Sick, But Funny

There are different distress calls that children emit during the night.  Some are loud and demanding, as in “Mom!  Dad!  My blankets fell off and I am COLD!” or “Mommy!  Kitty-cat go?”  These calls are shocking in their volume, but after I sit bolt upright in bed and calm my heart from trying to beat it’s way out of my chest I am able to feel both relieved and a little annoyed that my sleep is being interrupted by children who really ought to be able to pull up their own blankets and find their own stuffed kitty-cats, especially since they require their bedrooms to be nearly spot lit at night with nightlights.  And for the record, the kitty-cat is always RIGHT THERE, not missing at all, which is slightly maddening at three a.m.  But I digress.  Other calls are more plaintive, such as when they are asking for water because the dry heat has once again robbed their vocal chords of the moisture necessary for speech, or they had a bad dream, or there are quite possibly dust bunnies the size of monsters lurking in their closets. 
So it is that we are up a lot at night, still, though our children have been capable of sleeping through the night for years now.  Some nights we are annoyed, other nights we find it amusing and we giggle like mad men in the wee hours.  It’s all a part of the parenting we signed up for and we try to take it in stride, despite being very much in need of a solid eight to ten hours of snooze.
But then there are the distress calls that chill the blood in my veins, the ones that sound weak, helpless, and make us bolt down the stairs with fear clutching at our throats.  The very small, barely whispered but urgent “Mama?  Mama?  Help.”  Last night was one of those nights.  I had been lying awake for hours, trying to find just the right position and just the right boring train of thought to trick my over-caffeined body into sleep when I heard that faint plea.  I wasn't sure if I had heard anything at all, at first, but then it came again, just barely louder, and the mother alarm inside of me went off.  Because when my kids are fine but need something in the night they bellow, they whine, their booming voices alarm me and console me at once.  But whispered pleas for help in the night scare me. 
It was Emma and I found her pale and trying to push the covers off of her body.  At first touch I knew she had a fever, and not a low one.  A check of the thermometer proved me right: 103.9  Not high enough to call the doctor, but much higher than I like to see.  My poor little one was a combination of droopy legs and clinging arms, heat radiated off her skin, and I did the things I know how to do when a fever presents: warm bath, ibuprofen, sleep on the couch draped over mama.  When her body finally felt cool I eased her back into her own bed, then crossed the hall to check on Harrison, whose head was hot as well: 102.9.  I dosed him with ibuprofen as well, which he took in his sleep and then flopped back down with a snore.  As I started to leave the room he called to me with a question, “Mommy, what’s the weather forecast for tomorrow?”  Even in sickness his big curious mind is plugging away at something!
That was last week.  Since then we’ve had another week of sickness, another missed week of preschool (what, exactly, are we paying for?), and more fevers of scary-high numbers.  Since that first night of Emma’s whispered pleas for help, we’ve been to the doctor, started antibiotics for ear infections and bronchitis, and watched our kids like hawks for any signs of further illness.  We’ve even had one diaper rash emergency.  But we haven’t been wallowing in pity, our little comedians would never sit still long enough for that to happen. 
One more funny thing…after a few too many viewings of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Harry has started dismissing Emma with “I said good day, sir!” when she is being particularly persistent in a slightly annoying, little sister type of way.