When my children are sick.

I am a control freak. Ask my husband, my sister, my mom, anybody who knows me even slightly and they'll tell you. Now, I know that the control is an illusion, but about 98% of the time in my twisted little brain, that doesn't matter to me.

The one thing that makes me crazier than anything is when one of the boys is sick. Now, mind you, everyone's definition of the word is different. My mom is a tough ole bird (love you, Mom!) and she has a tendency to not let things like the sniffles get her down. My husband, on the other hand, is either always very near death, or he really is very sick and refuses to rest. I tend to take after my Mom in that if I am very sick, in fact deathly contagious, I will stay home. But if I stayed home for every little thing, I'd eventually lose my job. So, on those days I really don't feel 100%, more like 75-80%, if I can get off the couch, life will go on.

And you learn what you live, they say. So, the boys, unintentionally mind you, have been raised with the "unless you have very specific symptoms, you are going to school". And they, for the most part are A-OK with that.

Now, C, who is six years old, has had a nasty cough since Sunday. It started out small, and progressively got worse. It was making his "neck hurt" and by Monday morning at 1am, only 1/4 of the household was able to sleep. Thank GOD that Wal-Mart is open 24 hours; at nearly 1am, I had to send J to get some nighttime Triaminic. By 1:30 or so, it had kicked in, and C was sleeping a bit better and I was able to get some rest.

Last night, we doctored him up with medicine, Vicks on his chest, and had the cool mist humidifier running in his room. Just shortly after 12:30am, I am awaken by the very loud sound of C coughing, and not only is he wide awake, but his brother is as well. I find J frantically trying to wipe blood off of C's pillowcase. I guess C woke up to a bloody nose. I managed to get a cool washcloth and get C wiped up and calmed back down.

Meanwhile, J has disappeared. And what do ya know, I stick my head into our room and he's in bed with all the lights out. Men. Guess he figured that since I'd been awaken, there was no sense in him staying up.

At the same time, C is still coughing about every 10 minutes, and with that noise, I am unable to fall back to sleep. Oh well, I guess that's what we have Dish Network for; so I can watch television while I wait for C to try and get some rest. I did give him a drink and about 3 teaspoons of honey, hoping that would help. I guess it did, cause somewhere around 3am, I didn't hear him coughing anymore.

Fastforward to 6:30 am, and that's all I hear. He's up, watching SpongeBob and coughing his little head off. Once again, we repeat the drink of water, and this time I give him some Triaminic for day time. He knows that the red is for day, and the purple for night. He stops coughing around 15 minutes later, and I go back to sleep.

He comes to ask me at 9am if I am going to sleep all day. haha. And then this afternoon about 2pm, starts to say that his eyes are tired. No kidding dude, that's what happens when you don't sleep very well.

Twelve years of parenting have taught me that I am quite a bit better at handling illness than I used to be.

But I can't wait to get a full nights sleep.