Medicine

Last Tuesday night Chris and I were wiped out.

Both kids were sick. I'd been on the phone back and forth with the doctor all day over Hannah's rapidly progressing respiratory infection, and ended up taking her to the ER. Since Chris had hit a deer with my car the previous week, we've been sharing his truck while my car is in the shop. So that day it was...leave work early, work unfinished, bring me the truck, trip to the ER, trip back out the the pharmacy, late dinner, and lots of rushing around. This was following a night of very little sleep and days full of sick and grumpy kids. Hannah had been fussy all day, understandably, but still, and Jayce kept jumping around in his seat and not really eating .As we ate dinner we were quieter than usual, a bit glassy eyed and grumpy ourselves.

In an attempt to stall eating for just a few more seconds, Jayce started making silly noises. Hannah laughed at him. He did it again, she laughed again, and we all smiled.

Next he "scared" her.

"Boo!" he said. She laughed, he started laughing, and we all laughed.

He did it over and over, and Hannah, who almost never laughs at the same thing more than twice, laughed over and over.

It was just what we needed. Being parents to these two is the best medicine.

On Wednesday evening, after I wrote this post about how crazy busy we had been, I came downstairs to discover that both kids were asleep.

Chris crept out of Jayce's room and exclaimed, "He's asleep, and it's only 8:30! What should we do?!" We were so excited. We debated about watching a movie, but decided not to push our luck and caught up on a few episodes of The Office and went to bed a bit early instead. As we got ready for bed, we talked about the kids. About how sweet Hannah is and how she's such a daddy's girl. About how big Jayce is and we laughed over his little antics.

Then we had a conversation that we often have, about how soon this stage will be over and how sad we'll be. About how we'll be well-rested, well-versed in the newest movies and caught up on our favorite shows, and maybe have picked up a new hobby or two. And we'll say "Those were the best days. Those exhausting and stressful joy-filled days." And when we reminisce, the evenings of short tempers and time outs will be largely overshadowed by the evenings of side-by-side pancake making, pillow jumping, and dance-party basketball shooting.