Blood, (No) Sleep, and Tears

Three a.m. Sunday morning and I'm in the best sleep of the night, sleeping beside Henry. I hear a big nose blow and then a request for a tissue. I reach on the table beside me and hand Henry a tissue, never opening my eyes. A few minutes later, I open my eyes and Henry is sitting up in the bed and I can see blood on the sheets. I turn the light on and Henry's face, hands, shirt, pants, feet and everything around him are covered in blood. Richard (who later said it looked like the scene of a splatterpunk film) comes running in to check on all the commotion and very carefully gets Henry to the bathroom, trying his best to avoid splattering blood on the new yellow chair and ottoman in the nursery. They made it successfully to the bathroom where I realize that Richard missed his calling as an EMT. Very calmly, he soothes Henry who is blowing his nose, crying and saying,"look at all that blood." I, who have never had a nose bleed, run warm water on a washcloth to hold on his upper lip to stop the bleeding. Dad, who has had many nose bleeds as a child, reminds me that it's cold water that we need. By this time Neil is wide awake, standing in his crib crying. Have I mentioned that it is 3 a.m. and we are doing all this in our sleep! I head back to the nursery to try to clean up and calm Neil. Not just sheets, but a comforter, a blanket, pillows, EVERYTHING is splattered in blood!

I can hear Richard continuing to calm Henry "You're doing great Henry, I think it has stopped." Wait, don't blow again. " It starts again. This goes on for what seems like all night--but I guess it was really only about 15 minutes. Finally things quiet down. Henry settles onto a crib mattress with Dad on the floor beside him. Neil would have nothing less than being in the bed with Mom. I think by 4 a.m. we were all sound asleep again.

Sunday morning, Henry awakens and says, "I didn't like that nose bleed." We get our coffee (bow) and ask him to tread lightly for awhile so that heaven forbid, that doesn't happen again. By Sunday afternoon, Henry complains of an ear ache. Thankfully we have those numbing drops that helped him make it until Monday when he was diagnosed with an ear infection. On Amoxicillin now and all is fine. And while at the doctor, for better or worse, Henry was the first of us to get the H1N1 flu mist vaccine. At the moment, all is well.