Spoke too soon

So, Friday night turned pretty bad around 2:00am.  Our nights of blissful slumber were interrupted when Z woke up with ear pain, and came in to wake me up while holding his ear and fighting back big crocodile tears.  (At least he wasn't coughing too, right?)  I got up with him, gave him some Tylenol, and he fell asleep on the couch around 2:20am.  I fell asleep shortly after on the other couch, then he woke me up again around 4:00am to tell me it was hurting him still, almost worse than earlier.  I called the after-hours care line and they said they would have the nurse on-call return my call ASAP.  A very nice, but tired sounding lady called me back at 4:37am, and gave me instructions on what to do until the morning, when we could finally go see someone.  I gave him Motrin, like she said, and wrapped up a bag of frozen organic blueberries in a towel for him to put on his ear (I like bags of frozen veggies/fruit better than bags of super lumpy ice), and he fell back asleep around 5:00am.  The whole time we were waiting for the nurse to call me back, he laid on the couch and just quietly cried while he held his ear.  I hate the feeling of knowing your kid is in pain but you can't make it disappear!  It broke my heart.  But, thankfully he fell back asleep and I was able to konk out on the other couch around 5:15am.  I set my phone alarm for 7:30am so I could be sure to get an early appointment, so I was up again not long after falling asleep.  It worked though, because they only had three appointments left for the day, and we got one at 9:00am.

What I saw on the other sofa when I got up.

Our cat is indifferent to his suffering.  

He insists on cuddling anyway.

Seeing our cat laying on him made me think of this funny thing I saw a few months ago on the internet:

Hahahaha.  Totally something our cat would do.

This would all suck on a normal night, but I happened to go to sleep Friday night at 1:30am, which made this suck way worse.  His ear started bothering him literally 30 minutes after I shut my eyes.  I was absolutely fried yesterday by mid-afternoon, since I slept for about a total of maybe 3 hours or so the whole night.  Zach usually sleeps about 10 hours or more each night, and he only got about 8 hours, so I knew he'd be exhausted as well.  I was right - after we went to the doctor's appointment, Walgreen's, and HEB, this is what I saw in my bed when I went to check on him after having put all the groceries away:

He was OUT.  Since I was just as tired, I literally dropped everything and jumped in bed with him.  I slept for about 90 minutes, and it felt wonderful.  I was really glad Zach gave in and took a nap though, because he usually resists any type of rest time.  He ended up sleeping for THREE HOURS, until Aaron woke him up for dinner!  Poor kid!  Thank goodness for amoxicillin.

Though he was pretty tired all day, he was in really good spirits, and we had a great day together while Aaron was at work.  Once Aaron came home, we went to go eat, then took another drive around a different neighborhood to look at Christmas lights.  

We always have a good time doing this, and this time was no different.  We heard a commercial on the radio where someone said the word "schnitzel", and Z thought this word was hilarious.  He attempted to repeat it several times, but kept missing and saying "shitnel", which was hilarious for me & Aaron.  It's the little memories like this that I will treasure forever.

All in all, everyone got a good, solid night's rest last night and it was much needed.  Hopefully, we are at the tail-end of illnesses to strike Zach, and he'll be healthy for Christmas.  Here are things I was thankful for yesterday:

1.  Co-pays/health insurance.

2.  Christmas lights.

3.  Naps.

I'm off now to start the day with my boys, which will include a breakfast of some sort, then Christmas shopping for me & Aaron while Zach goes to Ken's to play Wii.  We're also supposed to do a Santa sighting with Becca's Dad later today, but not sure if it's going to happen at this point.  (Her son woke up with croup in the middle of the night last night, so ... )  I'll explain more later, if it ends up happening.  Until later ...