Can't sleep, sick kids

It's the second night in a row that anyone's gotten any good sleep around here.

3:30am

the soft rap at our door,

the little white figure coming in,

white silky blanket dragging right behind him.

"cough, cough, cough"

the little coughs you know must be hard on any little guy/girl.

Being the wonderful wife that I am, I took the little one out by his hand and

into our spare bedroom we went.

"Cough, cough, COUGH."

each time the mouth opens, the coughs get louder.

"hold on a minute!"

And of course, being the loving mother that I am, I rush out to retrieve a handful of remedies.

Vicks, cough drops, and cheery flavored cough suppressant syrups, just for kids.

Before I could reach the bed though, the kid begins to scream.

"Mama! I don't like medicine! those make me 'choke'!" (choke=throw up)

The last time Kai had the syrupey medicine, he indeed threw it up because he was already sick and throwing everything up.

one down.

"okay okay, but look! I have candy!"

I gently placed a tiny cough drop in his hand.

"NOoo!!! Those make me swallow them!!" With tears in his eyes, the little bugger actually RAN out of the room this time.

Just a couple of days ago, Kai had accidentally swallowed a rather large piece of candy, of which he is now traumatized about.

Awesome.

"cough, COUGH, COUGH!"

hiding behind the couch, he yelled out in the middle of the night:

"Those make me choke and swallow them, I DON'T WANT ANY MEDICINE!!"

I promise, he's usually not like this, but since he was being so darn ridiculous about it, I had to laugh.

Finally, after convincing him that he'd be okay, that I'd bite and break the cough drop in half so that he wouldn't swallow it, and he would just have to sit up until the candy melted all the way, he was okay.

Then the fun began.

I thought I would be able to roll over and sleep, but beside me, Kai sat straight up in the bed and began his imaginative pillow talk.

"So the monster was coming and I was the good guy, so I punched him. Then the robot and the rockets..."

poor Ronny, is this what I sound like to him with my pillow talks every night?!

"And then the robot space ship and aliens came to get me. Oh, mama! Look! (pointing at the stars through the open blind) I think I see a real spaceship!"

OH, have mercy!

"cough, cough, space ships...cough!"

Fine, the cough drop isn't working and I need him to go back to sleep fast!

I rubbed on some Vicks.

cough, cough, COUGH

Fine. I'm just going to try and ignore it all and sleep.

4:30 AM

My heavy eyes were getting the best of me and I occasionally grunted to pretend I was still listening to the kid.

Space ships...ghost...aliens...

robots...

monsters...

the engine...

BAM!

I felt the boards under the bed fall out.

REALLY!?

Kai seemed to be oblivious.

now the mattress was slanted, my body seemed to being sucked into the abyss of nowhere, wanting to roll down the mattress.

cough, cough.

"And sooo, mama, you can be the bad guy."

I give up.

I should have just gotten up and fixed the boards under the bed, but I didn't want to have to tell Kai to get off, exciting him even more to get out of bed, so I just crawled to the very corner of the mattress. I rolled under the blankets, placed a pillow on top of that, and somewhere between monsters and aliens who eat dirt, I blinked.

6:30am.

CRASH! BANG!

I awoke to Kai smiling at me, ready for the day.

Did I ever tell you a how much I love these boys?

Why, I wonder, do kids have SO MUCH MORE energy than the parents?!

Why?

Why...

why.......