As I write this blog my youngest is convalescing on the couch watching video number nine in two days. He’s the fourth of the family (including my husband) to get sick in the past two and a half weeks. I’m hoping they’ve all had the same thing and it would be great if it was the swine flu, but I don’t think so. Up until Jonah got sick, it’s been pretty mild — low grade fever, head ache,  cough, cold and a few days of missed school.

Jonah’s a bit worse — wetter cough and a higher fever.

Hopefully it’s not something new that’s going to go through the whole house again.

The problem for me is — I just don’t sleep well when the kids are sick. I guess I’m on hyper alert so it takes forever to get to sleep. And if I wake up during the night, I have trouble going back to sleep. I spend my waking hours listening for them, wondering how I’m going to accomplish what I need to do with a sick one home, worrying about who will be next, remembering that I totally forgot to go to a meeting the night before, and calling to mind anything else that might add to my anxiety level.

After a few nights of this, I get a little manic. After a couple of weeks, I’m close to comatose.

I wonder how I would hold up if someone in my family came down with a serious illness. Friends just found out their 14-year-old has leukemia. They are looking at three years of intensive chemotherapy but they are at peace. They say that God is giving them the grace they need to get through each day and probably each night too.

Perhaps when I’m lying awake at night, I should focus on the good stuff — that my kids are usually healthy, that we have health insurance, that I work from home so that I don’t have to figure out who can watch my kids when they are sick.

Sounds like a fine plan. I’ll let you know if it works when the last one drops.