croup is the devil.

I'm very thankful for all of my babysitting and nannying experience before having children because if it weren't for caring for a croupy baby already I would have been flipping out last night.

For the last two nights my little baby boy has been up with a croupy cough, which is basically a lot of barking and wheezing sounds. Last night he didn't even fall asleep until midnight and then was up just about every hour until 7:30 this morning. It's the most terrible thing when your child is sick and crying and can't be consoled. He didn't even want his pacifier or his duckie, which is completely unheard of. I held him, I walked around with him and I tried to lay down with him but he just cried and cried and if you've ever experienced croup you know crying makes it a hundred times harder for them to breathe. So we spent much of the night last night in a steamy bathroom, or as I like to call it the Sick Baby Sauna (which sounds much more glamorous).

What is it about being awake in the middle of the night with a baby who is ill, that makes you feel as though you will never sleep again? Logically I know that he will eventually be better and we will all return to sleep-filled nights and well-rested days but in the middle of the night there's an incredible hopelessness that I'm doomed to eternally walk around like night of the living dead and things will never return to normal.

And then I start to become very fearful of adding another baby to the mix. What happens when they are both sick at the same time? How will I handle caring for two during those trying nights, but also during the days when I'm running on empty? And what if I get sick also? What then?

And then morning comes, and I drag myself out of bed to take a shower and begin my day, and all of those worries just fade into the night. I feel this gentle reminder in my spirit that there's a reason I only have one child at this moment, and that's because right now I am equipped to handle the one I have. I have to trust that by the time number two arrives, I will be prepared for two. But as for right now one is all I need to worry about.

So I could use lots of prayers that tonight will be a better night for both of us and also that God will give me what I need right when I need it so that when number two arrives I'll be prepared and won't already be flipping out about number three.