The Best Medicine

While I’m so happy that Olivia seems to bouncing back from her tonsillectomy very nicely, I am not bouncing back quite as well.

See, of the past six nights since her surgery, we’ve slept through the night twice. Two nights of uninterrupted sleep.

Now, I realize that after the last nine years, one would think this is old news to me and I’d be able to just slip back into the routine of being woken up repeatedly night after night with nary a yawn from me.

One would be wrong in thinking that.

I’m a mess.

I proved this at 2:30 this morning when Olivia woke me up for the second time. The first time she woke me, I was so tired I just moved over and let her climb into bed with me. Big mistake. HUGE!

I have no idea how long it was between the climbing into the bed and the whimpering but I realized that I should have gotten up when she first woke me and given her medicine. Alas, I did not do this and so when she woke me up again at 2:30, I was less than kind.

I know! I know how awful that is.

But let me just get this out there. I hate sharing a bed. I did it for years with the girls and I’m over it. I don’t like having them throw their long limbs across my body. I don’t enjoy their body heat or their breath (and OH MY GOODNESS, Olivia’s post-tonsillectomy breath is so, SO awful *shudder*) I just want them to sleep peacefully in their own beds so I can do the same in my own bed.

Ahem…so yeah, I got up and started for the bathroom where I could use the nightlight to draw out the right dosage for her. I got three steps from the bed when I realized I didn’t have both parts of the medicine dropper thing. I stopped to retrieve it and I swear, if she’d been moving just a little faster, O might have been able to lodge herself up my butt.

I grumbled, “You could give me just a little space. You are, after all, taking up over half my bed.”

Please remember I’m never at my best at 2am, but especially not after several nights of waking up over and over again.

We continued into the bathroom where I started to get her medicine. I don’t even remember why, but she was RIGHT THERE again and almost got an elbow to the face when I turned suddenly. Thankfully, I was quick enough to pull back and not actually elbow the poor child. I think I said something obnoxious again, though because she started to sniffle.

My shoulders slumped and I asked her, “Okay, so are you crying because your throat hurts or because I’ve hurt your feelings?”

She shrugged in the dim light of the flower nightlight. I rolled my eyes (I don’t think she could see because the nightlight was at my back, but yeah, the stellar parenting moments just keep coming.)

Finally, I sighed and said, “Okay, let me use the bathroom and then I’ll hug you and we can go back to bed.”

We hugged, I told her I was sorry for being grouchy, that I knew it wasn’t her fault that her poor tonsil holes hurt so much and that I was just so very tired.

She sniffled into my neck and we headed back to bed. Yes, back to MY bed. I managed to hold out until about 4:00 at which point, I grabbed my alarm clock and headed to HER bed, where at least I could move without her following me in her sleep, like a heat-seeking missile.

I will try to be more patient tonight. Really, I will.