fully prepared to rock her to sleep and hold her all night in her rocker if I had to. Fortunately, after a few minutes, she asked for her bed and the rest of the night was uneventful.

Today, she awoke with no fever, but it didn't last, and our day was spent alternating between bursts of energy and hot tears begging for nothing more than "mommy hold you." Thank God for Cars, Ratatouille, and Nemo. The afternoon was punctuated by an outing to Babies R Us and Kohl's after a naptime that produced a fever-free three hours of my normal little girl, but beyond that, we were all pretty miserable today.

I suppose it doesn't help that I have been fighting off a cough for about a week now, which has interfered with my ability to have proper workouts and runs. I never realized how much I need a fully functioning respiratory system to be able to run. Yesterday I couldn't even go for a mile without my entire lower body feeling like lead, starving for oxygen that my lungs were just not delivering. So in short, I am sick and tired of sickness. I need it to go away, not spread to my family.

After a quick dinner of leftovers (for Paul and me) and noodle soup (for Little), we read books, changed into pajamas, and Little fell asleep in Paul's arms while he sang to her. It was sweet and slightly sad. Our little one never falls asleep in our arms unless she is utterly exhausted and sick. It breaks my mommy heart to see her this way and be powerless (beyond administering dose after dose of anti-fever medication) to make her better. I pray for a better day tomorrow.