Variations on a Theme.

The past two weeks have been interesting. All the three boys contracted a nasty chest cold that left them with fevers and coughing. All through the night the boys were waking from their coughs and needing medicine to reduce their fevers.

And then there's the baby. He was struck with his first double ear infection and antibiotics. He was, after all, worthy of the antibiotics since he had been sick for over a week and wasn't getting better.

Combine the sickness with daylight savings and....

....WHAM!!

NO SLEEP!

Between the coughs, fevers, and ear fluid causing infection, daylight savings caused an already sleep-deprived family to new levels of...well, depravity.

Last night was the kicker. The baby woke, as he does, and I fed him. Then, even though it was only 3am, I laid him back in his crib to hear a symphony of babbles, bubble blowing and growling. It went on, and on, and on. I did the only logical thing a mother in my situation could do, which was to nurse him to his heart's content until he fell asleep. The only problem is that nursing that much has a tendency to cause projectile spit-up and wet jammies and sheets.

You see the picture I'm painting, right?

Anyway, it was well after 5am before the baby was back sleeping. Half dreaming and half awake from the endless baby noises, I had the distinct thought that if a child were raised in the jungle as the famous Man Child was, he might, in fact, sound like the baby did last night. He does his fair amount of growling, after all.

My thoughts then wandered and I wondered, if a child were raised by a pack of wolves as opposed to a tiger, perhaps he might howl instead of growl. We hear about children who we suspect may have been raised by a pack of wolves, but I have yet to see any headlines. My baby growls, and my older two do have a tendency to behave like wild animals on occasion, but I'm afraid I have to bear (Ha! Pun!) the responsibility for that one.

Come on, boys, Pop Tarts for breakfast!