Brought To You By Sick Kids And Insomnia

I always have insomnia when I'm pregnant. During my third pregnancy, I came to terms with it and just accepted it and it wasn't so bad.

Now, I'm not pregnant, but all three kids have gotten sick in the last 5 days and I'm sleeping like we have a newborn or like I'm pregnant. Right now, Avee has the flu and croup. She's had croup several times and every time except once, we've managed it at home. One time she just couldn't get air in so I took her to the doctor, he couldn't get her oxygen level up and so he sent us to the ER. Since I know the breathing thing can go either way really fast, I decided to get her help early in the game. She was visibly struggling to get air.

I won't gripe about how I had to ask four times for them to check her oxygen level. Because while I haven't had very good experiences with doctors here, I don't think all doctors are like this, and I have several friends who are doctors or married to doctors and I feel guilty when people start bashing doctors as a whole. But since this is my blog....

I stated when I first got there that I was sure she had the flu and she clearly had croup and I just wasn't sure she was getting enough air. They swabbed her for the flu. It came back positive. They checked her ears, her throat and her lungs. And said she had croup. Each diagnosis, I asked for her oxygen level to be checked. Finally, as we were being finished up and I was handed FOUR prescriptions, I asked for the fourth time, "Please, could you check her oxygen level before we go? She's got a history of being unable to breath with croup, this is the only reason I brought her here."

Sure enough, it was low. She got a breathing treatment and it seems like that helped a lot. She perked up about 2-3 hours later, her fever broke, and besides sounding like the 77 year old hacking, cat lady around the corner, she seems fine.

However, Danyo climbed on me last night with a blazing fever. For some reason he doesn't get that- dark outside--zonked out, unresponsive parents--sleeping siblings means NOT TIME TO PLAY AND SOLILOQUIZE. He also has the seal bark cough of croup.

Here's where my aforementioned insomnia comes in. I wasn't really awake when he was in our bed. It was after he elbowed J in the face and J kicked him out of our bed, that I had the insomnia.

But WHILE Danyo was in our bed....well, a little background. Recently, I finished watching Ugly Betty, all three seasons on DVD. I loved it. I think out of like, nearly 70 episodes, there was one that I wasn't totally in love with. I'm all caught up and can watch it weekly on tv now. But, having watched all those episodes in the last month, it's kind of stuck in my brain. If you don't know the premise of Ugly Betty, she is a "plain" Queens girl who works for a high fashion magazine in NYC. Well, there's lots of intrigue and plotting and scheming and backstabbing and colluding, in this show. That, is apparently what was in my mind.

So, while Danyo is in my bed rolling over me, hitting me with his empty water bottle, trying to get me to turn on the tv---I am working it into what's already going on in my head. I so desperately want to sleep, peacefully and uninterrupted. I want it so badly, that I decide to work out an alliance with Danyo and I will let him have the position of feature editor, WITH that exclusive interview I managed to score, if he will just get his squishy diaper off of my face, and let me sleep peacefully.

I tried this approach for probably 2-3 hours. That coveted sleep was so close I could taste it---when I hear J say, "What is going on here, Danyo, what are you doing--get in your bed!"

Then I woke up. I explained to J that Danyo was sick, and Danyo cried at me for two minutes about what Daddy said to him. I finally got up, changed his diaper and put him back to bed. In time for about an hour and a half more sleep.

Only, I couldn't go to sleep. I couldn't turn my brain off. I was amused by my combination of Danyo harrassing me in the middle of the night, and Ugly Betty.

I was going to blog about it in the morning. And I had the funniest line, I couldn't wait to write in my blog.

This was it: "This is why I don't drink. I can't even hold my TV on DVD, can you imagine how I'd be with liquor?"

Isn't that the most hilarious thing you've ever read?! When I'm in those dark hours before sunlight and I can't turn off my brain I am funny, witty, articulate, never caught off guard, have the best comebacks, etc, etc, etc.

Lucky for you, TODAY I remembered my clever clever line.

What do you think? More insomnia inspired posts, or should I invest in some sleeping pills?