The month of no sleep

Grace has been sick with a cold. She's perfectly happy--she has a valid reason to ask for medicine. She still manufactures reasons for needing more medicine ("Mommy, my lip hurts!"), but she's happy. She is happy to be given medicine, happy to drink the medicine all by herself (oh, the thrill!). Happy, happy, happy!

But that's during the day. During the night, there's not much of this going on:

(Yes, that is an actual picture of Grace sleeping. She is so photogenic she poses even in her sleep. See those sweet hands tucked under her chubby cheek?) When Grace even starts getting sick, she stops sleeping well, especially at night. I told Jason that I was going to change "November" to "The month of no sleep." It all started with our mini-vacation to Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the beginning of the month (closely followed by an all-nighter plus an ER trip).

But we'll start with our vacation. Grace slept with us the first night in the hotel, and soon after we all settled down to go to sleep, she began doing impressions--impressions of a crocodile doing a death roll. And sustained this for several minutes. You think I'm joking?

The next night, in a new hotel with a fold out bed for the boys to share, Jason slept blissfully in another bed. Well, he should have slept blissfully because he left me with the little crocodile, but I don't think he actually slept that well after all. What a waste. (I think he would agree.)

The daytime part of our vacation was more fun. We went to a nature center, the Chattanooga Zoo (where we lost Robert for several minutes when he wandered off without us--NOT fun), and let the guys play mini golf at a really cheesy (but animated) themed mini golf course. What can I say? We had BOGOF coupons for it. And they had a go kart track, where we saw Jeff Gordon racin'.

This next picture was taken at the zoo. I'm pretty sure this is not what they had in mind when they placed this statue of a "Faithful Horse Groom" at the snow leopard exhibit, but it was the first thing that entered Grace's mind. She immediately ran over to put her beloved baby Emily ("Nimily") in the lap of the Faithful Horse Groom. And then she stood back as though she knew I was going to take a picture.


Grace really enjoyed the petting zoo, but wasn't too excited about actually going inside the petting zoo area. But, you know what? If I were as short as she is, I don't believe I'd go, either. She delighted in telling the animals, "Boys, you can't come out hee-ya [here]!" Over and over again...And, yes, she even wagged her finger at them while saying it.

There was something a little scary at the mini golf course (It was, after all, Halloween weekend):

I managed to get pics of all three kids sitting on this little table, without them knowing why. And that just tickles me. :) Please note the legs sticking out of the orange dinosaur's mouth. I'm hoping that was only there for Halloween.

Now, back to this week of no sleep...I have to give a huge thank you to my husband Jason. He let me sleep in after a very sleepless night with Grace. I woke up in time for LUNCH. It made for a much better day. And if the kids understood exactly what that meant to them, they would have thanked him, too.

The next night, Josiah woke me up at 1:00 a.m. because he wanted a cold drink of water (translation: not just out of the faucet but from the pitcher in the refrigerator). As I was walking him back to his room, he looked up at me and--quite seriously--asked, "So, is tonight goin' any better for you than last night?" I looked down at him and reminded him that I was awake at the moment and would rather be asleep.

Last night he woke me up at some point and asked for some tissue for his nose. I think I hissed at him, "Get some toilet paper!!"

Maybe next month will have more sleep...