Momma at midnight....

I believe I should be nominated for worse mom of the year award. Last Wednesday, Curly Girl got sick. Mr. Curly cared for her marvelously over Thursday and Friday. Saturday I watched the kids, gave Curly Girl her meds to keep the stuffiness and headache down and we passed a nice day.

Saturday night, Curly Boy ran a fever.

It was the worse night of sleep ever, for all of us. Up for 2 hours in the middle of the night with Curly Boy, after finally getting annoyed at getting in and out of bed every 15 minutes.

Then Curly Girl scared me to death! My mom used to complain about me coming into her room at night. I would have a nightmare, and not wanting to wake her up, would sit on the side of her bed until she woke up on her own.

Saturday night, I finally understood what she meant. Curly Girl slept in what will be her room in Iowa for the first time by herself. I have no idea what time it was that she suddenly showed up outside our bedroom door crying. I jumped so hard I fell off the air mattress, which of course, scared Mr. Curly awake.

I took her to the bathroom, and then back to bed. That happened once more.

I was ordered to stay home with the kids on Sunday, which was fine by me, because I was starting to catch their cold (Mr. Curly already had it).

And then Sunday night came.

I learned these four things Sunday night:
1) I am now too big to fit under Curly Girl's bed.

1a) No matter how hard she cries, or how much I explain, I will still feel guilty for not being able to reach the toy that fell between the bed and the wall, and she will never understand why I couldn't get it.

2) It doesn't matter if you think you have the meds at home - BUY them! Or pack them. I left baby ibuprofen in Iowa, because we had some in South Dakota. Yeah, some. 1.5 doses. In trying to measure out a dose at 1:00 a.m., I shot half a dose across the counter.

2a) No matter how hard I explain, Curly Boy will never understand why I made him comfortable, left his room with the door wide open, came back muttering under my breath and forced him to put the Buddy Bear to the side just to shoot some weird liquid in his mouth.

3) If a child needs to go to the bathroom, it is not best to say "This is ridiculous. You've already been. Now go potty and go to sleep!" Thankfully we had no accidents, and Curly Girl did use the potty both times, so she must have needed it. Hopefully, no therapist will bring up this repressed memory anytime in the future.

4) Midnight with a head cold is not the time to do a performance review on your mommy-hood.