being sick sucks

This week has been a rough one on the ol' family. Blake's had a bit of a cold, and I've developed one myself. He's also pretty much refused to nap all week, getting out of bed to very quietly play with his little action figure guns or something equally distracting.

Now, I know that he's growing out of his nap. It is clear he doesn't need one every day, but when he also refuses to go to sleep at night until 9:00 or later (despite being in bed by about 8:00), there are obvious signs to me that he has not, in fact, outgrown it all the way. Exhibit A: the 5:00 meltdowns. Exhibit B: him displaying the attitude that life's just handed him a poopy-flavored lollipop. Exhibit C: I need that quiet time myself! We've been adapting to a mid-day rest, where he can read quietly, but this week, it was just so EVIDENT that naps were needed. And yet, my ornery, stubborn-ass kid (where DOES he get it?) was non-compliant.

On Thursday night, I heard him crying - the lament we call "the beluga whale" for its sing-song quality - at 9:30 pm. I went in to talk to him about what on earth was wrong, and he mumbled something so disoriented and unintelligible that I assumed he was delirious with exhaustion and still fighting it, and I crisply told him "If you can't tell me clearly why you are crying, you're going to have to just work it out. Good night, Blake," and left the room. At 11:30, as we were getting ready for bed, he tuned up again, and when I went in, bewildered by this, he was fevered and trembling in a way that made me wonder"did he just have a seizure?"

Upon getting some ibuprofen in him for the fever, he began wailing in earnest and practically drooled it all out on me and down his face and jammies, and I was flummoxed. He wasn't speaking, so I asked him to point to where it hurt, and he finally pointed to his throat. I peered in with a flashlight and saw two enormous tonsils, spotted with large white patches, looking AWFUL and PAINFUL, and I died inside. Rob took one look and went off to look up tonsillitis while I soothed B as best I could with ice water and a cold pack on his neck. I stroked his head and he conked out cold within moments.

The nurses and doc exclaimed in pity at the sight of his poor throat the next day, it turned out to be viral tonsillitis (noncontagious, but no antibiotics to make it better), and my claim on the "Mother of the Year" award was hotly contested by our nurse, who regaled me with a story of her own, making me feel moderately better about my initial response to his tears.

Nothing's really improved except that his body appears to have claimed martial law today, in essence saying: "HEY, Mr. No-Sleep! You cannot be trusted to take care of me. YOU ARE FIRED!" He decided to take a rest at 3:30, declined my offer of reading books and passed out, refused to be woken at 5:00, and finally stumbled out for dinner at 8:00.

Also, he has the cutest throaty voice as a result of his vocal chords being squeezed to a bloody pulp. Now if he could just sleep through the night again - I'm being woken once or twice nightly to replenish his body's supply of Tylenol or ibuprofen, which is really helping my cold in its efforts to set up exploratory colonies in my sinuses and start up a little viral Industrial Revolution.

I think I just choked on the stick of my poopy-flavored lollipop, but I get to go see Travis tomorrow. He'll adjust my back, not my attitude, but that attitude is what all the coffee is for!