The Prologue

We're naming these last two weeks (and perhaps this coming week) of our life The Prologue.  I have been sick for the last two weeks and Matthew has been sick for 9 days.  Matthew started to have a bit of a cough and then the stomach flu and continued on with this nasty virus.  It has led to 3 nights this week where Mike and I have gotten 3-5 hours of sleep.  Matthew was waking up every hour or two to throw up or in a coughing fit that led him to cry.  One of those nights, when not coughing or blowing my own nose, comforting Matthew or trying to ignore my heartburn, I thought, okay, time to rest...and then Deuce made his/her presence known by kicking up a storm.  Hi Deuce.

Thursday night was fantastic; Matthew slept from 9pm-9am.  He then took a 3 hour nap in the afternoon.  I barely had to wipe his nose but he was coughing.  I thought he was on the up.  And then last night he went to bed at 8...and woke up at 10, 11, 11:45, 12:15, 5...ugh. 

When we woke up at 10 he was coughing pretty hard and crying.  Poor guy.  I went and got him right away and held him.  The sweet boy just rested on my shoulder.  For ten minutes.  And then it was playtime!  He went looking for Daddy and then literally ran around the playroom screaming with joy for about ten straight minutes.  We laid him back down at 10:30 and because we have a new monitor we were able to spy on him.  He just laid there for a half hour with his eyes open.  This led to questions such as, "What's on your mind?  What's troubling you?  Not sure which show you like better--Cat and the Hat or Sid the Science Kid?"  He laid in bed with us for a bit and we tried to put him down again.  Twice.  He'd lay there for a short while and then start coughing and crying again.  He was better when we brought him into our bed but then he'd want to play or kick Daddy in the throat. 

Tonight he went to bed at 8 and is already back up coughing and crying.  Ruh roh.

So why are we calling this The Prologue instead of Sleepless Sick Nights?  Because this will be our sleep cycle only worse in just three months.  Chasing a toddler, working, caring for a newborn, desperate for sleep, oh my!

Other random and completely unrelated thought...I dreamt that one of my sorority friends from southern IN told me she was moving to Vernon, WI.  We did a walk through of her house and I discovered that her two young children would be sharing a bathroom.  A bathroom with 2 jaquizzi tubs and a regular bathtub.  And the furniture of the house was either dad-style cherry brown leather furniture with button tufts AND plastic blow-up chaises and chairs.  When I woke up, I wondered if Vernon, WI existed.  It does.  And is a suburb just SW of where we used to live.  Hadn't heard of it before, but somewhere in my mind, there it was!

And another random share...Mike and I were watching PBS this morning because they had on a program about National Parks.  Ralph Waldo Emerson's views on the parks were referenced as he said that if you want to find God you should go into nature, the mountains.  I wonder if my father-in-law agrees with his (middle name) namesake...

These are my father-in-law's pictures from his mountain climbing expeditions. Wow!