Ear-break

Spring break is flying along. Can't believe it's already Tuesday! I'm not getting anywhere on my lost of things to do, which is driving me nuts. I need to regroup this evening and get it going for the rest of the week.

Last night Liam had his first get-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-wailing earache. Both the kids have been sick with chest colds since last week, and Liam had just gotten back to school yesterday after having missed three days last week.

I had just settled in for an evening of quiet and knitting when I heard someone coming down the stairs. I usually assume it to be the littlest one, since he has a habit of getting out of bed once big brother falls asleep, but this time the crying gave it away to be the oldest one.

Liam never wakes up crying, so my first assumption was a nightmare. Once he saw me though, he told me that his ears were hurting him. I gave him some Tylenol and sent him back up to bed. About 10 minutes later, he was back downstairs crying again. So I pulled out the hot rice sock and popped it in the microwave, and we cuddled up on the couch. I told him how cuddling with my mommy used to make me feel better when I had an earache or a tummyache.

Once he fell asleep, I snuck out and went upstairs to find my retainer so I could get ready for bed myself. When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard wailing from the upstairs bedroom. Jonah had woken up and realized that Liam wasn't in bed with him. He had climbed out of our bed and up into Liam's loft bed and couldn't get back down. By the time I had heard him, he was hysterical. Needless to say, he wasn't about to let me out of his sight.

To make a long story short, it was a long restless night. As a mom, there are very few things more disconcerting that having your child in pain and feeling like there's nothing else you can do. Cliff was doing 2nd shift testing, so he wouldn't be home until at near 1 am., so I had to try to haul 50 lbs of sleeping 5-year-old up the two flights of stairs from basement to bedroom, all the while trying to convince the 2-year-old that I wasn't going to evaporate into thin air in the 3 minutes I would be gone. By the time all were in bed and sleeping it was near midnight. I don't know how single moms do it. I'm so blessed to have a hubby who is handy with the kids when all hell breaks loose.

So today, everyone was a bit tired and grumpy. I ordered all people on two legs upstairs to nap at 11:30 this morning (yup, including me), and after a 4-hour nap, I feel much better, and the kids seem better too. Liam didn't nap the whole 4 hours, but he at least napped a little while.

Hopefully I'll have some knitting (and felting) progress to show you later!