groundhog day, all over again

Life with smalls is challenging.  Yes, for all the reasons you imagine, and then especially for those times when your envisioned day blows up, leaving you stranded.  Take, for example, when one of your smalls suddenly gets sick.  Usually the indication of said event occurs at 3 o'clock in the morning. Many times it involves projectile vomit.  Sometimes, it's just wheezing and coughing.  Either way, aside from feeling badly for your small, you can also kiss the following day, and all that you had planned, good-bye.

With my luck, I usually have an appointment that requires a 24 hour cancelation notice, lest you be billed.  Or, the thing that I have wanted or waited to do for eons was happening just that day -- poof -- gone.  Or a friend is visiting from out of town and you squeezed in a lunch before they headed to the airport.

Also, one must remember the corollary to one offspring getting sick: if there is another offspring, he or she will get sick too.  After the sleepless nights with the first, you now get the added bonus of sleepless nights with the second.  Bonus.

Now, for those of you who have yet to experience sleeping with a small in your bed, or even worse, a sick small in your bed, let me share...

Smalls do not sleep like regular grown up people.  They may be, well, small, but they miraculously take up an amazing amount of space.  Perhaps you are wondering how, so let me help -- this amazing spatial feat is usually achieved by the small imitating the hand of a clock: slowly moving their way around the bed in a circular motion.

Initially the night starts out with seeming normalcy, the small laying parallel to you.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, one is startled with a powerful head butt as the small flings him/herself perpendicularly to you.  Then there is the charming knee to chin, or foot to nose that occurs next, as the small spins again, landing with feet on pillow and their head on your legs.  I think you're getting the picture.  And in case you're wondering, yes, this - continues - to - happen- all - night!  Eventually one finds themselves clinging to the edge of the bed for dear life, like a raft in the middle of the ocean, shell shocked from the beating they've had to endure.

Now,  I've recently been living in a house of pestilence.  Some sort of plague found my two smalls and lasted for 5 days in toto for each of them.  That's consecutive, mind you, so we're talking 10 days of illness.  10 days of getting out of bed bruised.  10 days of all plans going down the toilet.  Day after day; interminable.

All I can tell ya is that it's a good thing my kids started feeling better.  Really.  If it went on too much longer, I might have maimed them.