It's Hard To Sleep When You've Got A Cold

Zoe has been a good sleeper ever since we brought her home from the hospital. She would never take a pacifier, but once she discovered her thumb, her sleep became amazing. Most nights are great for her. Often, she never even wakes up, and she sleeps later than my other two ever did at this age. I have dreams of sleeping until 7:00 AM (maybe even 7:15) if I could just get Emma to wake up a little later.

Enter the snot monster. The snot monster disrupts everone's life by causing huge amounts of green snot to fly out of Zoe's nose whenever she sneezes. Zoe gets upset and has to have her nose wiped. Ian yells, "Ewww, gross. Mom! Zoe needs her nose wiped." I run to get a tissue and wipe off all the green goo I can see before Zoe starts touching things. It's not pretty.

But the worst thing the snot monster causes (for Zoe at least) is difficulty sleeping. Zoe sucks her thumb when she is going to sleep. Due to her usual good sleeping habits, I assume when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she finds her thumb and that helps her go back to sleep. (I wouldn't actually know, because there is usually no crying, but if there is and it stops before I get up to get her, I don't actually check.) Anyways, with a head full of snot, her thumb sucking sounds more like this: suck, suck, HUH, suck, suck, HUH. The HUH's being where she releases the suction around her thumb so she can actually pull air into her lungs. She can't breathe through her nose, thus sucking her thumb to go to sleep isn't really an option. Now that's where my job as mom and comforter to sick children comes in. I must get up and comfort Zoe, usually two to three times a night. It really cuts into the sleep schedule.

Damn snot monster!