Just life.

On Tuesday night, I had trouble falling asleep. It was the kind of night where I was dead tired, but absolutely could not get comfortable enough to actually fall asleep. I finally start drifting off at about 1:30am, when Jacob cries in the other room. Not whimper-y crying, but "I'm really scared" kind of crying. Since we keep the house pretty dark these days, and he's had a few nights in a row with that sort of waking, I sent Jesse in to go get Jacob and bring him to his floor spot next to our bed. It's basically a pretty beat up chunk of egg-crate type of mattress foam topped with a sheet. He comes in (on his own, we don't shut the doors once we're all in bed) every night to lay there, at some point, until morning. Anyway, Jesse went to get him, and after a minute, calls somewhat softly, "Um, Jacob just threw up on me." Huh? What do you mean? He wasn't that upset! And he certainly wasn't acting sick at all before bed. It wasn't much - just enough to wet his shirt, I guess. At any rate, we stick him next to our bed, and we settle in, and I start finally drifting off again. When, yep, you guessed it, Jacob starts making throaty sounds and suddenly vomits again. I *somehow* managed to heave myself out of bed, over my mountain of pillows to support my growing belly, grab Jacob, and dash to the bathroom before he was finished vomiting. I was lucky enough to have a potty with a removable bucket in there, so I grabbed that to catch the rest. But he still got the sheets before I had moved him, so we had to change his bedding. As soon as he had finished throwing up, he seemed perfectly chipper, and wide awake. Like nothing on earth was out of the ordinary. Watched me change his sheets, and complemented me on a good job ("Oh, very nice, mommy. New sheets! Ohhhh, Dora pillow! Very nice!"). As soon as the lights were off, he easily snuggled back into his spot, pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, and drifted back off to sleep within moments. I was so jealous.

He threw up again - yes, right as I was finally getting back to sleep. His stomach was pretty empty by this point, but I had smartened up a bit and grabbed a bowl from the kitchen and also a spare towel. We avoided any messes, and went settled back to try to sleep when it was over. And yeah. Right as I was once again finally managing to drift off to the bliss that is sleep, Melinda joins us in our room, and settles down next to Jesse's side of the bed. But no worries, not a huge interruption, and soon I'm settling back into the pull of dreamland. And then suddenly, the gagging sounds start again, and I once again heave myself to reach the bowl over the mountain of pillows and shove it under Jacob. Who seems surprisingly unresponsive. My brain takes a moment to process his limpness, and I say loudly, "Jesse, is Melinda making that sound?" Jesse jerks into action, and yes, Melinda is indeed throwing up right next to him. She didn't take it in stride like Jacob did, and was soon screaming between the stomach spasms, and even managed to get some in her nose. Poor girl. Once it was all over, she was fine again, but we also had a new set of bedding that needed to be changed. The clock read 3:30-ish am. *rueful smile* ...

Jacob, thank goodness, didn't throw up again during the course of the night. Or the next day. But Melinda had another couple episodes up until around 5:30am, and I didn't sleep soundly until after that. Both of them were finally sleeping well by the morning hours, but I still had to drag myself out of bed and make a phone call - I was supposed to watch 2 young girls for another sister in the ward on Wednesday, but obviously my children had something contagious, so I needed to give as much warning as possible that I wouldn't be able to take care of them. I got back in bed after the phone call, and Jesse was getting ready for work. Just after he left at 8am, Melinda throws up again. I was still awake enough to take care of it, yay me! But around 8:45, she threw up again, while I was still sleeping, so I didn't react fast enough to catch it all (boy, did that girl drink a LOT of water over night!!). And this time she was in my bed instead of next to it, so now my sheets were covered in vomit. And I wasn't about to re-make that mattress on my own, I'm too awkward these days. So I stripped it and tossed it in the laundry with some other bedding that had collected overnight, and we all made the quick journey out to the front room to veg in front of the TV. (Jacob woke up during Melinda's last episode...and yeah, she was still freaking out each time she threw up.) I grabbed the crib mattress and a couple extra pillows and light blankets, figuring we'd want to sleep some more. I set the crib mattress next to the big couch. Melinda took the little couch, I was on the big couch, and Jacob go the mattress. I turned on PBS, arranged the bowls close to each child, and we settled down. Melinda still threw up a couple times, but finally finished around 10:30am. We all fell asleep sometime around 11:00 or 11:30am, and slept until a blissful 1pm.

