i'm tired...i think i need a nanny.

it is exactly 1:00am monday morning. the time that comes up at the bottom of the blog is wrong for some reason. anyways, i am up because chase is having either asthma or a viral cough. the whole family just got over a bad cold/bacterial throat infection, so it being another virus would surprise me. however, i'm not a doctor and i don't play one on tv either. when his asthma acts up, he coughs like this and he was outside a lot today. they tell me his asthma is very mild and that he should outgrow it, which i really hope is the case. well, i noticed him coughing before bed, so i gave him the recommended 2 puffs of the inhaler. he went to sleep and i started to...only to drift off and wake up to him coughing pretty bad. we still have a monitor for the boys as well as aiden. i came and got him and tried to assess the situation...are his nostrils flaring? are his ribs sinking in with every breath? is that little space between the collar bone sinking in? all signs of respiratory distress and an asthma attack. well, none of those things were happening, just the terrible, asthma sounding cough. so, what to do? think. think. think. i'm doing the squint in the light, trying to wake up myself thing and he is none too thrilled that i am waking him up either. i decide to try and give him regular cough syrup to see if that will help. have you ever had a battle in the kitchen in the middle of the night with a 4 year old over which medicine he will take? i have. about 2 hours ago. technically it was not the middle of the night then, but it is now, so give me a break. he refused to take the red cough medicine that neatly and easily dissolves on his tongue, which was his medicine of choice last week. tonight he wants to use the inhaler again. well, this is where the mommy detective in me comes into play. do i trust him and believe that he is feeling a tight, asthma chest, or make him take the run of the mill stuff that will not work anyway if it is stricktly asthma? i quickly decide to trust him, only it is too soon to give him another treatment. you have to wait 4 hours. so, now what? well, i have a liquid steroid that is to be used if the breathing treatment does not work, so i go for that. luckily, he complied. at this time, if you are wondering why he had a say in the first place about which medicine he took, now is not the time to question me. today i was wondering why i feel so tired all the time. that seems like a very silly inquirey (sp?) now. the steroid worked and he was very opinionated about going back to sleep in his and colton's room. i wanted to put him in bed with us to monitor him. well, back to bed he went and after his lullaby of choice, he was asleep. in about 6.5 seconds...so was i. then, at 12:00am, i woke up to him coughing bad again. i looked at the clock, expecting to see 4:00am at least, but no. too soon to give a breathing treatment...too soon to give more medicine. now is when i call in the big guns. no, not chad...he is sleeping peacefully. i call the walgreens 24 pharmacy to talk with the pharmacist, who you would think i was on a first name basis with. he, so patiently, researches the meds and tells me what i already know...i can't do another treatment for 2 hours. he says to give robitussin dm...a plain cough syrup until i can do the treatment. i don't have robittusin dm. now is the time to wake up chad. he groggily rolls out of bed and puts his cute glasses on and shuffles out the door to the 24 hr kroger. he only asked one time if we really needed this. he gets back in about 15 minutes and i head upstairs to get chase. it is about 12:45 at this point. in the back of my mind i am thinking, chase is not going to take this. i know it tastes terrible. as soon as i get chase out of bed, still half asleep, he says, "mommy...cough medicine." i say, "we're gonna get you some cough medicine right now sweet baby." he takes it without a word, scrunches up his nose and sputters a little, but swallowed it all. "good job, chase. i'm proud of you." this time he wanted daddy...wanted to sleep in "daddy's bed". i wanted to rock him to keep him upright until the medicine took effect, but chase wanted daddy. for a split second my feelings were a little hurt...afterall, i was the one who had put this whole plan in motion. chad did go get the medicine though...i guess it's only fair. now i am just waiting to make sure the medicine works before i drift off asleep again, and there is nothing on tv. i was watching this candy castle compitition on the food network before chad got back with the cough syrup, and i totally forgot about that until now...i'm wondering who won. none the less, at this point it is better to be awake already than to be woken up after 10 minutes of sleep. my brain gets really confused when that happens multiple times a night. it is 1:33 now, and i have not heard any more coughing, so i think i will check on colton and aiden, and then head to bed. funny thing about colton...his shirt had a big hole in it at the chest the other day. i asked why. he said, "it was itching me, so i cut it." i said, "cut it with what?" he said, "scissors." naturally. we talked a while about not cutting our clothes with scissors, etc. etc. etc. then we talked about the appropriate action to take if our skin is itching. about an hour later, i catch him trying to glue his shirt (still on his body) back together with gum. i think i need a nanny.