Day 4

We've gone from one sort of sick kid to two kids with fevers the rest of the week. Sarah has been sleeping in 15 minute spurts punctuated by bouts of banshee-like ululating until someone picks her up and rocks her back to sleep. The rocking back to sleep typically takes about 10 minutes, then you get 15 blissful minutes of quiet.

Last night we let Kate, 101.5 again, sleep in the guest room. When Sarah began screaming anew at 11, exactly 4 hours after her last dose of Tylenol, I went upstairs to take her temperature (oh goody, 103.4) and dose her again. Then I laid down with her in Kate's twin bed. You know how sometimes you'll be all cozy somewhere and the cat will leap up on you and start purring and making biscuits on your stomach in such a charming way that you'll sit perfectly still to keep the cat there even though you're extremely uncomfortable and some body part has long-since fallen asleep and is painfully tingling? Trying to balance in a twin bed with a needy, feverish baby while you cannot let go of the fear that she will topple out of said bed feels kind of like that. Only much hotter. I spent the better part of the night sweaty and working my core.

I had to keep figuring out the new rules as Sarah threw herself into a new position on the bed and wailed angrily if I moved in the wrong manner once she was comfortable. When I finally had to get up, my right leg was bright red from hot baby pressing up against it and my neck was achingly kinked from resting the lower half of my body on the bed at Sarah's convenience, and upper half on the giant hippo pillow/seat I'd earlier positioned next to the bed to help ensure Sarah's protection from falling (all of 12 inches). That makes 4 nights in a row I've slept almost not at all. The good news is I think I've moved beyond tired and will just give up sleeping altogether. Also in the happy column, Kate's fever is gone. When I took Kate's temperature and confirmed this, I immediately admonished Sarah for still running a fever. "Why can't you be more like your sister!?!" I demanded. She just cried. Big baby.