Nobody had really eaten anything yet at that point, so I made some pasta with Alfredo sauce and spinach for lunch. Both kids only took a few bites. After lunch was over, it wasn't long before the kids were taking naps again. After round 2 of naps, Melinda was back to herself completely, begging to get out of the house, saying she wasn't sick at all anymore and was bored. But no, we stayed in, of course. We watched even more TV at this point, and had a few snacks. Melinda was now eating like a horse (whereas she had really barely eaten at all, from the day before until that point in late afternoon), and claiming ravenous hunger after she scarfed down every snack I offered her. Jacob, on the other hand, didn't even finish the chocolate animal crackers I had given him (yeah, I know, not a great sickie snack, but I didn't have anything particularly healthy but light to offer at that point), and wouldn't even touch other choices I ended up setting in front of him. He sat on the couch quietly, and Melinda eventually started playing some video games. Jacob drifted off to sleep once again. He may not have thrown up as much (and neither of them were feverish at all, by the way, during the whole course of it), but I guess it wore him out more!

After Jesse had gotten home and we had all eaten some dinner, and snuggled on the couch while watching Finding Nemo, Melinda surprised me by asking to go to bed. I didn't think she'd really be tired enough, the way she was acting that afternoon, but we started the bedtime process anyway. Despite the fact that Jacob had just woken up less than 2 hours previous. And you know, they both went to sleep very easily and quickly.

We had a perfectly normal day today, I'm happy to say. We got out and did a little bit of shopping, and just as we were pulling into the parking lot at about 3:45ish, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see both kids nodding off in their car seats. That's sort of typical for Jacob, who still usually needs a nap around the 2-3pm window of the day, but I was surprised by Melinda, who had gotten so much sleep the day before. When we got into the house, she said, "Can you just put me in bed?" Sure, honey, whatever you want. Melinda slept from about 4pm until just after 5pm, and I found Jacob laying awake in his bed at 5:30ish. "Are you awake, Jacob? Don't you want to come out??" "I know." He says, breathlessly. Jacob now says "I know" for "yes". Very consistently. And yet he still laid there. Jesse swooped in and picked him up, while I went back to dinner-making.

Jesse stopped by Home Depot on his way home from work, and got a 6'x4' piece of plywood for under $6. What is it for? Our bed. For the last ... year maybe? ... our mattress has been on the floor of our bedroom. Our boxspring is just shot. The resulting saggy, makes-you-roll-into-the-middle loveliness of the mattresses gives us both quite a backache. And we haven't wanted to (or really been able to) afford a new, quality mattress set, and the kids still like to sleep next to us, so we just put the mattress on the floor, with the box spring up against the wall, acting like a headboard. It's worked pretty well, and our backs have been saved, but now that I'm 32 weeks pregnant (and measuring 34 weeks...), it's been truly awful trying to get out of bed in the middle of night, in the dark, over those mounds of pillows, the tangling blankets trapping me, while avoiding gouging Jesse with my elbows on the one side, and stepping on Jacob on the other side, from floor level to upright walking position, all while I very much have to use the bathroom, right this instant. So that's where the plywood comes in. It has found its home sandwiched in between our mattress and box spring, and our bed is once again up on the metal frame with wheels thing, at a normal bed height. It's pretty disconcerting, actually, to have the bed that high again. Makes the room look totally different, for one thing, and it just looks unnaturally high, as well. But I imagine it will be quite nice for those middle-of-the-night pregnancy-induced bathroom runs. I hope the kids don't mind the difference it makes when they come in to sleep next to us on their "floor spots" in the middle of the night. I know for at least a little while, from my perspective, Jacob will seem crazy far away from my reach, way down there on the floor. But the plywood seems to have done it's job - the mattress feels just as firm as it did on the floor, now. And when we have the baby in just a little while and put the Co-Sleeper next to our bed, our bed will actually be the right height to make the Co-Sleeper functional, haha! So it all works out. We'll see, over the next few nights, if the kids adjust to it okay. Jacob will have to make some adjustments in less than 2 months, anyway, since he won't be able to come in and sleep in the same spot the Co-Sleeper will be. Either they'll learn to stay in their own room, or he'll learn to share a space with Melinda, if need be, I guess.

Boy oh boy, was this post super-rambling! I could have just said, "Our kids both spent most of Tuesday night puking, we spent most of Wednesday sleeping and watching TV, and everyone's better now. Thank goodness for short-lived stomach bugs! Oh, and we put our bed back up on its frame, with the help of a little plywood! No more floor sleeping for us!" And it would have amounted to the same thing. But then, where's the fun in that? ;)

OH! A little post-script to add in here, since my mind is on the fact that I'm largely pregnant... I've had some eczema issues this entire pregnancy, which has been weird, since I've never ever had eczema before in my life, at least not to my knowledge. Jesse's sister, Sarah, mentioned that her friend once had some skin issues during pregnancy and found out it was a liver problem. I started doing searches on liver issues during pregnancy, and found nothing good. So I talked to my midwife and we ran a blood test to check my liver, since it seems any liver issues raises risks of complications for the baby. I'm happy to report that my liver seems to be functioning normally, yay! Unfortunately, that means my eczema is totally unexplained. Hopefully it will resolve on its own after the baby is born. If not, I may never wear short dresses or shorts again, or go swimming for that matter!, because my legs are just patchy and hideous! ;)