In which I am Found in the Kitchen in my Underwear in the Middle of the Night

So, we put our kids to bed promptly at 10:00 last night. What?! It was Oscars night! And even though the pretty darn boring broadcast was actually over early, there was still the tallying up of everyone's ballots here to see who got the most right. Kris did, he always does. But I did get best movie and best actor right. (Go, Mr Darcy!).

Anyway, we put the kids to bed. Fionn, who had spent most of the evening lying on the couch in fever-induced lethargy and occasionally kicking and thrashing out at anyone who dared encroach upon her space, came to bed with us. Preparing to sleep with a five year old who was putting out enough heat to warm the whole room, I decided to forego PJs and just snuggled down under the covers in my underwear with my live little heating element and went right to sleep.

Then, about an hour or so later, Fionn began to kick, and clutch, and grope and cry "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," and occasionally giggle maniacally, which was a bit disturbing and made it well, really hard for me or Kris to sleep anymore. The cold medicine was downstairs on the mantel where I left it after the last time I dosed Liam a couple days ago, so, I scooped her up and we went in search of the medicine. With her begging me not to make her take the nasty stuff, but her lucidity when faced with the horror of grape flavored cold medicine was actually somewhat comforting to me.

Then things got good. I poured the medicine, but then Fionn began to gag and then proceeded to puke on the kitchen floor. Amik heard all the commotion and came upstairs to help and I sent him to the garage in search of a puke bucket (aka 'Party Pail') since my frantic search in the tupperware cabinet had proven fruitless. Well, when you open the garage door without turning off the alarm system, the alarm starts with a little warning beep. If you put the code in before the beeping stops everything is good, if not then the alarm goes off in earnest emitting an ear-splitting electronic scream that would scare the living daylights out of anyone who ever dared break into my house. So far, it has only ever done so to us though, because we are the only ones who have ever set it off. So last night, I couldn't get the stupid key pad to work. I swear I punched in that code four times and it never took. And that is why last night at about 11:30 the scene in my kitchen when people came running from all over the house at the sound of the alarm was of me standing in my kitchen in my underwear frantically punching the keys on the alarm system, while Fionn puked and cried and held her hands over her ears at my feet.

So, now I know, even if everyone in the house seems to be asleep when you creep down the stairs with a feverish baby just to grab some medicine really quick--put some clothes on, because, well, you never know what might transpire before you can creep back up the stairs to your bed.