Our poor, little miserable and suffering offspring. Man! We just can’t seem to catch a break from the bugs this Fall/Winter. Matthew has had a fever off and on for five days now – he’s finally on the mend and sleeping through the night again; thank goodness. He gets a pretty nasty cough when he first lies down, but our Mr. Pukey Pants (who always throws up when he’s sick – even if it is just a cold) refuses to lose the fight. If you even go near to grabbing the Puke Bucket (that sits next to Matthew’s bed when he’s sick), he flips out. Mid-hack, he’ll gasp, “No…Puke…Bucket…I’m….not…going….to…puke.” Gag. Gag. So far, he’s won the battle. Zachary, on the other hand, has not.

He is SO miserable our little Zachy. He had a temperature of 102 this afternoon. All the sick kidlet can do is lie around and moan and cry and ask for “Beebee” – Blankie. We have had some tough nights this week with both boys sick. I can’t remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday night now (they’re all smooshing together in my fatigued brain into one LONG, BAD night), but Mike and I were BOTH up with BOTH boys LOTS of times. At one point, I thought that we should at least be high-fiving each other as we passed in the halls. It was like tag-team sleeping, snot-wiping, rocking, and soothing ALL night long. It definitely made the Top Five Worst Nights. Neither of us could remember in the morning how many times we’d been up. We just knew it was a lot and that it was probably more than the other parental unit. (In the sleep-deprived state you get to this very negative place where you start to each think that your sleep is WAY more important than the other’s. It becomes a test to see who has the most endurance. Whoever can lie there the longest pretending to not hear the whining from the other room wins. They win the right to stay in bed but not be able to go back to sleep due to guilt – both parental and spousal).

So, tonight, Zachary is the epitome of misery. He has a fever and a serious snot situation. He also has a nasty cough that not too long ago turned ugly – into the Puke Bucket. Zachary, I’d like you to meet Puke Bucket. Puke Bucket, this is Zachary. Zach, hopefully you will not get to know Puke Bucket as well as your older brother Matthew has. Matthew and P.B. go WAY back. Anyway, Zach’s puke-bucketing was minimal, we wiped him up and he went back to sleep with only a slight aroma of Eau de Vomir remaining. (An aside: Why is it that even saying something as nasty as Stink of Vomit, [or technically “vomit water”] in French, sounds all flowy and pretty?)

My husband, my hubby, my Mikey – ahh, bless him – the man does NOT handle the illness of our children well. Obviously no one likes to see their child sick and suffering. Just having kids with fevers this week has made me so thankful for their health. It’s also made me say a lot more prayers for the children spending this Christmas – and much of their lives – in the hospital and for their parents too. I just can’t imagine…Well, anyway, one night earlier this week – the night of Matthew’s mega-huge swollen lip (which is much improved, I might add) – Mike proved that he really, REALLY does not handle the sick kid thing well. Matthew had a fever and the nasty lip thing going on and was in bed. I found Mike with his head on Matthew’s chest.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“His heart is racing,” Mike replies in a very worried voice.

“Honey, he’s a kid – their hearts beat faster,” I reply.

“Yeah, but it’s really pounding, I – ” Mike is cut off by Matthew whining, “Daddy, get your head off me.”

I left the medical examination to call the nurse to inquire about the bizarre lip and to do the dishes – I would leave the bedside vigil to Mike. The next time I walked into the room, Mike is checking Matthew’s pulse.

“I don’t know what his heart rate usually is, but this just seems really fast,” Dr. Daddy informs me.

“OK, right. Well, when you’re done checking his blood pressure next or before you start drawing blood to run some tests, maybe you could do something productive like take off his extra thick pajama top to help cool him down…” I think but actually say, “Right. Could you take off his extra pajama shirt please?”

So, it’s currently 10:30pm, I’m exhausted and ready to go to bed. I have had to stop typing about five times to rush in to Zach as he started coughing. What are the chances that we’ll sleep well tonight? Yeah, slim. Outlook not so good.