Rough Night!

October 16, 2017

Bradley had a rough night last night, he started retching and couldn't stop for quite a bit.  In fact, until he could clear what was in his esophagus he couldn't settle down.  Dad was up with us, and we finally had to give Bradley Zofran to try and calm down the retching and give his wrap some protection so he wouldn't unwrap it completely.  He of course started an elevated temp, but it stayed relatively low.  He's a 97.6 guy consistently, so we know that something slipped down into his lungs and his body went into attack mode once his temp started climbing into the 99 zone.  But luckily he stayed there and finally managed to find the comfort necessary to get to sleep.  I watched him sleep for quite a few minutes as if his very breathing held all the answers, and perhaps it did.  When his breathing finally slowed and settled into a steadier rythym, I headed to my own bed.  I was surprised to find Eric propped up in bed biding time playing a game on his phone.  Sometimes he will go back to sleep quickly; but last night, he was waiting too.  Last night; or rather this morning, he was waiting for the word from me that Bradley was settled and it was okay for us to head to sleep.  I like to think there might be poetic reasons for this; but actually, he'd been dragged out of bed twice - practicality says to wait to try to sleep until you think there might be a chance you can actually stay asleep once you close your eyes. I get this whole heartedly because I have done this.  When my girls were younger and learning to put themselves to sleep, I would slowly count during the time they cried and every time they paused I would start my counting over and then repeat.  As long as the count between the start of a pause and the next cry was getting longer, I didn't plan my entrance.  If the cries came faster, I would intercede and start over.  It was absolutely no fun.  But it only took a few days to get them more settled at bedtime.

Bradley used to put himself to sleep, it was amazing.  In a house where we had one really tough bedtime kid and one really easy bedtime kid...it was stunning to find out that we actually had one horrifically hard bedtime kid, one okay bedtime kid and we actually got the easy wonder kid that minstrels would have written songs about.  Bradley was easy.  But things change and life changes and your kids grow up.  And now, the girls are easy, and Bradley is another story.

I knew he and I would be spending time together in the middle of the night because he was falling asleep on the changing table while I was trying to get him ready for a bath.  Forget the bath.  Jammies then bed and one story later, he was asleep.  Maybe I finished "Click, Clack Moo Cows That Type" more for my entertainment than his, but come on...cows that type, such a cute and funny book!

So we get him calmed down, and I get him cuddled and settled nad he goes to sleep, so we go to sleep.  And I hear him at 3 in the morning...so I stagger out of bed and turn him around to go back into his room.  He goes running to climb up on his bed and flop onto his pillow.  Then he proceeds to laugh for the next forty-five minutes.  Constant giggling, all the while he is fidgeting with anything by his feet.  I am ultimately crammed at the foot of his bed, literally out of - well, foot shot, and he is still giggling.  So I wait him out, and finally, he goes back to sleep.  My cue to stagger back to my bed and fall back in and back to sleep relatively easily.  When I hear him again at 5, I can't physically lift my head let alone get out of bed.  I look at the clock, see that it's 5 and let him climb up between Eric and I.  His usual style is to fall asleep with his head on Dad's head and his feet hanging over my back.  It's amazing how you can learn to sleep in any given situation.  We all slept until the alarms went off.  In fact, some of us, meaning Bradley - slept until 6:50, lucky little bugger.

Though I had some concerns with him going to school, he was so back to his usual self.  So I sent him off and he had a great day, worked so well and so hard and took a bit of a nap in the afternoon.  Um, save those for home big guy, if you nap mom can nap with you remember?!  What cracks me up is that he always falls asleep during technology.  My techno junkie falls asleep during his most favorite subject of the day.  And he does this pretty consistently, especially after long breaks.  This school stuff is hard work!  It's almost as bad as adulting.  Shiver me timbers!

He was tired tonight, but I put him off a bit to send him to sleep closer to eight than seven, hey a mom can try to wrangle a little extra sleep time if she can.  Probably won't matter, but I can still try.  I don't like it when he doesn't sleep well because then he gets cranky and cranky is the worst possible thing for him.  I hardly recognize him when he gets cranky, he doesn't wear that hat often.  I like my silly, smiling, funny boy.  I'd rather keep him.  But hey, we are human and as such, we suffer crankiness and difficult days, by us and they happen to us.  He is no different from you and me, he gets cranky and he gets difficult and has difficult days at times.  If we could figure that out, if people could recognize that...there would be no need for blogging for 31 Days to bring Awareness, because the Acceptance would already be there.   But that hasn't happened yet, so here's me closing out Day 16, hoping that my little boy has successfully fought off another land mine!

Have a great night all, be at peace, Monday is almost over!  ;-).