It’s been three months of successful room-sharing over here. So naturally, something had to go wrong last night.
Two days ago my Big Girl (now 2.5) started to have a runny nose. Allergies, I thought. I’m still convinced that it is…but then why did Little Sister (now 10.5 months) pick this up too?
On Wednesday night Big Girl slept like a champ but Little Sister cried out several times during the night. She would cry or scream for literally 10-15 seconds and then go back to sleep. This partial arousal is totally normal for babies, but rarely happens with her.
The next day came and went, and Thursday night (last night) she was a M-E-S-S.
Cried off and on after I left (again, this never happens). Fell asleep only to wake up 90 minutes later (after the first sleep cycle) sitting up and screaming…really odd for her. I went up to comfort her and felt snot all over her face. Her cry was off, her sleep was off, something was going on.
So I went through my mental sleep troubleshooting checklist:
Is she going through a developmental milestone? (Yes- crusing. But she’s been doing this for weeks now)
Did she not get enough daytime sleep? (Yes- slept her usual 3 hours)
Was she still hungry? (No. She swatted the bottle away instantly when I sat down to finish off her bedtime one still hanging out in the chair..)
Is the room too cold? (No- 72and she was even a bit warm to the touch.)
Lost her lovie? (Nope, lovie was in her hand.)
Teething? (Yes)
Sick? (My mom instincts told me something was off. She was so pathetic.)
Since I couldn’t land on anything besides possible sickness mixed with maaaaaybe teething, I decided to give her Motrin. This was maybe the third time in her life she has had it, so keep in mind girl is not used to syringes…also let’s recall the bottle swat she just did…
So here I am with Motrin in one hand and holding her in the other. I stick the syringe in her mouth and get half of it it…aaaaaand then comes her hand shoving it out of the way.
Except I am still squirting the meds out.
So berry flavored Motrin splatters ALL over this child’s face.
She’s rubbing her eyes frantically and I’m freaking out because “WILL MOTRIN CAUSE BLINDNESS?!?!”
I ran out of the room and found a stray roll of toilet paper as the first object to wipe her face. I turned the sink on and simultaneously tried to grab a piece…but one knows you cannot grab toilet paper one handed. So the entire roll goes flying into the sink and I’m left with a soggy roll to wipe her eyes with.
(AWESOME)
This whole time she isn’t crying…just rubbing her eyes and sleepily looking at me. Clearly thinking, “What on earth did you do to me??”
Miraculously the soggy toilet paper roll seemed to work and I returned her to bed. A few whines and moans and she was out again. Until 7:30am.
So, just in case you thought I was over here having a seamless bedtime and night 1000% of the time…. I’m not.
Signed Mommy Motrin Monster
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