I’ve had my fair share of all-nighters in my day. Whether it was up all night studying, writing term papers or yes, sometimes, partying, I’ve seen the sunrise before going to bed many times.

And then there were the newborn baby days. Sleep 2 hours, nurse 1 hour. Sleep 2 more hours, nurse 45 mins., etc.

For some reason, I could easily handle all those circumstances. Maybe because they were either due to my own procrastination, my desire to not stop the party or because of my commitment to breastfeeding and soaking up as much baby time as possible.

Now that E. is 2-quickly-approaching-3, I’ve once again gotten used to long nights of uninterrupted sleep. I suppose that’s why it’s such a shock to the system when Mom Duties once again come calling in the middle of the night.

Last night, just as I was about to fall asleep around 11:30 (and after seeing the first Chilean miner rescued. Yippee!), E. started moaning and crying for Mommy from her room. I was hoping she was just having a bad dream and little singing and back patting would put her back down. Nope.

I ended up spending the night in her bed (she has a full-sized bed, thankfully), intermittently soothing her, singing songs (for some reason, she demanded Christmas songs last night), and rubbing her back. She repaid me by tossing and turning all night, kicking me in a face a half dozen times and sneezing all over my face on more than one occasion. I’m sure there’s 0 chance I’ll be sick myself within 48 hours, right?

I know she can’t help it and honestly I’m glad that I could comfort her all night and that today is already one of the days of the week we’re both home anyway. And the poor little monkey has already sneezed about 44 times today, so I know she’s feeling miserable. Think there’s any chance that my non-napper will actually snooze today? I don’t think so either.

I predict at least 4 more showings of Toy Story with a few Doras and Kai-Lans thrown in for good measure. I feel bad about it, but what else do you do with a sick, snotty kid? It’s not fair to expose everyone else in the world to her, which means we’re scrapping our previous plans of going to the library (crap and racking up another day of late fines) and meeting our friends for lunch.

What do you do when you’re kids are home sick? Any and all sleep-inducing ideas are welcome!