In the middle of the night...

For a week now, I've been trying to write a post - an update on life in the month since I last posted.  But I've been waylaid, but yet another sick baby.  What started as a head cold for Graham last Sunday migrated to his lungs late Tuesday, causing panic to sweep through my soul - a baby that young with breathing difficulties can have scary outcomes and with my partner and great equalizer out of town on a work trip, my mind is left to run straight to those scary outcomes and obsess over them.

Fortunately, despite his wheezing and labored breathing, his nighttime sleep was not disrupted any more than normal, and, surprisingly, despite constantly counting his breaths and watching the rise and fall of his torso with each breath and agonizing over each crackling whistle emanating from his throat, neither was mine.

Until last night, when I felt we might finally be on the eve of turning the corner with this cold (with some help from a steroid, after two days of breathing treatments had not made for any improvement), and then, then, I can't seem to figure out how to get to sleep.  Every time I got up to that threshold of "no turning back," something would snap me back awake - sometimes a cough from one of the boys, or an imagined cry, and a creak in the house, or something else totally undefinable.  And so the hours passed, sleepless and lonely for me.  There is nothing like the loneliness in the middle of a dark, sleepless night.

Thankfully, I'd arranged for Gideon to go to a friend's house, knowing we'd be sticking close to home today and knowing he would get stir-crazy without his favorite play partner (dad) here.  He'll be gone all day, which is good because I could probably not completely contain my sleep-deprived irritability from him.  But I miss him all the same.  If I really focus on him, his joy for life is infectious and keeps me from obsessing quite so much over the breaths per minute of his little brother.

Who, by the way, I'm cautiously submitting, does seem to be breathing just a little bit easier this morning, even though he awoke more during the night than previous two nights.  Sometimes I think, even though, we aren't sleeping in the same room, as nursing mom and nursling, we are still somewhat synced and he just knows when I'm up and agitated and moving.

I'm lost as to what to do today.  Do I lay in bed all day, hoping to make up a few z's, or do I get up and pretend it was a normal night just like tonight will be?

As I can sometimes do, although I'm loathe to, I'm already wondering about tonight.  Will I be able to relax enough to cross that threshold into the restful arms of sleep?  I'm no stranger to cycles of sleepless nights, brought on by nothing other than my tireless racing mind.  I always feel so angry with myself when I get caught up in them.  When will I ever learn?

Perhaps a couple glasses of wine before bed will help?

How about you?  Does your sleep suffer in a time of crisis, or shortly thereafter when the crisis has abated but you're still unwinding from the stress of it all?  Or do you sail through all crises with a full 8 hours of sleep nightly?

Mother's Day, before the cold had really taken hold of little Graham