Goodnight, Germs

If I must be honest, I am feeling more than a little guilty tonight.  My three children have all contracted various strains of some vile illness that has them each carrying around their own personal "bowl buddy."  (A "bowl buddy" is an over-sized plastic bowl the children have been trained to use if they can't make it to the bathroom to vomit.)  And, besides taking care of them, my main job has been to fight off their cooties so that I don't contract any or all of their "yuckies."


As is par for the course, the illnesses started the moment hubby pulled out of the driveway to go out of town on business (*sigh*).  With hubby gone, our usual "mom & kids" tradition is that one of the children get to take over hubby's side of the bed each night he's gone and "sleep with mommy".  Normally, we use the rotation method to choose who gets to sleep with mommy each night.  But, this time, things are just not normal.


Emma is my sickest child right now.  Symptoms include, but are not limited to, sore throat, fever, vomiting, loss of appetite, lethargy, and now we get to also add "itchy rash" to our list.  Benadryl just made her more tired, but not less itchy.


The other two kids are sufficiently sick to stay home from school, which is really the effect they were after anyway.  They really don't think it's that bad of a gig:  puke once or twice, then the rest of the day watch tv and get served sprite, popsicles, crackers and soup.  They are pretty happy (when they aren't using their "bowl buddies").  And they expect that the "sleeping with mommy" tradition will be upheld.


Last night I had Emma sleep with me.  (I was concerned about her fever spiking, and she was just so darned pitiful.)  The other two were okay with that arrangement, as they slept on the couch and watched tv until way past their normal bedtime.  And, since it's been a while since hubby was out of town, we were all a little fuzzy as to who was last in the rotation.


However, tonight, I broke tradition.  Emma was still the sickest.  And I still wanted her to sleep with me to keep a closer eye on her.


The other two staged a protest.  "That's not fair."  "It's because you like her more."  "You always let her sleep with you."  "You never let us sleep with you."  "You don't even like us."  And so on.


While 95% of me really does want to keep an eye on her closely with her illness, the other part-  the guilty part that would never ever admit this to my other two kids  -really likes  Emma to sleep with me the most.


Why?  She doesn't snore, kick, take covers, grind her teeth, take over the entire queen sized bed, or any other annoying habits that cause me to lose sleep.  But the other two do!  And, boy do they ever!


I've had to wake Keith in another room with the doors closed because his snoring is so loud.  And Amy should take the gold in gymnastics with her tossing and turning, until the sun barely streaks the sky and she crawls over me to get out of bed and "stick the landing".  But Emma sleeps like the quintessential princess: hardly any movement, and her hair always looks great.


So the 95% of me who is genuinely concerned about Emma (and her ability to be our overachiever in the illness department this time,) is dead tired, and I want to go to bed.  But the 5% of me who kissed Keith and Amy goodnight and told them how sorry I was that they couldn't sleep with me, too, is up writing this confessional blog, hoping against hope that this will be cathartic and I can go to sleep.


I guess I'll sign off for now and see if it worked.  If not, I'm sure there will be another post very, very soon...  *yawn*