Sunday, May 04, 2008

4:24 am...

...and here I sit awake.

It has become apparent in the past 2 weeks that Ella suffers BADLY from outdoor allergies. The poor child looks as if she is chronically ill, dark circles like bruises beneath her red, itchy eyes. She complains frequently, "My nose doesn't work! I can't smell things!" And every room of my house seems to be littered with wadded up tissues. She doesn't really blow her nose though, just sort of crumples tissues up and dabs at her nostrils while making pathetic little purring sounds meant to evoke sympathy for her plight. Melodrama is her forte.

The other side effect of these blasted allergies is that my child, the one who has slept beautifully since birth, is up all throughout the night. She wants snuggles and tissues and water, but most of all, she wants mommy and daddy to "make her nose work." The best we can do is to prop her up with a leaning tower of pillows, slather her little chest with Vick's Vaporub, and shoot some lovely saline spray up her nose, which you know she adores ;)

Tonight she roused at about 1:30 am, and couldn't be coaxed back to sleep until after 2:30. She is now dreaming peacefully and breathing LOUDLY (almost a snore) next to her Daddy. I, however, could not fall back to sleep. So, after nearly 2 hours of tossing and turning, here I sit at my dining room table, casting jealous glances at the dog, who is conked out in the corner. I'm sipping some 'Calm the Mind' lemon wintergreen tea, and hoping that it will do its job, and that I might sneak in 2-3 hours of sleep before my lovely girl wakes for the day...

5 comments:

Jules said...

I was up last night with a "give my nose some med'cine" drama queen, too. Mine does a frustrated scream/thrash thing that usually results in banging her noggin on the headboard resulting in more scream/thrash. May the God of Grace and perhaps some caffeine give us energy today!

Christine said...

I'm sorry buddy! That is brutal. We're trying out best to fight allergies here right now homeopathically. Are you having any success?

Robyn Jones Clark said...

hope you can fit in a nap this weekend. i promise the vick's humidifier is awesome... it will definitely open her nose up... but your house will smell like a big cough drop, but it works!

ckuretich said...

what a heartbreaking post! though I can relate...poor Ella. I sometimes would like someone else to make my nose work too, it's broken a lot.

have to say, tea I love, but anything wintergreen makes me positively vomit...you had me until then. :)

Anonymous said...

DRUGS! Give that child some DRUGS! hehe...seriously, my kids would be a WRECK as would we if we didn't give them allergy medicine at bed time.