The Cold Depths of Hell

I hate to tell you this, but you’ve been deluded.  Hell is not a hot, fire and brimstone place.  It is a wet, cold, snotty place located in the bleary eyes of a mother and father from 12:30 am until 3:30 am who alternately try to rock, nurse, cuddle, and medicate their bundle of crankiness back to sleep yet who cannot sleep because of the painful coughs that wake him up and burn his throat.  And I don’t mean off and on waking up from 12:30 until 3:30.  I mean fully awake and up and just in a bad state all around. 

We started off with ibuprofen at 12:30.  However, the poor guy could not get back to sleep from 12:30 until 2.  I’d nurse him and put him down in the crib.  He’d sleep for 5 minutes, cough, and wake up crying again.  At 2:00 we brought him in and for 30 minutes the child did not sleep more than 2 minutes at time waking up to either nurse or kick us depending on whose body he was snuggling up against. 

At 2:30, I started rocking him again and we repeated the crib-drop-off-cough-wake-up-screaming.  And the poor little guy, you could hear how hard he was struggling with breathing through the snot in his nose.  So at 3:00, we gave him a dose of Tylenol Cold and Cough.  We checked with Sears’ Baby Book who said that if Ibuprofen/Motrin isn’t working 1 or 2 hours into a dosage, then you can give Acetaminophen/Tylenol without waiting for the other medicine to leave the system.  The Cold and Cough medication has a cough suppressant, and finally, 20 minutes after we gave it to him and presumably when the meds kicked in, the little guy slept. 

Oddly enough, I’m not nearly as exhausted as I thought.  However, I haven’t started reading my articles for class.  Despite the fact that I’m the one who assigned them and I obviously think they are interesting, they can be a little dry compared to say, Star Magazine.  I might have to bust out some afternoon tea.

And in other way more important and well written news, I’d like to direct you to read today’s entry about The Squirrelly in Defective Yeti’s Blog.  It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful and what parental love is all about.  I cannot stop crying about it today. 

11:53:42 AM