Snot? No thanks, but please pass the sleep.

Yesterday it became apparent that Zander and Logan seem to have received a cold as an Easter present in Brighton. Both of them are drowning in snot, with the occasional cough and sneezing attack.

This would be a pain for most families, but for ours it's a nightmarish ordeal. You see, colds seem to cause Logan's GERD to flare up....and that causes no sleep for the rest of us.

We fed Logan his last bottle of the night around 9pm. And, as usual, we waited 45 minutes after he was done eating to put him to bed. To say he was restless is putting it lightly. He thrashed and screamed until we picked him up. And he was wide awake. This was just after 10pm.

We decided to bring him back downstairs to tucker himself out, since he refluxes if he screams too much. He played and played and played, with a little flirt here and there. Definately good for a laugh.

When he was displaying the telltale signs of sleepiness (around 11pm), we brought him up to bed. This time, he stayed there....for about an hour. Then the screaming commenced once again. At this point it was clear that he couldn't breathe through his little mucous-clogged nose. So we gave him some Dimetapp as a decongestant. Unfortunately he had been screaming so much up until this point that his reflux had kicked in. So he got some Gaviscon to combat the acid burning his esophagus. That did the trick....for a few minutes. He was wide awake. And he had realized that he was hungry.

Reluctantly, we brought him downstairs again to give him a bottle. Remember, every time he eats, he needs to be upright for 45 minutes before we can put him back to bed. It was now 12:30am. This did not bode well for the rest of the night.

Around 1:30am, he was ready to be put in his crib for the night....but started to scream as soon as he was laid down. This was reminiscent of Christmas. When we got home from Brighton after our Christmas visit, both boys had gotten an awful cold. For four days, Logan had to sleep upright the whole night because of his congestion and his reflux being aggravated by the cold. This meant that I had to sit in a chair propped up by pillows holding him all night. Fun? Hardly!

Since he is now 25 pounds, there was no way I could hold him all night. So we opted to strap him into the chair of death, wedging assorted findings underneath it to make sure he couldn't flip it over again. We placed the chair right next to my side of the bed. This worked well, except for the fact that he would start screaming if I stop rocking the chair gently, which required positioning myself right at the edge of the mattress and hanging an arm down to reach the chair. And their I was, precariously perched, rocking my one sick son to stifle his screams as I listened to my other sick son cry and whimper all night through the monitor. Joy.

Logan woke up a couple of times screaming because his chair had stopped moving. God forbid I fall asleep for a moment! Jeez! At 3:30am his screams were bad enough that I couldn't console him without removing him from the chair. So I sat with him for about 30 minutes to make sure he was asleep enough that I could put him back down in the chair.

At around 6:30am, my arms and shoulders were so cramped up from rocking him that I had to give up on the chair idea. I figured that it had been enough time for Logan to digest his midnight bottle, so his stomach should be empty. I brought him into bed with me, making sure to prop him up a little with my arm so he wasn't lying completely flat. So I got to sleep from 6:45am to 8am straight. Bonus. The things we do for our kids!

So here I sit....with about 2 hours of unrestful, disjointed sleep under my belt....letting the TV babysit the boys so I can have a break from the screams of discomfort and irritability coming from their puffy, snot-encrusted faces. And I refuse to feel guilty about it.

And I'm praying that lunch will be a breeze compared to breakfast. It was a long, drawn-out affair filled with high-pitched whining since the boys' plugged noses suffocated them with eat bite/sip.

What are the chances that it peaked last night, and tonight will be easier? I'm gonna say not good.

And no, there will be no cute little boy pictures today.