Just Like Old Times

Olivia finished antibiotics for an ear infection a couple of weeks ago.

Sunday night/Monday morning around 2am, I woke up to the sound of Alyssa’s voice. She was telling me that she couldn’t sleep.

She asked me if the medicine I’d given her that evening had caffeine.

Now, wait just a minute. Let me point out that when I gave her the generic Excedrin, it was noon. When she took more of it, of her own volition, I would like to point out, it was about 8:30pm. So, while yes, technically, the medicine I gave her did have caffeine but when I gave it to her, it wouldn’t have affected her sleep. When SHE took it again, all by herself, because, let’s remember this ‘child’ is about six weeks out from turning SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, yes, it was going to affect her sleep.

Whew, enough backstory? Okay, then.

So it was 2am and she knew that 6:45 was coming fast and she was stressed because she couldn’t sleep. She told me there in the dark of my room that she’d even cried a little because she was so tired but couldn’t sleep.

I rubbed her hair as she talked and told her that taking a PM medicine probably wasn’t a good idea because at 2am, it wouldn’t have time to wear off by the time it was time to go to school and she’d be groggy. Then I skootched over and suggested she lay down with me for a bit. She was asleep in five minutes.

And this, my friends, is how a family ends up co-sleeping well into the teen years. Because Mom is freaking tired and the kids wake her up and she’ll do anything, ANYTHING, to just go back to sleep, even inviting her teenager to sleep in her bed just so everyone can go back to sleep.

She stayed there for about an hour and a half before heading back to her own bed and sleeping until her alarm went off. She woke feeling remarkably refreshed and got through the day.

When we all got home on Monday evening, though, she said that her throat still hurt. She’d taken the generic Excedrin because of a sore throat. (I know…)

Tuesday morning, after a good night’s sleep, it was decided that her sore throat isn’t getting better and so Tom will be bringing her to town and I’d meet them at Urgent Care after school/work.

Yes, winter has arrived and with it the germs and lowered immunities that we all dread. Wheee!