Wednesday, I think.

Brian's still gone.

It would be easier to count the number of minutes I slept last night, than to count the times I was woken by a sick child.

Child #4 (not by age, but by sequence of health) finally got sick last night.  Yep, all four kids have been sick while Brian's been gone.  But for the most part they've been nice enough to take turns getting sick, and spread things out for me.  Thanks, kids.  I think.

With the exception of last night.  One went down with a fever.  Upon checking on him around midnight, I discovered the other one had a bad head ache.  A couple hours and two doses of pain meds later, Head-Ache-Child had a nice bed made on my floor.  And a slight fever.  Shortly after that, First-Fever-Child was in my room, burning up again.  More pain meds, then he wanted to sleep with me for a while.

One kid on my floor.  One kid in my bed.  One back-and-leg-aching Mama, wondering if she'll ever sleep again.

First-Fever-Child decides he is ready to head back to his own bed.  Then a few minutes later, realizing his brother is not in there, decides he is scared and comes back to see me.  Then for the next couple hours we play the revolving bed game.  Thirsty.  Cold.  Have to pee.  Scared.  Blow nose.  Take temp.  Then my bladder decides to get in on the joke and pretend it needs to be emptied every time I stand up to deal with a kid.

I think I got about 45 minutes of sleep at one point, until I heard High-School-Kid getting ready for school. And talking.  So I got up to investigate, and found First-Fever-Child standing in the hallway stark-naked, claiming he'd wet his pj's.  They felt dry to me.  Whatever.  I helped him get new pj's on and tucked him back to bed.  Blessedly, he fell asleep pretty quickly.   I went back to my bathroom to visit with my bladder.  As I stumbled back to bed, Head-Ache-Child, who was still on my floor, and was now becoming Fever#2-Child, wanted to go back to his own bed.

Really?

We hauled his blankets and pillow and animal back to his room.  Tucked him in.  Managed not to wake his brother.

I went back to bed in the early dawn light.  Closed my eyes.  Maybe even fell asleep.  Until....

"Mom?"  "Can I get up?"

It was Oblivious-And-Now-Grounded-For-Life, daughter.

By the way, she got the clue and went back into her room, quietly.  But it didn't matter, because Head-Ache-Child's pain meds were wearing off and I could hear him crying from his bed.

So it seemed like as good a time as any to stumble downstairs and start our day.