That’s why I haven’t been around for several days now.

Add to that the work I have to do to catch up from my two-day absence last week due to plugged milk ducts.

I have been practically sleepless for several nights now because my first-born, Issen, has been having fever every night. Yes, he just gets fever at night. He’s perfectly fine during the day, but will always wake up crying several times during the night because he has high fever.

And since I am co-sleeping with both kids… my 5-month-old Kobe would wake up with his big brother’s every cry and fuss. Poor baby, who has been diagnosed with acute bronchitis, doesn’t understand why his kuya (big brother) is wailing like it’s the end of the world.

Of course, Issen would not calm down until I’ve sponge bathe him to bring down his fever, carry all 19.5kgs of him outside the room to the garage, humming Brahm’s lullaby, lay him down the bed and give him his milk bottle.

Most of the time, Kobe will start crying too, and would not calm down and go back to sleep until I pick him up, give my breast for nursing, stand up, hum Brahm’s lullaby, and rock him to sleep.

When Issen sees Kobe crying, he would stop crying just long enough to crawl towards his baby brother and say, “Baby! Kobe!” again and again while kissing Kobe on the forehead. Then he lies down beside his baby brother and cry again.

When this happens (Kobe doing a crying duet with Issen), I would finish sponge bathing Issen, then hug him and whisper, “Sweetheart, Mommy needs to give milk to Kobe. Mommy will just put Baby Kobe to sleep, then I’ll be back to put you to sleep.”

Thankfully, he calms down a bit, watch Kobe nurse from me and play with his baby brother’s feet while I am still sitting down. He starts crying again as soon as I stand up, and this is the cue for the husband to lie down beside him and distract him with songs and stories.

But the show doesn’t end when I’ve put Issen to sleep. Imagine several episodes of that all through the night.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Amusing these nightly episodes may be, I can’t wait for the day that my kids are all well again.

Credits to Extrn and Auburn.edu for the images.