President's Sickday

Calder is normally a late sleeper. It could just be good genes* but mostly I think this is because he feels that there is an inherent injustice at being made to go to bed before 10 pm and spends whatever amount of time between us putting him down at 8 9, oh ok, 9:30 and then lying in bed wondering what awesome things Mommy and Daddy are doing with out him and resenting us. Answer: Falling asleep, watching things on TV with swears and violence. He may have a point. However, this weekend has been different. The poor kid has got one nasty chest cold and as a result, his body has straight up given up by 8:30 at the latest for the past three nights. Of course this means  he wakes up a the crack o' dawn needing to pee or things like yesterday happen, when Calder called from his room at 5:15, "Momma! Momma! I have the sniffles!" When I got up to investigate why he couldn't get up to tell me in person, I walked into his room to find Calder looking like he had been blinded by venomous Dilophosaurus spit. The child's whole damn head was covered in snot. "I have sniffles, see, Snnnnrrrrp!" 

Right now I am able to write this because it is 8:53 am and Calder is sound asleep on the couch. Which would be awesome except for the fact that it came at the expense of the hours between 1:30 and 3:30 am when Calder came into our room going, "I. Can't. Breeeeeeve! HORP. HORP. HORP." Poor kiddo's productive cough has turned into something less so and, afraid that he was going to force himself to cough so violently that he was going to sprain something or vomit on me in bed, I relocated us to the couch so he'd be more upright, slathered him in Vapo Rub and snuggled with him way past the point of losing feeling in my arms until he finally fell asleep again. Thankfully he doesn't have a fever or anything yet but who knows, I swear all eleventy dozen of my thermometers are crap so it's possible he's already brain damaged from extremely high temps and I just refuse to acknowledge it because that damn ear thermometer said he is at 94.7 and the armpit one says he is 98.3 and well, I am not subjecting anyone to a butt temping at 2 am.

Mr. Sickypants of course has put a damper on my plans for today. I was really hoping to use the long weekend to squeeze one more visit out of our Field Museum membership before it expires and was waiting for the Auto Show to end before I ventured down that way. After two days of sitting around looking at each other, venturing out of our apartment would be really, really nice. Of course even I know that it would be a horrible idea to take a sick child out in freezing drizzle to stand at the bus stop (twice) just to see the dinosaur bones again. Bruce has the car at hockey all day so it looks like we are trapped here. Unless someone with a car wants a free trip to the Field? You'll need to bring a car seat though. And an immune system of steel.

*Due to excessive napping, on top of marathon night sessions, I was banned from being in my bed from 8 am to 8 pm as a teenager and in college I would routinely sleep until 4 pm. On weekends. Yes, totally, just on the weekends.