Last night started out so normal and finished up with tears, lack of sleep and a peanut butter and honey sandwich prepared on a deli-style hot dog bun.? Harry is such a dear kid and we’ve been terrifically lucky with him.? Not only is he just about as sweet as pie, he’s also blessedly healthy.? It’s incredibly rare that we’ve had the up-all-night sickfests that a lot of parents seem to suffer with.? Of course, being he’s only ONE child, I imagine that has something to do with it.

But last night was one of those rare nights where our poor darling son was sick, sick, sick.? He had a bit of a cold yesterday, but nothing really out of the ordinary, especially for a school-age child.? Just a runny nose and a slight case of congestion.? He’s had worse, believe you me.

Well, around about 3:30 am last night, a noise broke through the fog of my dream-less sleep and the roar of the window-unit air conditioner.? It was the distinct sound of my son in the hallway outside our bedroom door.? Crying, maybe coughing?? I was a little disoriented, because he never comes to our room.? His method of choice is to call to us from his room until I smack Kile awake and he lumbers into Harry’s room to see what the deal-io is.? But the a/c had prevented us from hearing his calls so he came to us instead.? Kile came to shortly after I called out to Harry to come on in.

This kid, people, was sobbing and coughing and wheezing in the most horrible sound a parent could only? imagine.? And I immediately recognized that if this child didn’t stop with the crying, then he was going to make himself throw up.? He’d done it before.? Several times.? So the first thing I did was shy him away from the bed.? And the next thing I did was repeatedly tell him to “calm down!”.? Naturally, a hard thing to do when you’re a six-year old and wheezing like an asthmatic.? It was quickly established that the poor thing was having a real hard time with the breathing thing.? What to do about it?

I can’t say I’ve had a lot of experience diagnosing illness and treating it on the fly (especially in the middle of the night).? But I did remember the time that I woke up in the night unable to breathe.? And that there was panic.? But at least I was able to tell myself to calm down and slow my breathing.? Try that with a little kid.? I also remembered a nice, hot, steamy shower helping so I started to run the shower in our bathroom.? Had the poor kid hop in.? And it wasn’t too long before his breathing evened out.? I got him some children’s nyquil, because NATURALLY we didn’t have any expectorant in the house.? What the heck happened to all our Robitussin?

Kile readied the vaporizor next to his side of the bed.? It just went without saying that Harry would be staying the rest of the night in our room.? And that meant poor Kile was going to be spending the night in the guest room.? Don’t feel too bad for him, the bed is awfully cushy in there. :)? Harry got back in his jammies and I slathered vapo-rub on his chest.? His breathing was a LOT more even.? He was a lot calmer too.? I turned “Toon Disney” on our bedroom television so that Harry could be further distracted by the soothing glow of the cathode ray tube.

It didn’t take long for two things to happen: I got hungry and I got tired.? Yes, at the same time.? Pregnancy is FUN.? Too hungry to sleep but too sleepy to get up and do anything about it.? Silly body of mine thought that because I was vertical for a good amount of time that it MUST be morning or something and flipped the hunger switch.? I mentioned my hunger to Kile when he checked on us before ultimately retiring to the guest room.? I didn’t actually expect him to DO anything about it.? But, bless his dear heart, he brought me a peanut butter and honey sandwich on a deli-style hot dog bun and people?? It was DELICIOUS.? And sealed the deal quite nicely as far as hunger was involved (though it had the adverse effect on the number of kicks I was getting from the baby.? I swear, 4:30 last night was gymnastics time).

Harry started showing signs of weariness so I turned the television off and we snuggled in.? Harry was in heaven, of course.? His fondest wish is to be able to sleep with me in our bed at night.? And he was out in minutes. Wish I could say the same for myself, but I followed soon enough after.? And our plans of going to church this morning were shattered when I was the first of the three of us to crack an eyelid at 10 minutes to 10 o’clock.? (church is at 10:45 30 minutes across town)? Yeah.? Not gonna happen.

Harry was feeling a lot better today.? Still with the runny nose but no more congestion problems.? However, just to be on the safe side?? We got some Robitussin today.? I’m no fool!